bastillon wrote:Against GS, Dirk looked like a boy against men, and his individual stats showed his impotence. THAT is what getting exposd looks like.
Against GS, Dallas fellow below expected performance on offense by 6.5 points. THAT is what getting exposed looks like.
just incorrect. I don't know what kind of expectations you're talking about but given Warriors play down the stretch of that season, it's blatantly clear they were much stronger than their RS record suggested. although I do understand your point, it needs to be said that those numbers are just off.
Point taken to some degree. I had forgotten how hot the Warriors were to end the season...
But it was still a ginormous upset dude, even when you factor that in. They still got exposed something fierce.
bastillon wrote:it's more like "remember Dirk in 07 ? that's what I see with LeBron 10-11" (who is pretty much exactly the same player in terms of his skillset) and that matters for LeBron 09 as well. just because dude didn't play against a team that was competent enough to exploit his weaknesses doesn't mean he didn't have one. his shortcomings were real and major as evidenced by eastern semis in 2010 and NBA finals in 2011.
The weaknesses aren't the same though. Not the same type of issue, not the same cale, and not the same likelihood of being able to be exploited.
With Dirk you're talking about a guy who couldn't think fast enough to keep from getting individually clobbered in the wrong situation. He improved, and now he exploits the defense with good decisions before he can get burned. With LeBron you had a guy who ALREADY had that ability.
Understand? The new result for Dirk is that what used to be a blown possession is now a role player shooting a 3, but that was already the old result for LeBron. If all that was needed in Miami was for LeBron to play the super-scary scorer who will make the pass to the open guy, Dirk's big accomplishment, Lebron would have done that with his eyes closed.
The problem in Miami is that they have their talent concentrated in such a way that that isn't good enough. You can't do that with Wade.
Quite frankly, were Dirk paired with Wade instead of LeBron, they wouldn't even be using Dirk as the hub. The offense would run through Wade, and they'd use Dirk as the secondary man. Dirk isn't good enough that they'd even attempt this sort of thing with him, because you have to be a significantly better on ball threat than Wade to even get in this situation.
(To be fair, Dirk being a much better shooter than Wade, or LeBron for that matter, would play in. Dirk with any other perimeter offensive superstar would move to the off-ball role because of characteristics that aren't strictly a weakness.)
So what LeBron's gone through here with Miami is a far from normal situation, that requires adaptations that you just wouldn't expect him to have to make as part of the typical growth as a veteran superstar. To me it's like asking a computer programmer to do some graphic design at your company. He might do an okay job with it, and that makes him more valuable to you than he'd be if he couldn't do that, but he's not likely to say, "Man if I only had this graphic design skill at my last job, I'd have been far more valuable."
LeBron learned this skill out of clear need in Miami just like Dirk did in Dallas. Had he needed it earlier in Cleveland, he'd have learned it in Cleveland. Instead he was learning other things that were making him max out the value that he could contribute to his team at the time.
bastillon wrote:Back to LeBron then: In Cleveland, nobody was stopping LeBron the individual, so he didn't need a paradigm shift to keep himself from being stopped. Right there, it doesn't make sense to compare his situation to Dirk's, even if the team's offense was getting shut down...which it wasn't.
by nobody you mean 2 teams that clearly shouldn't have been in the playoffs with their level of performance at the time and a gimmick Orlando Magic team that was getting torched by penetrating guards all year ? you HONESTLY believe LeBron was unstoppable that year.
I think you need to re-read what I'm saying here. I'm not saying there's no way there could have been problems, I'm just saying there weren't problems.
I understand you think that with LeBron's adjustments from the future, there are a specific set of problems that would make future LeBron would be better suited to handling. I do think it's a reasonable thing to bring up. However, I find it nuts to compare LeBron's hypothetical issues with Dirk's actual season-ruining problems.
bastillon wrote:I'm 100% sure that if KG didn't get injured, we'd be talking about Celtics 2009 as NBA champions and LeBron severely struggling against them in the ECFs... I mean LeBron actually struggled against the Celtics when KG was still healthy, and then he struggled again after KG came back (even though he was 60%). but yeah - Orlando Magic couldn't stop LeBron so nobody could, logic... so Celtics forced LeBron to struggle in 08 and 10 but in the meantime LeBron became a perfect player and lost this perfection. it has nothing to do with Garnett's injury.
Yes, if Boston stays healthy and continues torching the league for the best records we know they were capable of, I'd expect they 3-peat. Impressive to the point that I don't know how you'd expect any player in history to beat them with a cast as weak as the Cavs.
bastillon wrote:or instead of mentioning how different this series could've been with Cavs making more 3pt shots, why don't you mention what could've happened in the NBA finals ? you know, against a team vs which LeBron averaged 19.5 ppg on 37% TS with 3.5 tov in the RS that year ? or what would've happened if Rockets somehow won their series vs Lakers and they played in the NBA finals, how would LeBron perform vs Artest/Battier defense that allowed him to score 24 ppg on 48% TS with 2.5 ast/5 tov ? LeBron was most certainly not unstoppable, Magic were just not build this way.
To be I honest, I wouldn't feel comfortable working with such a small sample size there. The 2 teams play twice a year. He had 2 bad games in '09, but he did fine against them in '10.
Okay, I need to stop. I just remembered the only reason you're mentioning this stuff is because you misconstrued an earlier point of mine. Scrolling down..
bastillon wrote:LeBron had a major flaw and didn't even get to see the team which could expose it
This seems key. The thing is, I don't really think LeBron has cured a major flaw. I think the move to put him more in the post was a good one, but it was as much a team strategy as it was him improving his own skills, and even as is, we haven't seen any proof that that's leading to truly outstanding offense.
Yes the team is more robust, than the previous year, and that's good. It's why LeBron '12 beats LeBron '11.
Yes the team is more robust than the Cavs, and that's good, but it's got Wade & Bosh on it. It's supposed to be more robust.
bastillon wrote:yes, his LeIso game was consistently getting stopped in the playoffs against legit contenders. that's why he developed post-game working with Hakeem.
Please expound. Bring the data.
Okay, let's continue..)
