GreenHat wrote:If he loses though then you have Lebron who had the better regular season and was just as good through the first three rounds and would have just beaten Dirk coming back from a 3-2 deficit in the finals. If the Heat win this will still be known as the year of Lebron and he will have been the best player this year and worthy of player of the year despite a couple of spotty games in the first half of the finals. The fact that we even consider a triple-double to be a bad game from Lebron when that wouldn't be said for ANY other player shows how far ahead of the field he was going into this series and how much higher his expectations were.
If Lebron and Dirk had switched stats in the last game, people would be lauding Dirk's complete game and Lebron's would be regarded as ho-hum. Instead Lebron is getting killed and Dirk is being heralded.
Now if the Heat win and Lebron lays some more eggs than that most likely means that Wade had two big games. If Wade ends the 7 game finals series with a Final's MVP and a 40 PER in the finals how can he not get it? Its not like he was bad in the regular season either, he was just overshadowed.
If Dallas wins, then Dirk is a no brainer, but if the Heat win at least one of Lebron or Wade will have a good case. I can't see the Heat winning it all without one of them having a better case when its all said and done.
Count me among those who don't think it's clear at all that LeBron had a better regular season. I had him above Dirk in my MVP vote, but only because Dirk missed time with injury. I also had Dirk & LeBron as my co-#1's coming in to this series, so in my book, LeBron had no cushion to coast on.
A key thing to understand is the redundant aspect of LeBron and Wade (shameless plug - which I just
wrote about on my blog). Literally, Dirk is significantly less replaceable for the Mavs than any of the Heatles are on Miami.
Re: Stats reversed we'd be praising Dirk. No we wouldn't. We're watching these games man, LeBron simply isn't looking nearly as good as Dirk or Wade. Besides, Dirk gets crucified for the '06 Finals and the '07 Warrior series specifically because they took away his ability to thrive as a first option. If it happened again here it would feed directly into that meme.
Re: Year of LeBron. He'd have to do something utterly insane over the next two games for people to remember it as if this was LeBron's team at this point. This probably isn't entirely fair, but being ridiculously outplayed by Wade in the one competitive series they play which happened to be the Finals is a problem. You're right though that it is the Year of LeBron in the sense that he is the one more than anyone else who is defining the year, it's just that right not, the result for will not be the narrative he'd want.
As far as what the next two games mean. Obviously, if any of these players totally goes off, that could sway things. However, as things stand now, Dallas is a team only lacking HCA because of bad luck who has taken the series to 7. I'm most definitely not going to give #1 to LeBron or Wade simply because they're able to win an unbalanced series. If the 3 players are all roughly as impressive over the next 2 games, Dirk's probably my #1, although Wade's on my mind.
