2018 LeBron James vs. 2022 Steph Curry

[Eagle4]

I was actually comparing 2018 LeBron to 2022 Steph as per the subject of the thread. 2018 LeBron required the services of Anthony Davis to win again in 2020 while Steph won in 2022 with the addition of Andrew Wiggins.

Oh, THAT'S what you were doing? Oh well, then in that case your argument makes even less sense. Why is it a criticism that LeBron needed an MVP caliber player to beat one of the most stacked teams in the history of basketball? Are you telling me Curry wouldn't have needed that if he were in LeBron's situation? Hell, Curry if he were in LeBron's situation wouldn't have even made the finals in the first place.

And for that matter, if we're talking 2018 LeBron vs 2022 Curry, then bringing up 2020 LeBron doesn't help your argument at all. Again, this is another case of you switching narratives in a matter that favors your argument. You don't get to do that. Like I said before, in order for your argument to have any credibility, you need to remain consistent with the rules and regulations set by you in this very thread. And most importantly, the argument you present must be consistent too. If you're choosing when it is and isn't okay to branch away the OP, you're already giving us more reasons to disregard your logic.

Now with all of that said, please, do explain to me how Curry with a team filled with scrubs doesn't need a hall of fame teammate to beat the team with four hall of famers all in their primes playing against him. I'll wait.

But we can wade further into this if you insist. Wade was 5th in MVP voting in 2010 before being joined by LeBron the next year. Love got multiple MVP votes in 2014 before joining LeBron the next year. Anthony Davis finished 6th in MVP voting in 2020 and finished 3rd in MVP voting two years prior. In comparison who was the MVP candidate Curry played with in 2022?

Curry didn't have an MVP candidate in 2022. And neither did LeBron in 2018.

But here's my question for you: why do you care what their rankings were? Weren't you the one who mentioned before how meaningless "media driven awards" are and that they ultimately don't mean anything? So why are you suddenly acting like they do matter? Are you now suddenly saying they do matter for the sake of this argument? Every single time you decide to shift goal posts, I am going to call you out on it and automatically declare your argument to be invalid. You can't have it both ways and you're trying to do that on a regular occurrence.

With all of that said, it doesn't matter what Wade was in 2010 before he played with LeBron. It doesn't matter what Kevin Love was. You said LeBron needed an MVP caliber player. That implies that they are actually playing like one. Wade was no where close to anything of the sort in either of LeBron's title campaigns. Love was basically a role player when he started playing with LeBron and was a complete non factor in the finals they won except for two games.

As for Durant, I will agree he is certainly an MVP level player but funny enough he never finished higher than 7th in MVP voting in his years with Golden State and the year before he joined he was 5th in MVP voting. If we are to believe the boosterism of BSPN Curry and Durant were never both top 3 players in the league during their time in Golden State while LeBron and Davis were #1 and #2 with the Lakers in 2020. Do you believe that drivel?

Completely irrelevant to the matter at hand. 2017 Durant was the best version of him we had ever seen, because it was the first time in his career he was an elite defender on top of being one of the best scorers in the league. It was superior to the version that actually won an MVP award. He was a top three player in the league that season, bar none.

And Anthony Davis most certainly was not the number two player in the league in 2020. A top five player? An argument definitely exists for it. But Giannis, Jokic, and Embiid were all arguably superior. At that point, it's on you to figure out how AD deserves a spot above any of them, and if not, then why he deserves that five spot.

LeBron has a history of playing with players who have made a name for themselves independently of him. In contrast most of Curry's teammates have made their name with Curry. If they would have been as successful without Curry is unclear. Despite this pretty obvious state of affairs I keep hearing Curry has been lucky to have fantastic teammates while LeBron is perennially unlucky to play with trash. Do you actually buy any of this garbage you are spouting?

Curry IS lucky to have the teammates that he has had. This is not up for debate. He's lucky to have players drafted with him who turned into all star caliber players. LeBron was not this fortunate. Carlos Boozer was gone from his team after his rookie season. That was the only all star caliber teammate he ever had that was drafted within his time frame. I don't think you realize just how important it is to have an all star caliber teammate that you can grow with and develop chemistry with. It makes understanding each others roles and developing in order to improve their aspects of their game a LOT easier. It's about as ideal of a situation as you could possibly ask for.

Now in regards to other teams LeBron was on? I don't know who you are referring to who is claiming LeBron has played with trash in the years after his first stint with Cleveland. I think just about everyone acknowledges that LeBron was able to get himself in a much better winning situation by teaming up with actual good teammates who were all star caliber players. That doesn't automatically mean LeBron was in an easy position to succeed. Building teams from the ground up, even with other all star players, isn't an easy thing to do. The only team I can think of that they would be referring to is the 2018 team that he took to the finals, and on that ground, they have a legitimate point.

And I'm sorry, can you repeat that part about MOST of Curry's teammates having made their name with Curry? Do you understand what this statement means? Because apart from Klay, Green, Barnes, Poole, and Payton II, this couldn't be further from the truth. Iggy was already an all star before he went to Golden State. Bogut was too AND he was an all NBA member at one point. Barbosa was a sixth man of the year winner in Phoenix. I guess Livingston doesn't count since he didn't have any significant accolades to mention, but he wasn't a scrub by any means. Kevin Durant, Javale McGee, Andrew Wiggins, Otto Porter, all these guys made names for themselves outside of the Warriors long before they ever joined. Your statement about most of Curry's championship teammates is not only false, but it's dishonest. You and I both know what you're saying isn't true and it's pretty pathetic that you're trying to spout it as a fact.

He's failed every step of the way. He failed to win with the team that drafted him.

This thread REALLY doesn't need your help. WarriorGM and Goomba are bad enough. But we don't need a third person adding posts that are just as brain dead as theirs.

Case and point: LeBron won a championship with Cleveland in 2016. Cleveland is the team that drafted him.

I'm not wasting my time reading the rest of your post when you can't even get a basic fact like this correct. I'm also not going to waste my time on someone who is actually trying to argue that the all time leading scorer in NBA history with four championships and over a billion dollars in earnings has failed "every step of the way". How does someone come to a conclusion like this after thinking it out? Do you not understand the meaning to any of the words that you're saying?

I really hate how lebron stans need to marginalize every player hes been with. '11 was the last year of Wade's prime and was a top 7 mvp candidate year. In 2012 he was still a superb player that only played at MVP level less than his previous years due to injury/knees. Even in '13, during the win streak Wade averaged 24 6 and 5 on 54% shooting. '14 would be the only year Wade really faltered but either way Bron cost himself and the team an easier more obtainable ring in '11.

[TheLand13]

I really hate how lebron stans need to marginalize every player hes been with. '11 was the last year of Wade's prime and was a top 7 mvp candidate year. In 2012 he was still a superb player that only played at MVP level less than his previous years due to injury/knees. Even in '13, during the win streak Wade averaged 24 6 and 5 on 54% shooting. '14 would be the only year Wade really faltered but either way Bron cost himself and the team an easier more obtainable ring in '11.

At what point do I marginalize Wade? I very clearly state that Wade was a player who thrived playing alongside LeBron until injuries ruined him. By the time the 2013 playoffs rolled around, Wade was a shell of his former self. That's not LeBron's fault and that's not his either. Injuries will do that to you.

My point was this idea that LeBron needed an MVP caliber teammate to win a championship. Wade most certainly did not play like one in the 2012 Finals when LeBron won his first ring. He wasn't one at all in 2013. And LeBron didn't have a player of that caliber on his team in 2016. That's all there is to it. Whatever you're complaining about LeBron stans doing isn't being done here by me.

I've read all your posts. They all sound as if you're sputtering with false outrage.

Yes because claiming Iggy wanted to join Golden State soley because of Curry is being factual and objective, right?

If you read all my posts as you claim and actually understood them then you'd know that LeBron winning or not winning in the 2018 finals was not part of my main points which were brought up in the first post of this thread. Go back and read it.

I did. You point blank state that Golden State was less favored to win it all in 2022 than Cleveland was in 2018. That ties directly into the idea of LeBron not winning the finals in 2018. Otherwise there's no point in even mentioning it. Now granted, this is you we're talking about, so I shouldn't be surprised if this is the case, but I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming that there's actually a legitimate purpose to making that one of your points. If that wasn't the case, sorry, I assumed you at least possessed SOME form of critical thinking skills.

We could look at something like 538's models as well that predicted the 2018 Cavaliers to beat the 2018 Celtics and the 2022 Warriors to lose to the 2022 Celtics.

Literally means nothing because the 2018 Celtics weren't the Cavaliers finals opponents. This is not a valid comparison.

Of course it is an indicator. NBA basketball is a team game. If a player cannot affect a team result positively then just how good a player he is comes into question. A player can produce 100/10/10 but if they have a losing record, keep losing by 20 and all his teammates have lines like 2/0/0 then I'm not going to call him the greatest player in the world. Far from it.

You do understand that by mentioning this, you are completely contradicting your entire argument, right? The very fact that basketball IS a team game is exactly why it doesn't matter what their records were. Things can happen that are completely out of the players control. Cleveland wins game 1 of the 2018 NBA Finals if George Hill doesn't miss his free throw. That's a direct result of one of LeBron's own teammates not being able to step up and secure the game for them when given the opportunity.

There are team skills that do not show up in the box score. Curry's individual skills are already so good that he is comparable to the greatest players ever and I get the feeling this is what people look at when they are comparing him to other players but his team enhancing skills are what really separate him from other greats and put him above someone like LeBron.

What team enhancing skills are you referring to exactly? All you've done so far is continue to tell me that Curry makes his teammates better, but from what I can see, no such examples exist, and if they do, you haven't listed them. Curry did not make Draymond Green an elite defender. He did not make Klay Thompson an elite shooter. You're giving him credit for their own work. If you're going to do something like that, you'd better be ready to back up that up.

And above all else, LeBron has demonstrated that he has what it takes to carry role players to 60 win seasons. He did that twice. He's proven that he can carry role players to an NBA finals. Curry can't do these things. He's never come close to doing these things. The first opportunity Curry had to do so, he was a first round exit via the play in tournament. History does not support your argument here. Facts are facts.

Do you consider it a better team than the one the Warriors faced in 2022?

No, I don't. But last I checked, the Celtics aren't who the Cavaliers faced in the finals that season.

See discussion above on team enhancing skills. There are people here that agree with me.

There you go again. You spend the majority of your time on this site claiming that other people's opinions do not matter, because you're the only smart guy in this room. But now you want to suddenly care when it's most convenient for you?

Oh and btw, not a single person here so far has agreed with you on this. I don't know what thread you're reading, but no one has been on your side here apart from someone who thinks a guy with four championships and the scoring record is a failure, and the guy who considers Dwight Howard in his final seasons a "hall of fame caliber player". No one who has an objective mindset and no fight in this dog agrees with you, and there's a reason for that.

You avoided answering the question: Would Klay Thompson be considered the 2nd best shooter of all-time if his TS% dropped 5%?

Yeah, he probably would, because it's idiotic to base someone's entire career off of a very small sample size like that.

It is generally recognized that as a second round draft pick Draymond was in a precarious situation early on in his NBA career. If he had not found himself on a team that could showcase his defensive and passing talents there was a good chance he wouldn't last a year. Fortunately for Draymond, Steph was just about the ideal star for him to pair with and Draymond's penchant for producing triple single stat lines on poor shooting percentages didn't deep six his career from the start.

So does Magic Johnson owe all of his success to Kareem? Does Bill Russell owe all of his rings to the stacked teams he was always on? You're definitely correct in the fact that Draymond found himself in a perfect situation to succeed and really maximize his skillset, but there's always another side on the coin. The argument can just as easily be made that being on this team also limited what Green could have became from a scoring perspective. We saw in 2016 just how good he could be in that department, and he didn't really drop off until he stopped caring about it entirely (because Durant was now on the team and he didn't need to be a good scoring option). While Draymond definitely doesn't have the same early career success (and more than likely doesn't have four championships on his resume) if he were drafted anywhere else, he would still be known today as an incredibly elite defender with great passing and playmaking skills.

Aside from the rings that they won which was a first for nearly all of them? Not counting the players drafted by Golden State: David Lee, Andre Iguodala (why should FMVP not count?), Kevin Durant, and Andrew Wiggins received media awards that they didn't have previously. Bogut added an All-Defensive selection. JaVale saved his NBA career on the Warriors and went from being the butt of Shaq jokes to champion. Gary Payton II finally graduated to the NBA after years of languishing in the G-League after playing with Curry. The Lakers took a flier on players like Bazemore and Juan Toscano Andersen based on them looking like playable starters next to Curry.

I don't know, I ask you that all the time about Iggy and you pretend as if the award doesn't matter.

What media award did Kevin Durant receive that he didn't get previously? He got his MVP award before he joined the Warriors, the FMVP goes hand in hand with winning the championship so that's not because of Curry. Andrew Wiggins found a role that suits him perfectly and allowed him to focus more on being a defensive stopper who could step up and help offensively when needed. And even then, all he ever got in the end apart from the championship was a all star starting spot that many people agree he didn't deserve.

Yeah, Bogut added an all defensive team selection. Again, has absolutely nothing to do with Curry and he already had an all NBA accolade before ever joining the Warriors.

So none of this is valid.

Curry can play in such a way that gives his teammates higher efficiency plays and makes defensively oriented players less of a liability offensively. That's why Curry has a history of playing on more elite defensive teams than LeBron.

Every single thing you just said here you pulled straight out of your ass. Curry's teams being elite defensively are due to having elite defenders and coaches who know how to utilize them properly. Has literally nothing to do with how Curry plays offensively.

Also, LeBron has played on far more elite defensive teams than Curry has.

It's often said LeBron needs shooters to open up his game. Teammates who combine elite shooting with elite defense are scarce and LeBron isn't as adept at making defensive players viable offensively.

Again, you just pulled this completely out of your ass. Not to mention, it couldn't be further from the truth. Yes, LeBron needs shooters to maximize his offensive skillset, but claiming he can't defensive players viable offensively is the biggest load of bull I've ever heard. One of LeBron's biggest strengths is making offensively challenged players useful offensively. That's one of the reasons why he was impossible to double team in the first place, because he's an expert at finding open players who get easy scoring opportunities because of it. He made Joel Anthony playable in Miami... I can't even believe what I'm reading right now.

Missing the playoffs in 2019 without Anthony Davis on the team and losing in the first round in 2021 after AD became injured suggest that is indeed the case.

You mean the season where LeBron was injured for a good chunk of it and the one where LeBron was ALSO injured and the team that beat them went on to be in the NBA Finals? No it doesn't. And if you think it does, then it just proves what I've been saying: that you lack critical thinking skills.

Media awards don't really matter next to what is accomplished on the court. I use them as bookmarks. They are a marker of something to look at but whether I assign much weight to them or not is a different matter. For example where in this thread did I argue against Iguodala getting an FMVP? I've actually said in the past that he deserved it. But the meaning I ascribe to it is probably different from the one you do. The Iguodala FMVP captures the balanced democratic ethos of that 2015 Warriors team. That deserves to be noted when remembering that team and is a good argument for the selection made. It doesn't mean Iguodala was the best player on the team the way some of you interpret it.

No one's ever suggested that Iggy was the best player on that team. That was never the point. The point was to demonstrate just how stacked of a team the 2015 Warriors were, and that it wasn't something that started and ended with Curry like you pretend it does.

Without reasons from you I'll just presume you don't really have any and call you wrong.

At this point I legit feel like I'm talking to a staircase.

The 2011 loss to the Mavericks caused Wade to step back. It was intentional. We saw that the limits of a team with LeBron not in the central role was below championship level. Even with Wade and Bosh healthy there was always the feeling their talents overlapped and was not an optimal fit.

Wade never stepped back at all. This is a common misconception by people who try to make excuses for LeBron's poor play in 2011. All Wade told LeBron was that he needed to step up and take control of the team. That's it. Wade still continued to be Wade. But he understood that LeBron was the better player, and in order for them to truly exceed, they needed to follow his example.

Is LeBron not at fault for Love looking like a role player? Love and Bosh for that matter changed their games to be a better fit with LeBron. Kyrie as a specialist iso scorer and Davis as a center needing to be fed the ball were less affected and did better but were they notably enhanced?

Um, yes to literally all of this.

Again, as I just explained before, Love becoming a roleplayer was not LeBron's fault. That was what David Blatt wanted him to be when he got him on the team. Lue fixed all of that and made Love a central part of Cleveland's offense in his first full year as the coach, resulting in Love becoming an all star again and having a 19/11 season (as the third option).

Lmao yes, they were absolutely enhanced. Kyrie Irving was having the best scoring outings of his career playing alongside LeBron and had his best scoring averages with LeBron, and he wouldn't reach those heights again until years later when he was all alone in Brooklyn without Durant.

AD thrived while playing with LeBron. This needs no explanation.

As you allude to it is in the nature of the game that there are diminishing returns with more stars on the court with there being only one ball. However, Curry's efficiency and the efficiency bonus he seems to confer on his teammates negated the penalty more than LeBron has ever shown he can do.

Again, another thing you completely pulled out of your ass. And I know you did because just like all the other times, you have no examples provided to lend this statement any credibility.

My eyes started glazing over with the rest of your post so I'll not respond to the rest of it.

So you got no argument, got it.

I gave you the chance and you failed. Better luck next time.

[Joao Saraiva]

Yeah. The Warriors poor roster. I mean, winning with Jordan Poole, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson is exactly the same as taking freaking Jeff Green and JR Smith to the NBA finals.

It's interesting how often Kevin Love is conveniently unmentioned in these discussions. Love showed that he could lead a team to 40 wins. Draymond showed 15 wins was pushing it for him given a similar situation. Klay was coming off 2 years of not playing after suffering an ACL and then an Achilles injury. That you'd think 22 year old Jordan Poole was more of a factor than 25 year olds Larry Nance Jr., Jordan Clarkson and Rodney Hood indicates to me how talent is squandered on LeBron teams.

Curry lifted nothing, when the Warriors were really bad they missed Klay, Curry, they just lost Durant etc. It wasn't just Curry who was out. When he was playing they had a bad record even with him there.

Should we be surprised that you leave out the first half of 2022 when the Warriors had the best or second best record in the league without Klay having played a single minute? That's not lifting? The early wins also provided the team a cushion to bring back Klay on an unhurried schedule giving the best chance Klay could come back successfully.

I know you love Curry and hate LeBron but no, Curry can't control an entire team of role players (and some really bad) with a poor defense and put em in the NBA finals, no matter what conference.

I don't hate LeBron. I just think Curry's a better player. The nonsense that gets thrown around that the two cannot be compared is utterly baffling. It starts to make sense though when on realizes that Curry will come out better in a comparison.

About the Westbrook comparison... when Westbrook reaches a ts% near LeBron, PER or WS/48 you can say that. That narrative of Westbrook raw stats is actually something people who like to talk crap hang on to and it's an absolute lie.

As I recall Westbrook's PER in 2017 was so high relative to his perceived status that Basketball Reference changed their formula for calculating it. In any event Westbrook's numbers don't need to match LeBron's for the point to be made. Producing big numbers by being the center of a team and monopolizing the ball does not necessarily make a player better than another who is better at providing teammates better opportunities.

I gotta say I really don't read much of what you post cause I feel like it's a waste of time.

I'll just address the Kevin Love part. Dude went trough some mental issues, it was clear he was not the same guy in Cleveland. Yes he proved he could lead a 40 win team. Yes he was a great player in Minnesota. And don't get me wrong, he was definitely useful with Cleveland. But he wasn't the same type of player. He even struggled scoring in the post... against Curry. You might recall that. But still he was a good player.

Draymond will obviously won't lead any team as the main star. Draymond brings intangibles, can be the playmaker of a special team like the Warriors, brings intensity and motivation in the locker room. Great defender, good rebounder.

He is what you call a ceilling raiser. Not a floor raiser. Not understanding that proves you're very limited watching basketball. Put Dennis Rodman as a floor raiser and it's a disgrace. Add him to a good team and he'll definitely take your team to another level.

What's so difficult to understand? No great team is only made of "alpha" dogs.

[Homer38]

Curry was better in 2021 that in 2022....

[nikster]

I was actually comparing 2018 LeBron to 2022 Steph as per the subject of the thread. 2018 LeBron required the services of Anthony Davis to win again in 2020 while Steph won in 2022 with the addition of Andrew Wiggins.

Oh, THAT'S what you were doing? Oh well, then in that case your argument makes even less sense. Why is it a criticism that LeBron needed an MVP caliber player to beat one of the most stacked teams in the history of basketball? Are you telling me Curry wouldn't have needed that if he were in LeBron's situation? Hell, Curry if he were in LeBron's situation wouldn't have even made the finals in the first place.

And for that matter, if we're talking 2018 LeBron vs 2022 Curry, then bringing up 2020 LeBron doesn't help your argument at all. Again, this is another case of you switching narratives in a matter that favors your argument. You don't get to do that. Like I said before, in order for your argument to have any credibility, you need to remain consistent with the rules and regulations set by you in this very thread. And most importantly, the argument you present must be consistent too. If you're choosing when it is and isn't okay to branch away the OP, you're already giving us more reasons to disregard your logic.

Now with all of that said, please, do explain to me how Curry with a team filled with scrubs doesn't need a hall of fame teammate to beat the team with four hall of famers all in their primes playing against him. I'll wait.

But we can wade further into this if you insist. Wade was 5th in MVP voting in 2010 before being joined by LeBron the next year. Love got multiple MVP votes in 2014 before joining LeBron the next year. Anthony Davis finished 6th in MVP voting in 2020 and finished 3rd in MVP voting two years prior. In comparison who was the MVP candidate Curry played with in 2022?

Curry didn't have an MVP candidate in 2022. And neither did LeBron in 2018.

But here's my question for you: why do you care what their rankings were? Weren't you the one who mentioned before how meaningless "media driven awards" are and that they ultimately don't mean anything? So why are you suddenly acting like they do matter? Are you now suddenly saying they do matter for the sake of this argument? Every single time you decide to shift goal posts, I am going to call you out on it and automatically declare your argument to be invalid. You can't have it both ways and you're trying to do that on a regular occurrence.

With all of that said, it doesn't matter what Wade was in 2010 before he played with LeBron. It doesn't matter what Kevin Love was. You said LeBron needed an MVP caliber player. That implies that they are actually playing like one. Wade was no where close to anything of the sort in either of LeBron's title campaigns. Love was basically a role player when he started playing with LeBron and was a complete non factor in the finals they won except for two games.

As for Durant, I will agree he is certainly an MVP level player but funny enough he never finished higher than 7th in MVP voting in his years with Golden State and the year before he joined he was 5th in MVP voting. If we are to believe the boosterism of BSPN Curry and Durant were never both top 3 players in the league during their time in Golden State while LeBron and Davis were #1 and #2 with the Lakers in 2020. Do you believe that drivel?

Completely irrelevant to the matter at hand. 2017 Durant was the best version of him we had ever seen, because it was the first time in his career he was an elite defender on top of being one of the best scorers in the league. It was superior to the version that actually won an MVP award. He was a top three player in the league that season, bar none.

And Anthony Davis most certainly was not the number two player in the league in 2020. A top five player? An argument definitely exists for it. But Giannis, Jokic, and Embiid were all arguably superior. At that point, it's on you to figure out how AD deserves a spot above any of them, and if not, then why he deserves that five spot.

LeBron has a history of playing with players who have made a name for themselves independently of him. In contrast most of Curry's teammates have made their name with Curry. If they would have been as successful without Curry is unclear. Despite this pretty obvious state of affairs I keep hearing Curry has been lucky to have fantastic teammates while LeBron is perennially unlucky to play with trash. Do you actually buy any of this garbage you are spouting?

Curry IS lucky to have the teammates that he has had. This is not up for debate. He's lucky to have players drafted with him who turned into all star caliber players. LeBron was not this fortunate. Carlos Boozer was gone from his team after his rookie season. That was the only all star caliber teammate he ever had that was drafted within his time frame. I don't think you realize just how important it is to have an all star caliber teammate that you can grow with and develop chemistry with. It makes understanding each others roles and developing in order to improve their aspects of their game a LOT easier. It's about as ideal of a situation as you could possibly ask for.

Now in regards to other teams LeBron was on? I don't know who you are referring to who is claiming LeBron has played with trash in the years after his first stint with Cleveland. I think just about everyone acknowledges that LeBron was able to get himself in a much better winning situation by teaming up with actual good teammates who were all star caliber players. That doesn't automatically mean LeBron was in an easy position to succeed. Building teams from the ground up, even with other all star players, isn't an easy thing to do. The only team I can think of that they would be referring to is the 2018 team that he took to the finals, and on that ground, they have a legitimate point.

And I'm sorry, can you repeat that part about MOST of Curry's teammates having made their name with Curry? Do you understand what this statement means? Because apart from Klay, Green, Barnes, Poole, and Payton II, this couldn't be further from the truth. Iggy was already an all star before he went to Golden State. Bogut was too AND he was an all NBA member at one point. Barbosa was a sixth man of the year winner in Phoenix. I guess Livingston doesn't count since he didn't have any significant accolades to mention, but he wasn't a scrub by any means. Kevin Durant, Javale McGee, Andrew Wiggins, Otto Porter, all these guys made names for themselves outside of the Warriors long before they ever joined. Your statement about most of Curry's championship teammates is not only false, but it's dishonest. You and I both know what you're saying isn't true and it's pretty pathetic that you're trying to spout it as a fact.

He's failed every step of the way. He failed to win with the team that drafted him.

This thread REALLY doesn't need your help. WarriorGM and Goomba are bad enough. But we don't need a third person adding posts that are just as brain dead as theirs.

Case and point: LeBron won a championship with Cleveland in 2016. Cleveland is the team that drafted him.

I'm not wasting my time reading the rest of your post when you can't even get a basic fact like this correct. I'm also not going to waste my time on someone who is actually trying to argue that the all time leading scorer in NBA history with four championships and over a billion dollars in earnings has failed "every step of the way". How does someone come to a conclusion like this after thinking it out? Do you not understand the meaning to any of the words that you're saying?

I really hate how lebron stans need to marginalize every player hes been with. '11 was the last year of Wade's prime and was a top 7 mvp candidate year. In 2012 he was still a superb player that only played at MVP level less than his previous years due to injury/knees. Even in '13, during the win streak Wade averaged 24 6 and 5 on 54% shooting. '14 would be the only year Wade really faltered but either way Bron cost himself and the team an easier more obtainable ring in '11.

Why did you cherry pick his stats from the win streak and not show his playoff stats? If you don't think Wade fell off in 2013 you either never saw him play I'm his prime or didn't watch the 2013 playoffs...or both.

[WarriorGM]

I've read all your posts. They all sound as if you're sputtering with false outrage.

Yes because claiming Iggy wanted to join Golden State soley because of Curry is being factual and objective, right?

Was there any other reason to go to Golden State at the time? Wasn't exactly a destination franchise. Are you going to say Anthony Davis joining the Lakers had nothing to do with LeBron being there?

You point blank state that Golden State was less favored to win it all in 2022 than Cleveland was in 2018. That ties directly into the idea of LeBron not winning the finals in 2018. Otherwise there's no point in even mentioning it. Now granted, this is you we're talking about, so I shouldn't be surprised if this is the case, but I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming that there's actually a legitimate purpose to making that one of your points. If that wasn't the case, sorry, I assumed you at least possessed SOME form of critical thinking skills.

It should be obvious to anyone that if a team had +10000 odds and another had +500 odds the one at +500 is one that is less favored in general not just in the finals.

Furthermore the odds would factor in prospective opponents so if there wasn't a strong team like the 2018 Warriors one would have expected LeBron's team to have even better odds. If we are to believe that 2018 was a tough year to win while 2022 was a weak year as I've seen some LeBron fans insinuating then if these teams were transferred to another neutral year maybe the 2018 Cavs could have started with even better odds say +300 while the 2022 would have started with even worse odds like +1100.

I've tried reducing variables by focusing on performance against the Celtics but really no matter how you look at it Curry's results outperformed LeBron's.

We could look at something like 538's models as well that predicted the 2018 Cavaliers to beat the 2018 Celtics and the 2022 Warriors to lose to the 2022 Celtics.

Literally means nothing because the 2018 Celtics weren't the Cavaliers finals opponents. This is not a valid comparison.

The 2018 Cavaliers faced the 2018 Celtics and the 2022 Warriors faced the 2022 Celtics. The main Celtics players were the same for the most part just different in age. A comparison can be made.

Of course it is an indicator. NBA basketball is a team game. If a player cannot affect a team result positively then just how good a player he is comes into question. A player can produce 100/10/10 but if they have a losing record, keep losing by 20 and all his teammates have lines like 2/0/0 then I'm not going to call him the greatest player in the world. Far from it.

You do understand that by mentioning this, you are completely contradicting your entire argument, right? The very fact that basketball IS a team game is exactly why it doesn't matter what their records were. Things can happen that are completely out of the players control. Cleveland wins game 1 of the 2018 NBA Finals if George Hill doesn't miss his free throw. That's a direct result of one of LeBron's own teammates not being able to step up and secure the game for them when given the opportunity.

Randomness is smoothed out over the long term and a player's influence makes itself apparent. We've seen the same story repeated over and over again over a broad canvas. This hyperfocus on one instance where a teammate misses a shot ignores the overall view. Even then why is one shot by a teammate making or breaking him? Maybe because LeBron doesn't lead his team to convincing wins? Maybe because he didn't go to the hole himself?

There are team skills that do not show up in the box score. Curry's individual skills are already so good that he is comparable to the greatest players ever and I get the feeling this is what people look at when they are comparing him to other players but his team enhancing skills are what really separate him from other greats and put him above someone like LeBron.

What team enhancing skills are you referring to exactly? All you've done so far is continue to tell me that Curry makes his teammates better, but from what I can see, no such examples exist, and if they do, you haven't listed them. Curry did not make Draymond Green an elite defender. He did not make Klay Thompson an elite shooter. You're giving him credit for their own work. If you're going to do something like that, you'd better be ready to back up that up.

If you see no examples existing then you are blind or have never watched Curry play. All I have to say is Curry gravity and you should know what I am talking about. If you do not then I'm not going to waste any time listing the innumerable instances.

And above all else, LeBron has demonstrated that he has what it takes to carry role players to 60 win seasons. He did that twice. He's proven that he can carry role players to an NBA finals. Curry can't do these things. He's never come close to doing these things. The first opportunity Curry had to do so, he was a first round exit via the play in tournament. History does not support your argument here. Facts are facts.

Curry has taken a team to a 73-win season and 67 wins on two other occasions. LeBron has no 67-win season on his résumé. That is a fact. For some strange reason people think that LeBron is easily better than Curry at taking teammates to great heights when the truth is not only is Curry comparable at it, Curry is better.

Curry took a last placed team the previous year to a 54% winning record. LeBron joined a 35-win team and it became a 37-win team.
History supports my argument very well thank you.

Do you consider it a better team than the one the Warriors faced in 2022?

No, I don't. But last I checked, the Celtics aren't who the Cavaliers faced in the finals that season.

But 2018 LeBron did face the Celtics in the ECF which makes a comparison possible.

See discussion above on team enhancing skills. There are people here that agree with me.

There you go again. You spend the majority of your time on this site claiming that other people's opinions do not matter, because you're the only smart guy in this room. But now you want to suddenly care when it's most convenient for you?

Oh and btw, not a single person here so far has agreed with you on this. I don't know what thread you're reading, but no one has been on your side here apart from someone who thinks a guy with four championships and the scoring record is a failure, and the guy who considers Dwight Howard in his final seasons a "hall of fame caliber player". No one who has an objective mindset and no fight in this dog agrees with you, and there's a reason for that.

If others agree with me or not isn't a big deal with me but since there are posts that support my position I simply stated the fact that there are. If you do not see those posts you are blind.

You avoided answering the question: Would Klay Thompson be considered the 2nd best shooter of all-time if his TS% dropped 5%?

Yeah, he probably would, because it's idiotic to base someone's entire career off of a very small sample size like that.

I don't think I would call the sample size very small but if you think Klay would still be the 2nd best shooter of all-time despite having a a 5% lower TS% I guess you are entitled to your opinion dubious as it would be.

It is generally recognized that as a second round draft pick Draymond was in a precarious situation early on in his NBA career. If he had not found himself on a team that could showcase his defensive and passing talents there was a good chance he wouldn't last a year. Fortunately for Draymond, Steph was just about the ideal star for him to pair with and Draymond's penchant for producing triple single stat lines on poor shooting percentages didn't deep six his career from the start.

So does Magic Johnson owe all of his success to Kareem? Does Bill Russell owe all of his rings to the stacked teams he was always on? You're definitely correct in the fact that Draymond found himself in a perfect situation to succeed and really maximize his skillset, but there's always another side on the coin. The argument can just as easily be made that being on this team also limited what Green could have became from a scoring perspective. We saw in 2016 just how good he could be in that department, and he didn't really drop off until he stopped caring about it entirely (because Durant was now on the team and he didn't need to be a good scoring option). While Draymond definitely doesn't have the same early career success (and more than likely doesn't have four championships on his resume) if he were drafted anywhere else, he would still be known today as an incredibly elite defender with great passing and playmaking skills.

Magic and Russell weren't second rounders. They also didn't lead a team to a 15-win record.

Aside from the rings that they won which was a first for nearly all of them? Not counting the players drafted by Golden State: David Lee, Andre Iguodala (why should FMVP not count?), Kevin Durant, and Andrew Wiggins received media awards that they didn't have previously. Bogut added an All-Defensive selection. JaVale saved his NBA career on the Warriors and went from being the butt of Shaq jokes to champion. Gary Payton II finally graduated to the NBA after years of languishing in the G-League after playing with Curry. The Lakers took a flier on players like Bazemore and Juan Toscano Andersen based on them looking like playable starters next to Curry.

Andrew Wiggins found a role that suits him perfectly and allowed him to focus more on being a defensive stopper who could step up and help offensively when needed. And even then, all he ever got in the end apart from the championship was a all star starting spot that many people agree he didn't deserve.

[...]

So none of this is valid.

Curry can play in such a way that gives his teammates higher efficiency plays and makes defensively oriented players less of a liability offensively. That's why Curry has a history of playing on more elite defensive teams than LeBron.

Every single thing you just said here you pulled straight out of your ass. Curry's teams being elite defensively are due to having elite defenders and coaches who know how to utilize them properly. Has literally nothing to do with how Curry plays offensively.

Also, LeBron has played on far more elite defensive teams than Curry has.

It's often said LeBron needs shooters to open up his game. Teammates who combine elite shooting with elite defense are scarce and LeBron isn't as adept at making defensive players viable offensively.

Again, you just pulled this completely out of your ass. Not to mention, it couldn't be further from the truth. Yes, LeBron needs shooters to maximize his offensive skillset, but claiming he can't defensive players viable offensively is the biggest load of bull I've ever heard. One of LeBron's biggest strengths is making offensively challenged players useful offensively. That's one of the reasons why he was impossible to double team in the first place, because he's an expert at finding open players who get easy scoring opportunities because of it. He made Joel Anthony playable in Miami... I can't even believe what I'm reading right now.

For someone who accuses people of pulling things out of their ass you sure do pull a lot of stuff out yours.

The 2011 loss to the Mavericks caused Wade to step back. It was intentional. We saw that the limits of a team with LeBron not in the central role was below championship level. Even with Wade and Bosh healthy there was always the feeling their talents overlapped and was not an optimal fit.

Wade never stepped back at all. This is a common misconception by people who try to make excuses for LeBron's poor play in 2011. All Wade told LeBron was that he needed to step up and take control of the team. That's it. Wade still continued to be Wade. But he understood that LeBron was the better player, and in order for them to truly exceed, they needed to follow his example.

An example that led to less impressive results than the example set by Curry.

[michaelm]

I've read all your posts. They all sound as if you're sputtering with false outrage.

Yes because claiming Iggy wanted to join Golden State soley because of Curry is being factual and objective, right?

Was there any other reason to go to Golden State at the time? Wasn't exactly a destination franchise. Are you going to say Anthony Davis joining the Lakers had nothing to do with LeBron being there?

You point blank state that Golden State was less favored to win it all in 2022 than Cleveland was in 2018. That ties directly into the idea of LeBron not winning the finals in 2018. Otherwise there's no point in even mentioning it. Now granted, this is you we're talking about, so I shouldn't be surprised if this is the case, but I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming that there's actually a legitimate purpose to making that one of your points. If that wasn't the case, sorry, I assumed you at least possessed SOME form of critical thinking skills.

It should be obvious to anyone that if a team had +10000 odds and another had +500 odds the one at +500 is one that is less favored in general not just in the finals.

Furthermore the odds would factor in prospective opponents so if there wasn't a strong team like the 2018 Warriors one would have expected LeBron's team to have even better odds. If we are to believe that 2018 was a tough year to win while 2022 was a weak year as I've seen some LeBron fans insinuating then if these teams were transferred to another neutral year maybe the 2018 Cavs could have started with even better odds say +300 while the 2022 would have started with even worse odds like +1100.

I've tried reducing variables by focusing on performance against the Celtics but really no matter how you look at it Curry's results outperformed LeBron's.

We could look at something like 538's models as well that predicted the 2018 Cavaliers to beat the 2018 Celtics and the 2022 Warriors to lose to the 2022 Celtics.

Literally means nothing because the 2018 Celtics weren't the Cavaliers finals opponents. This is not a valid comparison.

The 2018 Cavaliers faced the 2018 Celtics and the 2022 Warriors faced the 2022 Celtics. The main Celtics players were the same for the most part just different in age. A comparison can be made.

Of course it is an indicator. NBA basketball is a team game. If a player cannot affect a team result positively then just how good a player he is comes into question. A player can produce 100/10/10 but if they have a losing record, keep losing by 20 and all his teammates have lines like 2/0/0 then I'm not going to call him the greatest player in the world. Far from it.

You do understand that by mentioning this, you are completely contradicting your entire argument, right? The very fact that basketball IS a team game is exactly why it doesn't matter what their records were. Things can happen that are completely out of the players control. Cleveland wins game 1 of the 2018 NBA Finals if George Hill doesn't miss his free throw. That's a direct result of one of LeBron's own teammates not being able to step up and secure the game for them when given the opportunity.

Randomness is smoothed out over the long term and a player's influence makes itself apparent. We've seen the same story repeated over and over again over a broad canvas. This hyperfocus on one instance where a teammate misses a shot ignores the overall view. Even then why is one shot by a teammate making or breaking him? Maybe because LeBron doesn't lead his team to convincing wins? Maybe because he didn't go to the hole himself?

There are team skills that do not show up in the box score. Curry's individual skills are already so good that he is comparable to the greatest players ever and I get the feeling this is what people look at when they are comparing him to other players but his team enhancing skills are what really separate him from other greats and put him above someone like LeBron.

What team enhancing skills are you referring to exactly? All you've done so far is continue to tell me that Curry makes his teammates better, but from what I can see, no such examples exist, and if they do, you haven't listed them. Curry did not make Draymond Green an elite defender. He did not make Klay Thompson an elite shooter. You're giving him credit for their own work. If you're going to do something like that, you'd better be ready to back up that up.

If you see no examples existing then you are blind or have never watched Curry play. All I have to say is Curry gravity and you should know what I am talking about. If you do not then I'm not going to waste any time listing the innumerable instances.

And above all else, LeBron has demonstrated that he has what it takes to carry role players to 60 win seasons. He did that twice. He's proven that he can carry role players to an NBA finals. Curry can't do these things. He's never come close to doing these things. The first opportunity Curry had to do so, he was a first round exit via the play in tournament. History does not support your argument here. Facts are facts.

Curry has taken a team to a 73-win season and 67 wins on two other occasions. LeBron has no 67-win season on his résumé. That is a fact. For some strange reason people think that LeBron is easily better than Curry at taking teammates to great heights when the truth is not only is Curry comparable at it, Curry is better.

Curry took a last placed team the previous year to a 54% winning record. LeBron joined a 35-win team and it became a 37-win team.
History supports my argument very well thank you.

Do you consider it a better team than the one the Warriors faced in 2022?

No, I don't. But last I checked, the Celtics aren't who the Cavaliers faced in the finals that season.

But 2018 LeBron did face the Celtics in the ECF which makes a comparison possible.

See discussion above on team enhancing skills. There are people here that agree with me.

There you go again. You spend the majority of your time on this site claiming that other people's opinions do not matter, because you're the only smart guy in this room. But now you want to suddenly care when it's most convenient for you?

Oh and btw, not a single person here so far has agreed with you on this. I don't know what thread you're reading, but no one has been on your side here apart from someone who thinks a guy with four championships and the scoring record is a failure, and the guy who considers Dwight Howard in his final seasons a "hall of fame caliber player". No one who has an objective mindset and no fight in this dog agrees with you, and there's a reason for that.

If others agree with me or not isn't a big deal with me but since there are posts that support my position I simply stated the fact that there are. If you do not see those posts you are blind.

You avoided answering the question: Would Klay Thompson be considered the 2nd best shooter of all-time if his TS% dropped 5%?

Yeah, he probably would, because it's idiotic to base someone's entire career off of a very small sample size like that.

I don't think I would call the sample size very small but if you think Klay would still be the 2nd best shooter of all-time despite having a a 5% lower TS% I guess you are entitled to your opinion dubious as it would be.

It is generally recognized that as a second round draft pick Draymond was in a precarious situation early on in his NBA career. If he had not found himself on a team that could showcase his defensive and passing talents there was a good chance he wouldn't last a year. Fortunately for Draymond, Steph was just about the ideal star for him to pair with and Draymond's penchant for producing triple single stat lines on poor shooting percentages didn't deep six his career from the start.

So does Magic Johnson owe all of his success to Kareem? Does Bill Russell owe all of his rings to the stacked teams he was always on? You're definitely correct in the fact that Draymond found himself in a perfect situation to succeed and really maximize his skillset, but there's always another side on the coin. The argument can just as easily be made that being on this team also limited what Green could have became from a scoring perspective. We saw in 2016 just how good he could be in that department, and he didn't really drop off until he stopped caring about it entirely (because Durant was now on the team and he didn't need to be a good scoring option). While Draymond definitely doesn't have the same early career success (and more than likely doesn't have four championships on his resume) if he were drafted anywhere else, he would still be known today as an incredibly elite defender with great passing and playmaking skills.

Magic and Russell weren't second rounders. They also didn't lead a team to a 15-win record.

Aside from the rings that they won which was a first for nearly all of them? Not counting the players drafted by Golden State: David Lee, Andre Iguodala (why should FMVP not count?), Kevin Durant, and Andrew Wiggins received media awards that they didn't have previously. Bogut added an All-Defensive selection. JaVale saved his NBA career on the Warriors and went from being the butt of Shaq jokes to champion. Gary Payton II finally graduated to the NBA after years of languishing in the G-League after playing with Curry. The Lakers took a flier on players like Bazemore and Juan Toscano Andersen based on them looking like playable starters next to Curry.

Andrew Wiggins found a role that suits him perfectly and allowed him to focus more on being a defensive stopper who could step up and help offensively when needed. And even then, all he ever got in the end apart from the championship was a all star starting spot that many people agree he didn't deserve.

[...]

So none of this is valid.

Curry can play in such a way that gives his teammates higher efficiency plays and makes defensively oriented players less of a liability offensively. That's why Curry has a history of playing on more elite defensive teams than LeBron.

Every single thing you just said here you pulled straight out of your ass. Curry's teams being elite defensively are due to having elite defenders and coaches who know how to utilize them properly. Has literally nothing to do with how Curry plays offensively.

Also, LeBron has played on far more elite defensive teams than Curry has.

It's often said LeBron needs shooters to open up his game. Teammates who combine elite shooting with elite defense are scarce and LeBron isn't as adept at making defensive players viable offensively.

Again, you just pulled this completely out of your ass. Not to mention, it couldn't be further from the truth. Yes, LeBron needs shooters to maximize his offensive skillset, but claiming he can't defensive players viable offensively is the biggest load of bull I've ever heard. One of LeBron's biggest strengths is making offensively challenged players useful offensively. That's one of the reasons why he was impossible to double team in the first place, because he's an expert at finding open players who get easy scoring opportunities because of it. He made Joel Anthony playable in Miami... I can't even believe what I'm reading right now.

For someone who accuses people of pulling things out of their ass you sure do pull a lot of stuff out yours.

The 2011 loss to the Mavericks caused Wade to step back. It was intentional. We saw that the limits of a team with LeBron not in the central role was below championship level. Even with Wade and Bosh healthy there was always the feeling their talents overlapped and was not an optimal fit.

Wade never stepped back at all. This is a common misconception by people who try to make excuses for LeBron's poor play in 2011. All Wade told LeBron was that he needed to step up and take control of the team. That's it. Wade still continued to be Wade. But he understood that LeBron was the better player, and in order for them to truly exceed, they needed to follow his example.

An example that led to less impressive results than the example set by Curry.

Not interested in debating this in general but Iguodala very definitely joined GSW to play with Curry and returned there to play with Curry.

The issue about the favoured team in 2018 is a little different, I don't think anyone would have favoured Lebron/the Cavs to win the title against 2018 GSW pre-season but during that season divisions were already appearing with GSW and their depth was declining, and they weren't nearly as good as in the first season with KD as Houston demonstrated in the WCF series. The Cavs were always a fairly good bet to win the Eastern Conference though. GSW were certainly not favoured to win the Western Conference prior to the 2001-2022 season, let alone the title, and were still underdogs prior to the finals after winning the WCF series.

[Eagle4]

Oh, THAT'S what you were doing? Oh well, then in that case your argument makes even less sense. Why is it a criticism that LeBron needed an MVP caliber player to beat one of the most stacked teams in the history of basketball? Are you telling me Curry wouldn't have needed that if he were in LeBron's situation? Hell, Curry if he were in LeBron's situation wouldn't have even made the finals in the first place.

And for that matter, if we're talking 2018 LeBron vs 2022 Curry, then bringing up 2020 LeBron doesn't help your argument at all. Again, this is another case of you switching narratives in a matter that favors your argument. You don't get to do that. Like I said before, in order for your argument to have any credibility, you need to remain consistent with the rules and regulations set by you in this very thread. And most importantly, the argument you present must be consistent too. If you're choosing when it is and isn't okay to branch away the OP, you're already giving us more reasons to disregard your logic.

Now with all of that said, please, do explain to me how Curry with a team filled with scrubs doesn't need a hall of fame teammate to beat the team with four hall of famers all in their primes playing against him. I'll wait.



Curry didn't have an MVP candidate in 2022. And neither did LeBron in 2018.

But here's my question for you: why do you care what their rankings were? Weren't you the one who mentioned before how meaningless "media driven awards" are and that they ultimately don't mean anything? So why are you suddenly acting like they do matter? Are you now suddenly saying they do matter for the sake of this argument? Every single time you decide to shift goal posts, I am going to call you out on it and automatically declare your argument to be invalid. You can't have it both ways and you're trying to do that on a regular occurrence.

With all of that said, it doesn't matter what Wade was in 2010 before he played with LeBron. It doesn't matter what Kevin Love was. You said LeBron needed an MVP caliber player. That implies that they are actually playing like one. Wade was no where close to anything of the sort in either of LeBron's title campaigns. Love was basically a role player when he started playing with LeBron and was a complete non factor in the finals they won except for two games.



Completely irrelevant to the matter at hand. 2017 Durant was the best version of him we had ever seen, because it was the first time in his career he was an elite defender on top of being one of the best scorers in the league. It was superior to the version that actually won an MVP award. He was a top three player in the league that season, bar none.

And Anthony Davis most certainly was not the number two player in the league in 2020. A top five player? An argument definitely exists for it. But Giannis, Jokic, and Embiid were all arguably superior. At that point, it's on you to figure out how AD deserves a spot above any of them, and if not, then why he deserves that five spot.



Curry IS lucky to have the teammates that he has had. This is not up for debate. He's lucky to have players drafted with him who turned into all star caliber players. LeBron was not this fortunate. Carlos Boozer was gone from his team after his rookie season. That was the only all star caliber teammate he ever had that was drafted within his time frame. I don't think you realize just how important it is to have an all star caliber teammate that you can grow with and develop chemistry with. It makes understanding each others roles and developing in order to improve their aspects of their game a LOT easier. It's about as ideal of a situation as you could possibly ask for.

Now in regards to other teams LeBron was on? I don't know who you are referring to who is claiming LeBron has played with trash in the years after his first stint with Cleveland. I think just about everyone acknowledges that LeBron was able to get himself in a much better winning situation by teaming up with actual good teammates who were all star caliber players. That doesn't automatically mean LeBron was in an easy position to succeed. Building teams from the ground up, even with other all star players, isn't an easy thing to do. The only team I can think of that they would be referring to is the 2018 team that he took to the finals, and on that ground, they have a legitimate point.

And I'm sorry, can you repeat that part about MOST of Curry's teammates having made their name with Curry? Do you understand what this statement means? Because apart from Klay, Green, Barnes, Poole, and Payton II, this couldn't be further from the truth. Iggy was already an all star before he went to Golden State. Bogut was too AND he was an all NBA member at one point. Barbosa was a sixth man of the year winner in Phoenix. I guess Livingston doesn't count since he didn't have any significant accolades to mention, but he wasn't a scrub by any means. Kevin Durant, Javale McGee, Andrew Wiggins, Otto Porter, all these guys made names for themselves outside of the Warriors long before they ever joined. Your statement about most of Curry's championship teammates is not only false, but it's dishonest. You and I both know what you're saying isn't true and it's pretty pathetic that you're trying to spout it as a fact.



This thread REALLY doesn't need your help. WarriorGM and Goomba are bad enough. But we don't need a third person adding posts that are just as brain dead as theirs.

Case and point: LeBron won a championship with Cleveland in 2016. Cleveland is the team that drafted him.

I'm not wasting my time reading the rest of your post when you can't even get a basic fact like this correct. I'm also not going to waste my time on someone who is actually trying to argue that the all time leading scorer in NBA history with four championships and over a billion dollars in earnings has failed "every step of the way". How does someone come to a conclusion like this after thinking it out? Do you not understand the meaning to any of the words that you're saying?

I really hate how lebron stans need to marginalize every player hes been with. '11 was the last year of Wade's prime and was a top 7 mvp candidate year. In 2012 he was still a superb player that only played at MVP level less than his previous years due to injury/knees. Even in '13, during the win streak Wade averaged 24 6 and 5 on 54% shooting. '14 would be the only year Wade really faltered but either way Bron cost himself and the team an easier more obtainable ring in '11.

Why did you cherry pick his stats from the win streak and not show his playoff stats? If you don't think Wade fell off in 2013 you either never saw him play I'm his prime or didn't watch the 2013 playoffs...or both.

His decline was led to degenerative injuries. He was looking like his "prime" Wade self during the win streak which was 27 games (not just some 5 game stretch) because he was healthy and his knees were well. He suffered a bone bruise a month after and he wasn't the same outside of stretches in the playoffs. Even then Heat don't win without integral games like game 4 in the finals where Wade scored 32 etc. Let me reiterate as someone who has watched Wade since Marquette. His play after the '11 season was only diminished due to his shoddy knees not actual ability. Meaning many nights he was still prime-like. However, you and other lebron stans love to pretend Wade fell off a massive cliff from '11 to '12 when he reality he was still about 85-90% form, he averaged 24 6 and 5 in the '12 finals, when was that scrub numbers?. The only case of Wade looking like a shell was '14 but the way Spurs were clicking I can't see solely prime Wade and prime Bron beating such a well piled machine, if they did it'd be a similar situation as the '16 finals.

[nikster]

I really hate how lebron stans need to marginalize every player hes been with. '11 was the last year of Wade's prime and was a top 7 mvp candidate year. In 2012 he was still a superb player that only played at MVP level less than his previous years due to injury/knees. Even in '13, during the win streak Wade averaged 24 6 and 5 on 54% shooting. '14 would be the only year Wade really faltered but either way Bron cost himself and the team an easier more obtainable ring in '11.

Why did you cherry pick his stats from the win streak and not show his playoff stats? If you don't think Wade fell off in 2013 you either never saw him play I'm his prime or didn't watch the 2013 playoffs...or both.

His decline was led to degenerative injuries. He was looking like his "prime" Wade self during the win streak which was 27 games (not just some 5 game stretch) because he was healthy and his knees were well. He suffered a bone bruise a month after and he wasn't the same outside of stretches in the playoffs. Even then Heat don't win without integral games like game 4 in the finals where Wade scored 32 etc. Let me reiterate as someone who has watched Wade since Marquette. His play after the '11 season was only diminished due to his shoddy knees not actual ability. Meaning many nights he was still prime-like. However, you and other lebron stans love to pretend Wade fell off a massive cliff from '11 to '12 when he reality he was still about 85-90% form, he averaged 24 6 and 5 in the '12 finals, when was that scrub numbers?. The only case of Wade looking like a shell was '14 but the way Spurs were clicking I can't see solely prime Wade and prime Bron beating such a well piled machine, if they did it'd be a similar situation as the '16 finals.

Yeah bolded is what happens to players who fall of due to injuries....

I never said he fell off in 2012, and you're the one denying he fell off in 2013. Yeah he had some good games, he clearly wasn't nearly as impactful as he used to be.

[TheLand13]

Not interested in debating this in general but Iguodala very definitely joined GSW to play with Curry and returned there to play with Curry.

Iggy outright stated in an interview why he joined the Warriors in the first place. And it wasn't entirely because of Curry. In fact Curry wasn't even the first person he mentioned. Curry was the piece of a puzzle that he wanted to be a part of. That's all there is to it.

[Bergmaniac]

Has the OP ever posted on this board on any other topic except hyping up Curry and disparaging the players they see as his rivals?

[TheLand13]

Has the OP ever posted on this board on any other topic except hyping up Curry and disparaging the players they see as his rivals?

I don't think the OP has ever posted anything that's in line with reality.

I post a lot about LeBron (obviously not anywhere close to the extent that the OP does), but at least I attempt to be objective and truthful about him. I've never seen someone try this hard to distort facts and reality in a way that benefits their favorite like the OP does.

[michaelm]

Not interested in debating this in general but Iguodala very definitely joined GSW to play with Curry and returned there to play with Curry.

Iggy outright stated in an interview why he joined the Warriors in the first place. And it wasn't entirely because of Curry. In fact Curry wasn't even the first person he mentioned. Curry was the piece of a puzzle that he wanted to be a part of. That's all there is to it.

Splitting hairs. He went there most significantly because of Curry. As I recall he became disaffected with Denver because the coach gave instructions to injure Curry in the 2013 first round play-off series Denver lost to an up and coming GSW team. I somehow doubt there were similar instructions for Jarrett Jack.

[TheLand13]

Not interested in debating this in general but Iguodala very definitely joined GSW to play with Curry and returned there to play with Curry.

Iggy outright stated in an interview why he joined the Warriors in the first place. And it wasn't entirely because of Curry. In fact Curry wasn't even the first person he mentioned. Curry was the piece of a puzzle that he wanted to be a part of. That's all there is to it.

Splitting hairs. He went there most significantly because of Curry. As I recall he became disaffected with Denver because the coach gave instructions to injure Curry in the 2013 first round play-off series Denver lost to an up and coming GSW team. I somehow doubt there were similar instructions for Jarrett Jack.

You’re going to need a lot more than this to prove it was mostly because of Curry. You’ve given me absolutely nothing to suggest he was the main reason. I guess that’s one thing you and the OP have in common.

[michaelm]

Iggy outright stated in an interview why he joined the Warriors in the first place. And it wasn't entirely because of Curry. In fact Curry wasn't even the first person he mentioned. Curry was the piece of a puzzle that he wanted to be a part of. That's all there is to it.

Splitting hairs. He went there most significantly because of Curry. As I recall he became disaffected with Denver because the coach gave instructions to injure Curry in the 2013 first round play-off series Denver lost to an up and coming GSW team. I somehow doubt there were similar instructions for Jarrett Jack.

You’re going to need a lot more than this to prove it was mostly because of Curry. You’ve given me absolutely nothing to suggest he was the main reason. I guess that’s one thing you and the OP have in common.

Have it your way then, O sage who knows more than fans of the 29 other teams in the NBA besides the Cavs than their own fans do, who have followed Iguodala throughout his career with GSW, and many things that he has said. Obviously the quality of Curry being such that the Denver coach considered it necessary to issue instructions to incapacitate him which Andre considered unethical was not a major consideration in him leaving Denver to join GSW. Lebron should also forever be taken at his word that he intended to win 8 titles with the Heat as well.

[TheLand13]

Splitting hairs. He went there most significantly because of Curry. As I recall he became disaffected with Denver because the coach gave instructions to injure Curry in the 2013 first round play-off series Denver lost to an up and coming GSW team. I somehow doubt there were similar instructions for Jarrett Jack.

You’re going to need a lot more than this to prove it was mostly because of Curry. You’ve given me absolutely nothing to suggest he was the main reason. I guess that’s one thing you and the OP have in common.

Have it your way then, O sage who knows more than fans of the 29 other teams in the NBA besides the Cavs than their own fans do, who have followed Iguodala throughout his career with GSW, and many things that he has said. Obviously the quality of Curry being such that the Denver coach considered it necessary to issue instructions to incapacitate him which Andre considered unethical was not a major consideration in him leaving Denver to join GSW. Lebron should also forever be taken at his word that he intended to win 8 titles with the Heat as well.

Again, you’ve literally given me nothing other than “you just have to take my word for it because I’m a warriors fan “. And given your past posts, I have no reason to do such a thing. I on the other hand have an actual interview demonstrating that it was for a multitude of reasons. Is that the be all end all? No. But it’s a hell of a lot more than what either of you have given me.

[WarriorGM]

Has the OP ever posted on this board on any other topic except hyping up Curry and disparaging the players they see as his rivals?

Yet somehow I still find a way to post about more relevant stuff than you do.

[Bergmaniac]

Has the OP ever posted on this board on any other topic except hyping up Curry and disparaging the players they see as his rivals?

Yet somehow I still find a way to post about more relevant stuff than you do.

Sure you do, buddy.

[WarriorGM]

Has the OP ever posted on this board on any other topic except hyping up Curry and disparaging the players they see as his rivals?

Yet somehow I still find a way to post about more relevant stuff than you do.

Sure you do, buddy.

Glad you agree.

[AdagioPace]

I apologize for the straightforwardness but 2009-2018 Lebron > any version of Curry (including peak, valley, slope etc..)