falcolombardi wrote:VanWest82 wrote:colts18 wrote:How the hell did Lebron quit in Game 6 vs the 2010 Celtics if he had 21 shot attempts, 12 Free Throw attempts, 19 rebounds, 10 assists, 9 turnovers, 3 steals, 1 blocks while holding Paul Pierce to 13 points on 4-13 shooting? Who gets 19 rebounds in a game they quit? That doesn't sound like the effort level of a "quit".
It's hard to comprehend in hindsight given everything he did in game 6 but you have literally millions of fans who watched that game saying his body language was awful and that he quit in the second half. Maybe it's because his body language was awful and he quit in the second half. Game 5 no show at home was weird too.
Maybe you could dismiss it if it was the only time it happened but we've seen Lebron exhibit bad body language and stop trying as hard a number of times now (2010 Celtics, 2011 Finals, 2015 RS, 2018 leading up trade deadline, 2018 G1 OT, etc.). It does seem like as soon as he knows he can't win he gives up some of the time.
i still dont understand why we are evaluating a player performance based on perceived body language instead of their actual impact on court
in not small part also because how subjective and prime to bias it is to evaluate body language and armchair psychoanalize
I have long felt that thoughts like these arise from the cognitive dissonance of seeing a player who is so great still fall short.
It is inconceivable that a player as good as Jordan in '88, LeBron in '09 and Kareem in '74 (or '77) could lose. But they do. All the time. Sometimes it's because they aren't as good in the playoffs as in the regular season (Karl Malone, Garnett, Robinson), but more often it's simply because their teammates/coaching/league environment conspires against them. And I think our unconscious struggles to process that kind of a pattern. So it looks for answers.
Jordan has the perfect story. He gathers himself, like a phoenix taking flight, his gaudy stats only an indication that the butterfly of winning is about to emerge from his cocoon of losing. And sure enough, once he spreads his wings he simply doesn't lose (I mean, yeah, '95, but that's an outlier for several reasons).
So with Jordan we can explain away his '87-90 seasons (which, by the way, should require zero explanation) by saying "that wasn't losing, it was preparing to dominate as nobody in the modern era has ever done".
That doesn't work for LeBron. There is no such elegant arc. His '08 and '09 playoffs are certainly comparable to Jordan in '87-90. And in 2010 he seems just as good . . . but still falls short to the Celtics in the playoffs. And then, instead of spreading his wings as Jordan did, he goes to a new team!
The thing is, because Jordan stayed on the Bulls the entire time, it feels like the only meaningful change was him. That's not true of course, as Pippen and Grant hitting their age 25 season helped a ton and Phil Jackson (et al) coming on board was another big help. So it wasn't only Jordan changing. But it *felt* that way.
LeBron jumping to Miami broke the story. It would be like if Jordan lost in 1990 and then went to Philadelphia to join forces with Charles Barkley and Alvin Robertson. Would Jordan have won rings with that team? Heck yes! Would he have been the obvious best player on that team? Yes (well, especially if Barkley starts getting injured and is only a shadow of himself by 1993). So he'd still be amazing, and he'd still be winning, but that narrative of ascension is broken. Now it looks like Jordan won because he went to the Sixers, not because he's the best. Now, in both cases (real '91 Bulls and imaginary '91 Sixers) the teammate support improved and Jordan went on to win, but as long as he stayed with the Bulls the
illusion that it was merely Jordan rising to his rightful place in the heavens was plausible.
And then James, once in Miami, had a poop-tastic series against the Mavericks! Sure, Jordan had (and would have) flawed series against good defenses (as the Mavs were) but he never had a series quite like that. We all though LeBron was going to be the next Jordan . . . what happened?
And yes, after 2012 LeBron has a fairly standard GOAT-level career arc. He wins four rings in the next ten years, and is the undisputed best player in the playoffs pretty much every year until 2019 (you could argue about Durant in '17 and '18, but you get my point). And if those ten years had all been with the Cavs (and the 2011 Finals had never happened), his story would basically be Jordan's, just a little clumsier.
The terrible thing about Jordan's story is it basically suggests that greatness needs no examination. Kareem was great, everybody knows. But his support in Milwaukee flagged and he struggled to win rings (despite clearly being the best player in the league) and then he went to the Lakers and still struggled to win rings (despite clearly being the best player in the league) until Magic Johnson came along and the level of teammate support increased. With Kareem, you'd think "Yeah, we know he was the best player in the league for a decade or so, but that doesn't necessarily equal rings. Look at how rough his teammate situation was for most of the 70s." Kareem's career forces us to separate greatness from rings. You can't point at the 1974 season and say anything besides "Kareem was *obviously* the best player in the league and it simply wasn't enough". Kareem's career is realistic, it's how careers normally are. It's basically how LeBron's career has gone (give or take).
Jordan's career simply broke that "greatness <> rings" idea. Jordan played at an insane level for ten seasons, and he won championships in his last six. "Forget that whole idea of having to evaluate a player's performance as independent of his team's success, look at Jordan! You're telling me that being a GOAT-level player doesn't automatically lead to championships but LOOK AT JORDAN! HE FREAKING MADE THEM AUTOMATIC!"
Will there be players as great as Jordan was individually? There are certainly reasonable arguments that LeBron, Kareem, Wilt and Russell have all reached that level, or come close.
But nobody is *ever* going to have a career that lines up that neatly. It is the GOAT career, pure and simple.
But LeBron had all the pieces to do it, in theory. He dragged his motley crew to the Finals through the Pistons! He nearly beat the Celtics in 2008 single-handedly! In 2009 and 2010 he had regular seasons as good as, or better than, any that have ever come before. WHY DID HE NOT HAVE A CAREER LIKE JORDAN!? AND WTF WAS UP WITH THE 2011 FINALS!?
I think, on some level, we keep looking for reasons. Flaws in his character that explain why he fell short. And I think that's one of the reasons the beatification of Jordan's competitiveness has occurred, just as the questioning of LeBron's attitude and body language became rife around that time. Those were the moments when we started to realize that LeBron, regardless of his obviously GOAT-level abilities, was not going to have Jordan's career. And I think some of it is simple backlash at the sacrilege; how DARE this imposter pretend to the throne!? I'm not saying that it's fabricated; if LeBron had stayed in Cleveland and won six titles over the next eight years, I think that Jordan fans would take it reasonably in stride.
But there is no question that LeBron's career (which is significantly determined by team success and narrative coherence) fell short. And a lot of us wonder why, on a subconscious level. Some intellectualize it, remember Kareem, and try to separate LeBron's performance from his team's success. And some simply reject him holistically for having the theoretical ability to have a career like Jordan's, and simply falling short.
Whew, I went long on this one. Pontification over.
