Who is LeBron James' Ultimate Rival?

[Jailblazers7]

I think I’d rank them as:

1. Curry - impossible not to be #1 after all those Finals matchups and the competition for face of the league

2. Pierce - Boston was his top rivals during his first Cavs run + early Heatles era

3. Kobe - technically rivals by they didn’t get to compete at their respective peaks and never played any consequential games against each other.

HM: Derrick Rose because we were robbed of the Miami/Chicago rivalry due to his injuries.

[Kawaii Leonard]

If you left “silly stuff” out of your posts, you’d never post.

It’s also not shocking to me that you can’t tell the difference between a “fact” and a (biased) opinion.

What are you on about? Everything ssj posted is factual and common knowledge to even the most casual of basketball fans. Curry got reverse swept in the finals. Draymond immediately got on the phone and they went to the Hamptons to recruit KD to create the funniest lopsided arcade team of all time. And yeah both Love and Kyrie were out in 2015.

maybe the fact that he left out that the warriors lost their starting center from 8 min into game 5? maybe that and green suspended for a game has something to do with the series going from 3-1 to the cavs winning. It wasn't just randomly the first 3-1 comeback.
the warriors started festus ezli or whatever his name was lmao.

so no things were not "even" at all. even warriors haters know how valuable bogut and his big ass illegal moving screens were.

Are we seriously comparing Andrew Bogut not playing games 6 and 7 to Kevin Love missing an entire finals and Kyrie Irving missing in more than 80% of the that same series?

Bogut was playing a whole 10 - 15mpg with the Warriors prioritizing their small ball death line up. I’d take this comparison somewhat seriously if it was Iggy or even Livingston, let alone any of the GSW’s actual big 3.

Obviously a lot of things had to align for the Cavs to pull off the first 1-3 comeback in finals history. We could even nitpick that they were one Klay interview away from pulling it off. Let’s try to be a bit more objective however. What you are comparing when it comes to the injuries for the two teams in 2015 and 2016 are hardly remotely close. Matthew Dellavedova and Timofey freaking Mozgov were starting in place for the aforementioned 2/3 stars down for the ‘15 Cavs. Cmon lmao

[Ito]

Stephen A

Technically it was prolly the KG’s, Duncan’s.. Knicks early on he used to love showing up at the garden.. prolly the Media and his own hype that he overcame I’m not gon sit here and say Kobe because he prolly looked up to him in a way or thought they were both good so he had nothing to worry about.. or the Wizards kuz they just weren’t good enough… and I can’t say curry because kyrie simply took care of that

[Kawaii Leonard]

maybe the fact that he left out that the warriors lost their starting center from 8 min into game 5? maybe that and green suspended for a game has something to do with the series going from 3-1 to the cavs winning. It wasn't just randomly the first 3-1 comeback.
the warriors started festus ezli or whatever his name was lmao.

so no things were not "even" at all. even warriors haters know how valuable bogut and his big ass illegal moving screens were.

Iguodala also got injured in Game 6 and really looked worse for the wear.

Curry skipped the Olympics that summer to recover from injury, clearly wasn't himself. But we only get to count the Cavs injuries to some of these people.

We’re seriously going to use the status quo of a player’s health during their off season decisions? He sure looked fine to me in games 5-7 vs OKC a series prior or even game 6 in the finals before he shat the bed in g7 (17 pts on 31%).
What matters is, he was on the floor and played, unlike Love and Irving with actual season ending injs via fractures and dislocations.

Everyone is banged up come June. He choked and that’s fine, as did Lebron in 2011.

[metalinguss]

It’s Curry. Steph was actually the only player who came close to LeBron’s popularity in his era. In fact there were times that you could argue that Steph became the face of the league or at least they both were.

Pierce is a great answer too though. They had great battles dating back to Bron’s 1st Cleveland stint.

I hope you realize Kobe was a larger global icon then Lebron during Lebron's era. Maybe you mean post Kobe.

You’re right about Kobe’s popularity but they never had intense playoff battles so I didn’t count him.

This post was about LeBron’s rival during his prime. A lot of those years came well after Kobe’s.

[michaelm]

maybe the fact that he left out that the warriors lost their starting center from 8 min into game 5? maybe that and green suspended for a game has something to do with the series going from 3-1 to the cavs winning. It wasn't just randomly the first 3-1 comeback.
the warriors started festus ezli or whatever his name was lmao.

so no things were not "even" at all. even warriors haters know how valuable bogut and his big ass illegal moving screens were.

Iguodala also got injured in Game 6 and really looked worse for the wear.

Curry skipped the Olympics that summer to recover from injury, clearly wasn't himself. But we only get to count the Cavs injuries to some of these people.

We’re seriously going to use the status quo of a player’s health from an entire year ago? He sure looked fine to me in games 5-7 vs OKC a series prior or even game 6 in the finals before he shat the bed in g7 (17 pts on 31%).
What matters is, he was on the floor and played, unlike Love and Irving with actual season ending injs via fractures and dislocations.

Everyone is banged up come June. He choked and that’s fine, as did Lebron in 2011.

He missed two and a half weeks mid play-offs after an injury everyone saw live on national TV and probably returned early after they started losing games. That is fine, every team is prone to injuries, and he is an injury prone player, which is no concern of the Cavs. Just don’t pretend GSW were at the level they were to win 73 regular season games, or that Steph Curry who was mainly responsible for the 73 win record was in regular season unanimous MVP shape by the time they got to the finals. If LeBron/the Cavs wanted to beat the best GSW team of all time and possibly the best overall team of all time the 2017 team which won under 70 games was the team to beat.

[Kawaii Leonard]

Iguodala also got injured in Game 6 and really looked worse for the wear.

Curry skipped the Olympics that summer to recover from injury, clearly wasn't himself. But we only get to count the Cavs injuries to some of these people.

We’re seriously going to use the status quo of a player’s health from an entire year ago? He sure looked fine to me in games 5-7 vs OKC a series prior or even game 6 in the finals before he shat the bed in g7 (17 pts on 31%).
What matters is, he was on the floor and played, unlike Love and Irving with actual season ending injs via fractures and dislocations.

Everyone is banged up come June. He choked and that’s fine, as did Lebron in 2011.

He missed two and a half weeks mid play-offs after an injury everyone saw live on national TV and probably returned early after they started losing games. That is fine, every team is prone to injuries, and he is an injury prone player, which is no concern of the Cavs. Just don’t pretend GSW were at the level they were to win 73 regular season games, or that Steph Curry who was mainly responsible for the 73 win record was in regular season unanimous MVP shape by the time they got to the finals. If LeBron/the Cavs wanted to beat the best GSW team of all time and possibly the best overall team of all time the 2017 team which won under 70 games was the team to beat.

Wrote an entire paragraph to say a whole lot of nothing.
Where I come from, we call that excuses.
He was on the floor and playing. Welcome to playoff basketball. Played fine until he choked the 1-3 lead.

No team in NBA history is beating a 73 win team that adds another MVP candidate.

Lol at the need to bring up the “unanimous” mvp part.
Gotta love some of the Warrior fans on this board.

[michaelm]

We’re seriously going to use the status quo of a player’s health from an entire year ago? He sure looked fine to me in games 5-7 vs OKC a series prior or even game 6 in the finals before he shat the bed in g7 (17 pts on 31%).
What matters is, he was on the floor and played, unlike Love and Irving with actual season ending injs via fractures and dislocations.

Everyone is banged up come June. He choked and that’s fine, as did Lebron in 2011.

He missed two and a half weeks mid play-offs after an injury everyone saw live on national TV and probably returned early after they started losing games. That is fine, every team is prone to injuries, and he is an injury prone player, which is no concern of the Cavs. Just don’t pretend GSW were at the level they were to win 73 regular season games, or that Steph Curry who was mainly responsible for the 73 win record was in regular season unanimous MVP shape by the time they got to the finals. If LeBron/the Cavs wanted to beat the best GSW team of all time and possibly the best overall team of all time the 2017 team which won under 70 games was the team to beat.

Wrote an entire paragraph to say a whole lot of nothing.
Where I come from, we call that excuses.
He was on the floor and playing. Welcome to playoff basketball. Played fine until he choked the 1-3 lead.

No team in NBA history is beating a 73 win team that adds another MVP candidate.

Lol at the need to bring up the “unanimous” mvp part.
Gotta love some of the Warrior fans on this board.

So LeBron boosters are allowed to say 73 win team but I can’t say unanimous MVP ? . If I wrote a paragraph of nothing you replied with nothing which was mainly ad hominem, which always leases me knowing it is hardly a sign I am losing a debate. And Curry actually was the only unanimous MVP ever because he led the team to that record, which involved a number of wins over predicted mainly due to him as I said, so unequivocal facts.

I btw said nothing about whether he should be the only unanimous MVP, clearly Jordan and LeBron for a start should have won unanimously on multiple occasions except for the low quality of the voters for that award and little doubt a motivation of deliberate contrarianism.

[Kawaii Leonard]

He missed two and a half weeks mid play-offs after an injury everyone saw live on national TV and probably returned early after they started losing games. That is fine, every team is prone to injuries, and he is an injury prone player, which is no concern of the Cavs. Just don’t pretend GSW were at the level they were to win 73 regular season games, or that Steph Curry who was mainly responsible for the 73 win record was in regular season unanimous MVP shape by the time they got to the finals. If LeBron/the Cavs wanted to beat the best GSW team of all time and possibly the best overall team of all time the 2017 team which won under 70 games was the team to beat.

Wrote an entire paragraph to say a whole lot of nothing.
Where I come from, we call that excuses.
He was on the floor and playing. Welcome to playoff basketball. Played fine until he choked the 1-3 lead.

No team in NBA history is beating a 73 win team that adds another MVP candidate.

Lol at the need to bring up the “unanimous” mvp part.
Gotta love some of the Warrior fans on this board.

So LeBron boosters are allowed to say 73 win team but I can’t say unanimous MVP ? . If I wrote a paragraph of nothing you replied with nothing which was mainly ad hominem, which always leases me knowing it is hardly a sign I am losing a debate. And Curry actually was the only unanimous MVP ever because he led the team to that record, which involved a number of wins over predicted mainly due to him as I said, so unequivocal facts.
I btw said nothing about whether he should be the only unanimous MVP, clearly Jordan and LeBron for a start should have won unanimously on multiple occasions except for the low quality of the voters for that award and little doubt a motivation deliberately contrarian.

A 73 win season is concrete and empirical. Pointing out a regular season award voted by the media—driven by narratives and no consistent criterion, was won unanimously, shows exactly what or contribute what to Curry choking that year? Things like voter’s fatigue exists in such a popularity contest of its nature. No one said you can’t say it, but what does bringing that up again even help with your argument? If anything it detracts from it imho.
Also fyi, Lebron was 1 vote away from his unanimous MVP in ‘13 w the lone dissenting vote from an anonymous New York writer that gave it to Melo. You know this, yet you parrot “unanimous mvp” as if it holds any real value. I’d also look up what ad hominem means before you post more drivel, which is all that I’ve critiqued you thus far.