'17-'18 POY discussion

[Doctor MJ]

Oh I totally understand that, like I didn’t deny that hardens offense led to less fastbreak opportunities. I don’t understand what you mean from the game 2-4 performances though, he took some possessions off on D but he was good when called upon and I think the positives probably outweighed the negatives, and offensively he still performed. It wasn’t the best of lebron but I think he did fine.

LeBron scored 51 points in the first game. He averaged barely more than half of that over the rest of the series.

Not saying that was bad, but people are making the case that LeBron was clear-cut better than Harden in those 3 games, and I don't think it is so clear-cut.

My main thing is

I’m willing to concede that hardens defense was more important than lebrons in their respective series, because he was being targeted and generally stepped up which kinda killed the warriors game plan for the first 5-6 games, but not neccessarily better.

But my problem is that the lebrons style not only arguably does more in terms of trying to do what harden might be trying to do on offense more efficiently (allowing teammates to rest for defense). With the only gripe being that his long contested step backs might lead to less fast break opportunities for the warriors than lebrons mismatch drive or kick offense (which I don’t believe personally, and lebron generally carries a higher offensive load while having less live ball turnovers anyway) but it does this while attacking the warriors defense pretty well anyway.

Like, the cavs iirc had a comparable number of open and wide open three point shots to the rockets vs the warriors anyway. (And the rockets warriors games had a faster pace as well, and this is also taking into account the cavs inability to force live ball steals which lead to fast break opportunities which lead to more open break threes or open layups)

But the cavs managed to shoot 7% contested three pointers, and 31% on open three pointers. They only shot wide open three point shots well, and it was at 40%, which is expected for a three point shooting team for wide open shots

We know almost all of these open shots are generated by lebron, either by a secondary assist from his drives or when him driving in causes rotations and destroys the defense and lets loose an open three.

I mean a lot of people like to say “curry guarded lebron really well” but from what I saw, lebron could have easily scored more on curry but he didn’t because the defense has to hella rotate to stop that mismatch, leaving an open three. The problem is the open three keeps bricking.

In terms of assists for creation load, considering the cavs generally didn’t shoot contested shots (they attempted 9 contested jump shots per game in the last 3, 4.4 of these were threes) that means they must have gotten good shots (either paint shots or open jump shots, mostly threes) meaning that lebrons offense worked in terms of getting players good shots and his potential assists aren’t he throws it and player x has to shoot it and this is a potential assist for lebron even though he doesent deserve it

This is important because lebron averaged a whopping 25.7 potential assists per game for the last 3 games.

Paul and harden combined averaged 23.6 potential assists the entire series

I understand the box score vs impact argument when it comes to players that prevent an offense from getting good shots because of the way they play, but

If lebron scores far more efficiently (harden was woefully effecient), creates more efficiently (less turnovers on higher creation load) and the offense gets shots just as good, arguably better, performs better against the same team, while doing all the same things of the offense stopping the opposing offense but as good or better (limiting live ball turnovers to prevent fast breaks, three point shots to prevent fast breaks from drives which they didn’t really do against lebron drives anyw, allowing players to rest on offense for more available defensive intensity and stamina)

I mean we are talking about a cavs team where they have maybe 3 playoff level rotation players (korver, nance, hill) and the only other all star a stretch 4 with a broken thumb that seems to clearly have effected his shot, and lebron took this team to the finals, with a game 1 where his own teammates betrayed him and a game 3 where Durant finally Duranted (and when Durant Durant’s obviously nothing is gonna stop him).

One of my hangups here is that I don't think LeBron's efficiency edge in general can be brushed aside as being entirely caused by context. I think LeBron is better than Harden basically no matter how you slice it and that makes me feel like I'm going to regret voting against LeBron, which I don't like.

The point about potential assists doesn't really resonate with me though. Cleveland shot worse than Houston against GS from 3, but Houston also shot badly, so using it as any kind of an excuse for LeBron is a non-starter. LeBron has forced the Cavs to be an entirely unipolar scheme, so of course he gets lots and lots of chances for assists.

Also when you single out those last 3 games for poor LeBron teammate performance, well y'know, sometimes when the 600 lb gorilla in the room is pissed off and breaks his own hand in front of others and seems distant contemplating his impending free agency, teammates aren't necessarily at their best.

The question is: Is what LeBron achieved enough to overcome the massive lead Harden went into the playoffs with?

Watching Game 1 in the finals, I felt like he had it in the bag, but that was based on projecting him continuing to play the same way throughout the series. Instead, he and the Cavs then went meekly in a way that none of the other Warriors opponents did, and certainly not how the Celtics would have done.

It would be easier for me to let this go without the broken hand. Without that incident, I could more easily look at it as just LeBron's body hitting a metaphorical wall. Am I really going to knock LeBron for running out of a steam when I think his endurance is beyond reproach? Nah.

But do I blame LeBron when he demonstrates mentally and physically that he's letting things other than what's best for the team control him? You bet.

What this means is that there's a good chance my vote here is getting switched because of LeBron's press room fashion show. And this is also something I don't really feel comfortable with. It doesn't seem like something after the fact should re-frame how I see what was done over the season.

But of course, the actual event did not occur after the season, and LeBron doing what he did essentially asked us to factor that into the narrative of the season. And if LeBron's asking me to factor that into his performance well...

[Outside]

I know this is a little delayed, but I kind of just realized that I think Boston would have actually put up a better fight than Cleveland did. I think one-man teams that don't play defense (like the Cavs) are just naturally going to get decimated by the Warriors. Warriors just have way too many offensive weapons and move the ball so well that they WILL find the weak spot in your defense. And they have plenty of good defenders to essentially just swarm the 1 major offensive threat on the other team.

OTOH, while the Celtics don't have that 1 guy like LeBron James (nobody close in fact), they do have multiple players that are capable on-ball offensive playmakers, and they don't really have weak spots in their defense to exploit. Everyone is a versatile, capable defender (Brown, Horford, and Smart are actually quite a bit better than that), and everyone is generally high IQ on both sides of the ball. Very well disciplined and are able to adjust both in-game and game-to-game, mainly because of the fantastic coaching of Stevens.

I mean, their overall offensive shortcomings would get exposed and they would definitely still lose, but they have the capability for a different guy to play well and carry the team offensively game to game (i.e., it could be Brown in one game, Tatum the next, Rozier the next, Horford the next, etc.), so that it's almost like they have 1 star that's consistently playing well for them...all the while they uglify the game and turn it into a defensive grind fest.

I could have seen the Celtics pull off a game or two from the Warriors in a manner similar to how the Rockets won games 4 and 5...sneak out the win by shutting them down and doing just enough offensively. They obviously don't have the firepower that the Rockets did, so that's it's much more likely that they just don't do enough offensively, but ultimately, I think they match up better with the Warriors than the Cavs did, and we could have had a more competitive Finals if they actually took that game 7 from the Cavs.

While my initial take was to generally agree, after thinking about it a bit, I'm not sure.

From one perspective, it depends on what you mean by "better fight than what Cleveland did." The Cavs were right there for two of the four games and should've won game 1. Average margin of victory isn't a good way to judge considering that the Warriors won the OT game by 10, game 3 was a four-point game with 40 seconds to go before ending up an eight-point win, and two games were blowouts. How much better would the Celtics really do? Win a game? That's about the same as what the Cavs did, except the Cavs blew game 1.

Boston was 1-7 on the road in the PS losing by an average of 14 points in those losses. They gained valuable experience, but they were young, and it showed. Their ORtg was 9th among the 16 playoff teams and their DRtg 5th.

Cleveland wasn't a strong team, but they had LeBron, and they had quite a few players with finals experience and championship experience. Boston wilted in game 7 of the ECF at home; why should I think they'd do better on the finals stage when they have nothing comparable to LeBron and no experience at that level?

So while we'll never know, I think Boston would've been lucky to win one and likely would've been swept.

[eminence]

Seems to be a pretty common view point across this board that offense-first players are allowed to cruise during the regular season and turn it on in the playoffs (LeBron/KD), but very few hold the same for defensive players (Dray). Very strange to me.

But lebrons “cruising” he was bringing way way more to the table that drays “ cruising”... Their workload wasn’t really comparable..


I did feel like X-ray was taking it easy this year when many said he had declined. He’s still a top 10 player to me.

Ehh, I think he was better and did more than Dray during the RS, but I think way way more way way overstates it. He was straight up horrific on defense all regular season, negative effort levels and far and away #1 minutes getter on the 29th rated defense.

[ztejas]

I know this is a little delayed, but I kind of just realized that I think Boston would have actually put up a better fight than Cleveland did. I think one-man teams that don't play defense (like the Cavs) are just naturally going to get decimated by the Warriors. Warriors just have way too many offensive weapons and move the ball so well that they WILL find the weak spot in your defense. And they have plenty of good defenders to essentially just swarm the 1 major offensive threat on the other team.

OTOH, while the Celtics don't have that 1 guy like LeBron James (nobody close in fact), they do have multiple players that are capable on-ball offensive playmakers, and they don't really have weak spots in their defense to exploit. Everyone is a versatile, capable defender (Brown, Horford, and Smart are actually quite a bit better than that), and everyone is generally high IQ on both sides of the ball. Very well disciplined and are able to adjust both in-game and game-to-game, mainly because of the fantastic coaching of Stevens.

I mean, their overall offensive shortcomings would get exposed and they would definitely still lose, but they have the capability for a different guy to play well and carry the team offensively game to game (i.e., it could be Brown in one game, Tatum the next, Rozier the next, Horford the next, etc.), so that it's almost like they have 1 star that's consistently playing well for them...all the while they uglify the game and turn it into a defensive grind fest.

I could have seen the Celtics pull off a game or two from the Warriors in a manner similar to how the Rockets won games 4 and 5...sneak out the win by shutting them down and doing just enough offensively. They obviously don't have the firepower that the Rockets did, so that's it's much more likely that they just don't do enough offensively, but ultimately, I think they match up better with the Warriors than the Cavs did, and we could have had a more competitive Finals if they actually took that game 7 from the Cavs.

While my initial take was to generally agree, after thinking about it a bit, I'm not sure.

From one perspective, it depends on what you mean by "better fight than what Cleveland did." The Cavs were right there for two of the four games and should've won game 1. Average margin of victory isn't a good way to judge considering that the Warriors won the OT game by 10, game 3 was a four-point game with 40 seconds to go before ending up an eight-point win, and two games were blowouts. How much better would the Celtics really do? Win a game? That's about the same as what the Cavs did, except the Cavs blew game 1.

Boston was 1-7 on the road in the PS losing by an average of 14 points in those losses. They gained valuable experience, but they were young, and it showed. Their ORtg was 9th among the 16 playoff teams and their DRtg 5th.

Cleveland wasn't a strong team, but they had LeBron, and they had quite a few players with finals experience and championship experience. Boston wilted in game 7 of the ECF at home; why should I think they'd do better on the finals stage when they have nothing comparable to LeBron and no experience at that level?

So while we'll never know, I think Boston would've been lucky to win one and likely would've been swept.

All this is true - I think Boston at home would have been slightly more dangerous against this Warriors team than the Cavs were at home, however, and I don't think they get swept. I think they have a game where Stevens is the best player and Curry and KD's offense gets mucked up and they win like 92-89. But, outside of that I think it's over in 5.

There's also a possibility that all of those young, rangy wings get thrown to the wolves and Durant abuses them in the post the way he handled NO. Add a couple of hot Curry games and a Klay game and it's a sweep, too.

[MyUniBroDavis]

One of my hangups here is that I don't think LeBron's efficiency edge in general can be brushed aside as being entirely caused by context. I think LeBron is better than Harden basically no matter how you slice it and that makes me feel like I'm going to regret voting against LeBron, which I don't like.

The point about potential assists doesn't really resonate with me though. Cleveland shot worse than Houston against GS from 3, but Houston also shot badly, so using it as any kind of an excuse for LeBron is a non-starter. LeBron has forced the Cavs to be an entirely unipolar scheme, so of course he gets lots and lots of chances for assists.

The thing is, that number is absurdly high even for Lebrun. Lebron averaged 25.7 potential assists that series his precious career high over the track ale years was 19 against the raptors this year.

My point for the potential assists wasn’t just that he should have had more assists per game, but it was also that there was an argument that “look at hardens creation load and he’s only getting 4-5 turnovers” but lebron creates far, far more. It’s natural for him to because of how the offense runs (and that when harden passes for threes his teammates are able to still make plays and potentially Get even more open shot shot attributed to harden) but lebron had less turnovers while having a much higher offensive load. (It was more a rebuttal of another arguement)

That being said, the offense functioned well and they got good shots, so I don’t see how we can blame lebron if the teams offense executed well and his teammates missed open looks (which also holds true for harden, but he himself missed the most good looks that series, and while he does give them good looks a lot of times the rockets just pull-up from god knows where or other players are able to make plays and the second pass. Now I understand the argument that Lebron doesn’t allow his teammates to do this but I disagree. From what I saw, a lot of times harden would do the same thing, going out a bit passing to another player who can make a play and just seeing what would happen. But the difference is the rockets have multiple players able to drive in, score, find the second pass when the defense starts scrambling, playmaker, etc, and the cavs don’t have this. Lebrons playstyle isn’t the reason for this, because that marginalizes players when lebron is the player running the possession, but if he isn’t running the possession and stands back a bit, something harden did as well, one player could trust his teammates while the other saw Jordan clarkson bricking a fadeaway off the court)

Mainly what I feel is this. Harden offensive performance was at best disappointing and at worse disastrous.

Spaceman made the argument that the pull-up threes harden took vs the warriors were far harder than the ones he took in the RS because he took much more late in the shot clock, to slow down the game and ensure the rockets could maintain defensive intensity. That’s a nice argument but there’s not a significant difference in threes taken late or very late in to the shot clock.

3.3/9.8 threes are taken late or very late into the shot clock for the RS (2.2 very late) , vs 4.2/10.7 against the warriors (2.3 very late)

Also when you single out those last 3 games for poor LeBron teammate performance, well y'know, sometimes when the 600 lb gorilla in the room is pissed off and breaks his own hand in front of others and seems distant contemplating his impending free agency, teammates aren't necessarily at their best.

I don’t understand this argument honestly. Lebron cant go to the media and lie and say “I will spend the rest of my career here” because that’s simply not true.
Now maybe you can argue him not committing hasn’t helped the front office, but I don’t think you can hold it against a player that he didn’t say he would spend the rest of his career in a team.
Anyway, after that game 1 I wouldn’t blame him if he broke his hand punching nearly every cavaliers player in the face lol.

The question is: Is what LeBron achieved enough to overcome the massive lead Harden went into the playoffs with?

Watching Game 1 in the finals, I felt like he had it in the bag, but that was based on projecting him continuing to play the same way throughout the series. Instead, he and the Cavs then went meekly in a way that none of the other Warriors opponents did, and certainly not how the Celtics would have done.

I mean, in those three games, game 2 was a blowout but the cavs were in it until the fourth and curry broke a record, game 3 got into foul territory and Durant had his best game of the playoffs, and game 4 was a blowout. And offensively the cavs did fine, it’s just the 29th defense in the league got killed, but i don’t think that’s lebrons fault, because he played good defense throughout and while you could argue he didn’t guard the warriors best players like harden did, even if he decided to the warriors would just actively avoid him using screens to switch.

It would be easier for me to let this go without the broken hand. Without that incident, I could more easily look at it as just LeBron's body hitting a metaphorical wall. Am I really going to knock LeBron for running out of a steam when I think his endurance is beyond reproach? Nah.
But do I blame LeBron when he demonstrates mentally and physically that he's letting things other than what's best for the team control him? You bet.

I don’t understand this. I agree that it was stupid for lebron to break his hand, but with a broken hand he was still incredible offensively, in all honesty it wasn’t worse than his pacers series for example, and he is facing. A team more equipped to stop him than the Celtics were. If player A can play like Jordan but plays like Lillard, he should get credit for playing like lillard

I get the arguement that the cavs underperformed, and they did, but my thing is while harden had a great regular season and lebrons wasn’t as good, lebron might have just pulled off the GOAT playoff run, definitely offensively, while hardens in all honesty wasn’t super impressive

[Doctor MJ]

Mainly what I feel is this. Harden offensive performance was at best disappointing and at worse disastrous.

I'm not even sure what to make of this. You'd think his team had gotten upset in the first round. Instead they nearly beat an unbeatable team with Harden as by far their most reliable scorer.

Also when you single out those last 3 games for poor LeBron teammate performance, well y'know, sometimes when the 600 lb gorilla in the room is pissed off and breaks his own hand in front of others and seems distant contemplating his impending free agency, teammates aren't necessarily at their best.

I don’t understand this argument honestly. Lebron cant go to the media and lie and say “I will spend the rest of my career here” because that’s simply not true.
Now maybe you can argue him not committing hasn’t helped the front office, but I don’t think you can hold it against a player that he didn’t say he would spend the rest of his career in a team.
Anyway, after that game 1 I wouldn’t blame him if he broke his hand punching nearly every cavaliers player in the face lol.

I didn't bring up the media, but there's a fundamental relation between LeBron's unwillingness to commit and the way it seemingly inevitably uses up everything around him. I'm not saying he has no right to do it, but it's at the root of so much of what he's unhappy about. Keeping his team under the gun like this has resulted in a series of win-now moves that have gradually eroded player talent, assets, cap room, and morale.

Re: wouldn't blame him. Well I would. I've seen this sort of thing before. I know what it is. Behavior like this from an alpha makes everything around him liable to get worse.

The question is: Is what LeBron achieved enough to overcome the massive lead Harden went into the playoffs with?

Watching Game 1 in the finals, I felt like he had it in the bag, but that was based on projecting him continuing to play the same way throughout the series. Instead, he and the Cavs then went meekly in a way that none of the other Warriors opponents did, and certainly not how the Celtics would have done.

I mean, in those three games, game 2 was a blowout but the cavs were in it until the fourth and curry broke a record, game 3 got into foul territory and Durant had his best game of the playoffs, and game 4 was a blowout. And offensively the cavs did fine, it’s just the 29th defense in the league got killed, but i don’t think that’s lebrons fault, because he played good defense throughout and while you could argue he didn’t guard the warriors best players like harden did, even if he decided to the warriors would just actively avoid him using screens to switch.

I don't think you're looking at this through the same lens as you do everything else because of its importance. The reality is that that most blowout are competitive for a good chunk of the game. It's fine to point out things weren't as one sided as they might feel, but the Cavs were less competitive than any other team the Warriors face even if you include Game 1, and it's not close if you analyze 2-4 on their own.

Re: defense not LeBron's fault his team can't play defense. Oh I'd say he deserves part of the blame. He sets the tone with how much effort to give on defense, his slack allows others slack, his not wanting to drill to perfection means others can't. And there's the matter that if the issue is that the team only started to play together mid-season, well, that problem exists because LeBron stopped trying midseason until the Cavs traded half the roster. I don't necessarily blame LeBron for pulling that ethically, but if you do that and your new roster doesn't ever synch, you done f up.

And let's not pretend we never saw LeBron take defensive possessions off when it counted. We did. I get that when you play LeBron does you need to conserve energy...but teammates see what they see, and we should remember that so much of this "all on LeBron" thing happening in Cleveland came as a result of LeBron resisting a system there after willingly playing in one in Miami. LeBron has earned the right to play how he wants, but he's not free of the consequences.

It would be easier for me to let this go without the broken hand. Without that incident, I could more easily look at it as just LeBron's body hitting a metaphorical wall. Am I really going to knock LeBron for running out of a steam when I think his endurance is beyond reproach? Nah.
But do I blame LeBron when he demonstrates mentally and physically that he's letting things other than what's best for the team control him? You bet.

I don’t understand this. I agree that it was stupid for lebron to break his hand, but with a broken hand he was still incredible offensively, in all honesty it wasn’t worse than his pacers series for example, and he is facing. A team more equipped to stop him than the Celtics were. If player A can play like Jordan but plays like Lillard, he should get credit for playing like lillard

I get the arguement that the cavs underperformed, and they did, but my thing is while harden had a great regular season and lebrons wasn’t as good, lebron might have just pulled off the GOAT playoff run, definitely offensively, while hardens in all honesty wasn’t super impressive

Me blaming him for these issues doesn't mean I don't recognize the good. I recognize both.

Re: LeBron GOAT playoff run. General rule, to have the GOAT playoff run, you need to look like the GOAT when going up against the major league conference, and not just for one game, and not just until you decide you can take it any more and do something stupid.

[HeartBreakKid]

Re: LeBron GOAT playoff run. General rule, to have the GOAT playoff run, you need to look like the GOAT when going up against the major league conference, and not just for one game, and not just until you decide you can take it any more and do something stupid.

What - he was dropping 30-10-10 in the games after game 1?

I mean come on man, he had a 7 game series against a defense that was better than GSW's just the round before, and was dropping 40 points like nothing. You can't expect him to drop 40-10-10 for four series in a row...

[MyUniBroDavis]

I'm not even sure what to make of this. You'd think his team had gotten upset in the first round. Instead they nearly beat an unbeatable team with Harden as by far their most reliable scorer.

Disasterous was too strong of a word but he was disappointing. The rockets didn’t perform particularly well offensively for 2/3 of the games they won, and he wasn’t taking significantly worse or harder shots than in the RS.

If the team won because of their defense, and they didn’t play particularly well on offense, am I supposed to give him credit for the teams defense because his offense allows them to rest because he isos a lot, even though he missed and a lot of this was because he could share the offensive load with a player that was probably better than him throughout the series?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to give credit to the players that defended the warriors? Harden gets credit because he defended well too, but he wasn’t more than solid on that end overall.

I didn't bring up the media, but there's a fundamental relation between LeBron's unwillingness to commit and the way it seemingly inevitably uses up everything around him. I'm not saying he has no right to do it, but it's at the root of so much of what he's unhappy about. Keeping his team under the gun like this has resulted in a series of win-now moves that have gradually eroded player talent, assets, cap room, and morale.

But you can’t blame him when the only way for him to solve this is to commit long term, which he shouldn’t do other than being “loyal”

As much as he gets flak for “forcing” kyrie out, it’s not exactly his fault the cavs got such a bad trade for it. They clearly weren’t going to get value for value but they essentially got the 8th pick and deadweight for him.

I don't think you're looking at this through the same lens as you do everything else because of its importance. The reality is that that most blowout are competitive for a good chunk of the game. It's fine to point out things weren't as one sided as they might feel, but the Cavs were less competitive than any other team the Warriors face even if you include Game 1, and it's not close if you analyze 2-4 on their own.

The cavs probably did better than the spurs considering there was no curry, and they performed about as well as the pelicans. Remember, the pelicans weren’t competitive in any of the games outside of their win (their 5 point loss was a 13 point game with a minute to go). The cavs sent the first into OT and lost to a Durant dagger in game 3.

Re: defense not LeBron's fault his team can't play defense. Oh I'd say he deserves part of the blame. He sets the tone with how much effort to give on defense, his slack allows others slack, his not wanting to drill to perfection means others can't. And there's the matter that if the issue is that the team only started to play together mid-season, well, that problem exists because LeBron stopped trying midseason until the Cavs traded half the roster. I don't necessarily blame LeBron for pulling that ethically, but if you do that and your new roster doesn't ever synch, you done f up.
And let's not pretend we never saw LeBron take defensive possessions off when it counted. We did. I get that when you play LeBron does you need to conserve energy...but teammates see what they see, and we should remember that so much of this "all on LeBron" thing happening in Cleveland came as a result of LeBron resisting a system there after willingly playing in one in Miami. LeBron has earned the right to play how he wants, but he's not free of the consequences.

None of this applies to the warriors since his defensive effort was fine. The cavs had effort on defense, the problem is simple. curry and Durant could attack Kevin love or korver or etc. on switches, and the cavs were too undersized without them and would give up easy dunks, along with most players not being good defenders period.

Me blaming him for these issues doesn't mean I don't recognize the good. I recognize both.
Re: LeBron GOAT playoff run. General rule, to have the GOAT playoff run, you need to look like the GOAT when going up against the major league conference, and not just for one game, and not just until you decide you can take it any more and do something stupid.

Since we aren’t including lebrons game 1, let’s not include hardens game 1 either

I’m just trying to wrap my head around that the guy that averaged 28-11-9 on 58TS and 5 turnovers a game with a creation load far, far exceeding what those numbers look like, while playing solid defense, is dissapointing, but the guy who averaged 26.7/6/6 on 50.5TS and 5 turnovers a game on solid defense is fine and only slightly worse because his teammates played better defense because his offensive style allows them to rest more on offense, which lebron does better anyway.

The only big difference between lebron in the finals and lebron in the other rounds, aside from him shooting worse because of his hand (but still efficiently) is that he passed it out to open shooters more and they bricked their shots more.

I’m just picturing myself as lebrons teammate, a bum that should be in a lottery team, looking at him single handedly take me to the finals giving me open shots from three with all the work I have to do is standing on the perimeter, with my only job being to defend, and thinking “wow this guy didn’t see that guy cutting backdoor and isn’t sure if he wants to spend the rest of the career here with us even though he dragged our lottery asses into the finals, and has expressed faith in us these playoffs even in JR who threw away what would be the greatest final performance in nba history by forgetting what the score was, and even the ownership traded irving for a broken hip and an average 3 and D player. I’m so demoralized”

You literally have guys saying “man playing with lebron is hard they blame us when we lose and only credit him when we win” even though generally he wins in spite of them and he always loses because of them. In wins this playoff run he averaged nearly a 40 point triple double. I don’t know what else to say honestly.

You literally have a guy that either gets you an open three, an open layup or scores a layup nearly every possession and all you have to do is make the three and they can’t even do that, and lebrons to blame because he “makes the morale” bad.

If I see my teammate literally dominate the crap out of another team and give everyone open shots on a silver platter with a broken hand and think to myself “wow he broke his hand” instead of thinking “wow he’s doing all this with a broken hand I should try even harder” then That says a lot about my character

But then it’s the Lebrons fault I’m on the team because him not committing to a historically horribly run franchise that couldn’t even give a player a proper physical when trading away their greatest non best player in the world asset, and it’s also his fault I have a bad coach that vast majority of the team vouched for because lebron is rumored to have fired the coach before him, who allegedly got the entire team against him because he tried to baby lebron kyrie and love. They win a title, the first in the teams history and the suddenly the team doesent want him fired. Then, they make the brilliant trade of adding rodney hood, george hill, Jordan clarkson, and Larry nance. So essentially, for kyrie Irving + a few other assets (expiring contracts) they got a guy who hustle, george hill, and multiple other players who obviously weren’t going to contribute in the playoffs.

And we are trying to criticize lebron for not committing to the team in the future and breaking his hand (averaged a 28 point triple trouble afterward which realistically underrated his impact) when really he should be criticized for breaking his hand by punching a whiteboard instead of breaking it punching every cavaliers player’s face


The only criticism that’s valid in my mind is that he held out to get Thompson a better contract. And yet if they don’t sign him they don’t win in 2016, so in hindsight it was the right decision.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Re: LeBron GOAT playoff run. General rule, to have the GOAT playoff run, you need to look like the GOAT when going up against the major league conference, and not just for one game, and not just until you decide you can take it any more and do something stupid.

What - he was dropping 30-10-10 in the games after game 1?

I mean come on man, he had a 7 game series against a defense that was better than GSW's just the round before, and was dropping 40 points like nothing. You can't expect him to drop 40-10-10 for four series in a row...

The thing I don’t understand is

He shot effectively
He gave his teammates a ludicrous amount of good looks
He completely ran the offense
The offense performed better against the warriors than any other offense they faced
They were the only team to face a healthy warriors team for the majority of the series
His 11 assists per game heavily underrate how many assists he should have gotten if his teammates shoot normally.
He plays solid defense
The warriors actively avoid him when he’s defending a player limiting his impact

28-10-10 doesent overrate his impact, if anything it underrates it.

[Ambrose]

It's just weird when you see Harden getting a pass for pulling his vanishing act when it mattered again but LeBron breaking his hand is where we draw the line.

[dhsilv2]

It's just weird when you see Harden getting a pass for pulling his vanishing act when it mattered again but LeBron breaking his hand is where we draw the line.

32-6-6 4 steals and a block, and was royally screwed on multiple calls by refs in game 7.
32-9-7 3 steals (turned it over 9 times) in game 6.

The rockets need 50 point games out of harden to have a chance. Harden also played defense for the vast majority of those games, and some of the best defense of his career. At the end of those games he was gassed, but I'm far more willing to accept a player just couldn't keep going under such a difficult condition (and he legit gave 100% to those game) than hearing he lost his cool, acted like a child, and punched a wall or whatever. Oh and Harden remained a great leader while again lebron was anything but in the finals.

[Ambrose]

It's just weird when you see Harden getting a pass for pulling his vanishing act when it mattered again but LeBron breaking his hand is where we draw the line.

32-6-6 4 steals and a block, and was royally screwed on multiple calls by refs in game 7.
32-9-7 3 steals (turned it over 9 times) in game 6.

The rockets need 50 point games out of harden to have a chance. Harden also played defense for the vast majority of those games, and some of the best defense of his career. At the end of those games he was gassed, but I'm far more willing to accept a player just couldn't keep going under such a difficult condition (and he legit gave 100% to those game) than hearing he lost his cool, acted like a child, and punched a wall or whatever. Oh and Harden remained a great leader while again lebron was anything but in the finals.

It's baffling to me that it's ok to give Harden "credit" for being gassed while LeBron played more minutes and has a far larger burden placed upon him but him taking a possession off on D is unacceptable. Ignoring the fact that a large portions of the time LeBron tried guarding someone good they'd just force a switch onto someone else. Or how Harden was royally screwed in game 7 yet LeBron was also royally screwed in game 1. How many Harden's 64 points came in the second half? How many in the fourth quarter before the game was out of reach? James Harden had to create a large amount of offense for Houston, LeBron James did too and created twice as many opportunities and more of them were open.

I do not understand the mental gymnastics people go through to credit Harden, it's just so odd. He had an amazing season. We don't need to pretend he wasn't ice cold from deep all postseason especially on that step back that somehow is praised for helping his team, that a huge reason they were in the series against Golden State had little to do with him, continually made more live ball mistakes with less burden, and when the going got tough down the stretch of games 6 and 7 he did what he always did and disappears.

It's not going to matter, as LeBron will rightfully win this POY award in a landslide anyway, People will have differing opinions on the term POY. Most acknowledge LeBron is the best in the world by a wide margin. I just do not understand the excuses made for Harden for literally every slight against him. It has to be Warriors/LeBron fatigue.

[dhsilv2]

It's just weird when you see Harden getting a pass for pulling his vanishing act when it mattered again but LeBron breaking his hand is where we draw the line.

32-6-6 4 steals and a block, and was royally screwed on multiple calls by refs in game 7.
32-9-7 3 steals (turned it over 9 times) in game 6.

The rockets need 50 point games out of harden to have a chance. Harden also played defense for the vast majority of those games, and some of the best defense of his career. At the end of those games he was gassed, but I'm far more willing to accept a player just couldn't keep going under such a difficult condition (and he legit gave 100% to those game) than hearing he lost his cool, acted like a child, and punched a wall or whatever. Oh and Harden remained a great leader while again lebron was anything but in the finals.

It's baffling to me that it's ok to give Harden "credit" for being gassed while LeBron played more minutes and has a far larger burden placed upon him but him taking a possession off on D is unacceptable. Ignoring the fact that a large portions of the time LeBron tried guarding someone good they'd just force a switch onto someone else. Or how Harden was royally screwed in game 7 yet LeBron was also royally screwed in game 1. How many Harden's 64 points came in the second half? How many in the fourth quarter before the game was out of reach? James Harden had to create a large amount of offense for Houston, LeBron James did too and created twice as many opportunities and more of them were open.

I do not understand the mental gymnastics people go through to credit Harden, it's just so odd. He had an amazing season. We don't need to pretend he wasn't ice cold from deep all postseason especially on that step back that somehow is praised for helping his team, that a huge reason they were in the series against Golden State had little to do with him, continually made more live ball mistakes with less burden, and when the going got tough down the stretch of games 6 and 7 he did what he always did and disappears.

It's not going to matter, as LeBron will rightfully win this POY award in a landslide anyway, People will have differing opinions on the term POY. Most acknowledge LeBron is the best in the world by a wide margin. I just do not understand the excuses made for Harden for literally every slight against him. It has to be Warriors/LeBron fatigue.

Being gassed isn't a sign of terrible leadership. I'm not sure how you're not getting this. The cavs basically gave up. The rockets despite everything going against them didn't. And lebron's TEAM defense was honestly bad at time even in the playoffs. Harden certainly wasn't elite, but again he wasn't giving up. He was making a real effort and was a key part of calling switches.

If you think leadership doesn't matter then that's fine. I think it is critical and yes I'm docking lebron massively for being in my view a terrible leader this year. That isn't something I've said about him in the past.

[MyUniBroDavis]

32-6-6 4 steals and a block, and was royally screwed on multiple calls by refs in game 7.
32-9-7 3 steals (turned it over 9 times) in game 6.

He was good in game 1
Game 2, he was relatively quiet, 27 points on bad shooting, only 3 assists.
9/24
Game 3, he had 20 and 9 assists in a blowout loss 7/16
Game 4, he had a decent game, 30 points 4 assists, 11/26 but only 2 turnovers
Sucked in game 5.
32/9 in game 6 but 9 turnovers, 10/24
32/6 in game 7 on 12/29 shooting, wasn’t reffed well midway through.

So he has a great game 1, a average or below average game 2, a quiet game 3, a good game 4, a crap game 5, a decent game 6 and a decent game 7.

And since the only game they played well offensively was game 2,

Watch on YouTube

That’s all of ariza’s, Gordon, and tuckers points that game
Harden was involved in a few of them but you can’t honestly say you go out of that thinking “man thank god these guys have harden giving them all these good looks because of his (gravity/iq/playmaking/shots)”

So now we get into “well that’s because harden allows the offensive system to work and doesent overdo it like lebrons” but considering lebrons team was better offensively against the warriors, and that from what we’ve seen it’s just basically a non harden or CP3 else doing a drive and kick or a far contested pull-up or because of fluid ball movement after a drive and kick.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s because the rockets have multiple high iq players that can make plays, while the cavs counterparts are Jordan clarkson and jeff green.

So there doesent seem to be this amazing non box score impact harden is doing offensively, so it’s essentially him getting credit (offensively) for not doing his scoring job efficiently?

Offensively speaking, he had a good game 1, but I’m sure some are gonna say “well they won games 2-4-5 so You clearly didn’t watch the games enough there were so many things he did on offense that you didn’t see”

Or just maybe, the rockets have a talented roster that’s really good on defense and one of the best offensive coaches in the Nba, even though was clearly not the best player in any of the rockets wins except for maybe game 4, and that’s extremely debatable?

But then it’s lebrons fault that Tyron lue is the coach of the cavs even though the entire team hated David Blatt and they mostly loved Tyron Lue?

The rockets need 50 point games out of harden to have a chance. Harden also played defense for the vast majority of those games, and some of the best defense of his career. At the end of those games he was gassed, but I'm far more willing to accept a player just couldn't keep going under such a difficult condition (and he legit gave 100% to those game) than hearing he lost his cool, acted like a child, and punched a wall or whatever. Oh and Harden remained a great leader while again lebron was anything but in the finals.

Lebron put in a much more tiring effort than harden did

Also, for leadership and giving up, it’s alot easier to not give up when you’re playing with a top 3 defensive cast in the league that can all make plays on offense with an all time great offensive coach and literally a guy that played better than you throughout the series vs a team that literally had to deal with freaking kardashian drama and needed you to play basically as wel had hardens best game in he playoffs 7 times to make it out of the first round

And I like how cavs are getting reprimanded for giving up because they were down by 24 or something in the second half against the warriors down 3-0 in the series after losing to a Durant dagger in game 3, because apparently losing in a blowout to the warriors now = giving up

[ztejas]

LeBron was clearly better against the Warriors than Harden. I think the difference in their supporting casts over those series was enormous if we're being honest. The Rockets are deeper, smarter and just flat out more talented than the Cavs.

That said, I don't think LeBron had some amazing Finals outside of game 1. He couldn't match Durant's scoring in game 3 and then looked like he barely gave a **** in game 4. If he was injured that's his own damn fault.

But, LeBron was clearly the best player in the playoffs and made MVP at least an interesting race in the regular season. From an overall, basketball standpoint he is the player of the year. Not that Harden or Durant are losing any sleep over their MVP trophies...

Sent from my SM-J327V using RealGM mobile app

[Doctor MJ]

Wouldn’t it make more sense to give credit to the players that defended the warriors? Harden gets credit because he defended well too, but he wasn’t more than solid on that end overall.

I'm giving them credit as well, they just aren't in the POY debate like Harden is.

I didn't bring up the media, but there's a fundamental relation between LeBron's unwillingness to commit and the way it seemingly inevitably uses up everything around him. I'm not saying he has no right to do it, but it's at the root of so much of what he's unhappy about. Keeping his team under the gun like this has resulted in a series of win-now moves that have gradually eroded player talent, assets, cap room, and morale.

But you can’t blame him when the only way for him to solve this is to commit long term, which he shouldn’t do other than being “loyal”

As much as he gets flak for “forcing” kyrie out, it’s not exactly his fault the cavs got such a bad trade for it. They clearly weren’t going to get value for value but they essentially got the 8th pick and deadweight for him.

Not only can I blame him, I'm basically telling y'all that I think you're ignoring important things when you're evaluating players if you don't consider a player's intangible impact like this.

I think people need to bring this back to the real world. LeBron is an employee. His value is defined by all the impact he has, positive or negative, to the franchise he plays for. If he chooses to protect himself to the extent that he undermines the franchise this is his right, but he then gets blame for the damage he does.

It's not about loyalty, it's about having faith in the people you work with that they'll do good work.

Did the Cavs deserve that faith? Well no, but LeBron's the one who decided to get back in bed with them. When he pulled this sort of thing the first time around in Cleveland I was very sympathetic, but seeing it all repeat it's quite clear what LeBron's role in forcing short-term thinking was.

Re: not LeBron's fault Cavs got a bad trade for Kyrie. I'm honestly not sure what you're expecting they could have gotten when Kyrie is publicly demanding a trade and privately threatening to get surgery if they don't trade him. You can blame the Cavs for not doing due diligence on Thomas' injury, but the reality is that with one year left on LeBron's contract and no commitment from him it doesn't make a lot of sense for LeBron to be mad at the Cavs for acquiring the draft pick.

This, incidentally, was the risk in putting Kyrie into trade conversations in the first place, and the risk of LeBron not explicitly saying "Kyrie is untradeable". It made sense to trade literally anyone on the team other than LeBron if you could get the right return, but sometimes when you do that things go south and that asset goes rogue.

This is also what was dangerous about LeBron essentially just deciding to come to Cleveland without having a great relationship with Kyrie ahead of time, and why it was of paramount importance for LeBron to manage his relationship with Kyrie to make sure he'd never get left high and dry.

I don't think you're looking at this through the same lens as you do everything else because of its importance. The reality is that that most blowout are competitive for a good chunk of the game. It's fine to point out things weren't as one sided as they might feel, but the Cavs were less competitive than any other team the Warriors face even if you include Game 1, and it's not close if you analyze 2-4 on their own.

The cavs probably did better than the spurs considering there was no curry, and they performed about as well as the pelicans. Remember, the pelicans weren’t competitive in any of the games outside of their win (their 5 point loss was a 13 point game with a minute to go). The cavs sent the first into OT and lost to a Durant dagger in game 3.

I think it's fine if you want to argue that the Cavs were in fact more impressive that the broken, shattered, end-of-an-era Spurs when you factor in context. I would only point out that the Spurs knew they would lose from the beginning, kept fighting, and eventually took a game off the Warriors. The Cavs on the other hand basically looked like just accepted their fate after Game 1.

I think it's fine if you want to argue that on the whole they were about as competitive as the Pelicans. While I don't think that's a given, I'll readily admit that I felt LeBron needed to show me more than Pelicans-level work in order to really make me feel like the team had done the finals justice.

I don't really doubt, for example, that the Celtics would have done better.

Re: lost to a Durant dagger in Game 3. I think the term "dagger" has been blown up way out of proportion if its being used like this. The Warriors won that game by 8 points and outscored the Cavs by 14 in the 2nd half. This of course between easy wins in Game 2 & 4 on the way to a sweep. Your language implies a game that was a tossup rescued by a star's bounce, but that's just not how I see it.

None of this applies to the warriors since his defensive effort was fine. The cavs had effort on defense, the problem is simple. curry and Durant could attack Kevin love or korver or etc. on switches, and the cavs were too undersized without them and would give up easy dunks, along with most players not being good defenders period.

The Cavs defensive issues when they choose to play Love and Korver certainly do go beyond effort.

Alright you go on to say a bunch more stuff that I don't mean to brush aside, but I don't think we're going to get much further here.

You think LeBron deserves #1. Most agree with you, the #1 is his. I'm in the minority, and that's how it is.

[iggymcfrack]

I'm not even sure what to make of this. You'd think his team had gotten upset in the first round. Instead they nearly beat an unbeatable team with Harden as by far their most reliable scorer.

Disasterous was too strong of a word but he was disappointing. The rockets didn’t perform particularly well offensively for 2/3 of the games they won, and he wasn’t taking significantly worse or harder shots than in the RS.

If the team won because of their defense, and they didn’t play particularly well on offense, am I supposed to give him credit for the teams defense because his offense allows them to rest because he isos a lot, even though he missed and a lot of this was because he could share the offensive load with a player that was probably better than him throughout the series?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to give credit to the players that defended the warriors? Harden gets credit because he defended well too, but he wasn’t more than solid on that end overall.

I didn't bring up the media, but there's a fundamental relation between LeBron's unwillingness to commit and the way it seemingly inevitably uses up everything around him. I'm not saying he has no right to do it, but it's at the root of so much of what he's unhappy about. Keeping his team under the gun like this has resulted in a series of win-now moves that have gradually eroded player talent, assets, cap room, and morale.

But you can’t blame him when the only way for him to solve this is to commit long term, which he shouldn’t do other than being “loyal”

As much as he gets flak for “forcing” kyrie out, it’s not exactly his fault the cavs got such a bad trade for it. They clearly weren’t going to get value for value but they essentially got the 8th pick and deadweight for him.

I don't think you're looking at this through the same lens as you do everything else because of its importance. The reality is that that most blowout are competitive for a good chunk of the game. It's fine to point out things weren't as one sided as they might feel, but the Cavs were less competitive than any other team the Warriors face even if you include Game 1, and it's not close if you analyze 2-4 on their own.

The cavs probably did better than the spurs considering there was no curry, and they performed about as well as the pelicans. Remember, the pelicans weren’t competitive in any of the games outside of their win (their 5 point loss was a 13 point game with a minute to go). The cavs sent the first into OT and lost to a Durant dagger in game 3.

Re: defense not LeBron's fault his team can't play defense. Oh I'd say he deserves part of the blame. He sets the tone with how much effort to give on defense, his slack allows others slack, his not wanting to drill to perfection means others can't. And there's the matter that if the issue is that the team only started to play together mid-season, well, that problem exists because LeBron stopped trying midseason until the Cavs traded half the roster. I don't necessarily blame LeBron for pulling that ethically, but if you do that and your new roster doesn't ever synch, you done f up.
And let's not pretend we never saw LeBron take defensive possessions off when it counted. We did. I get that when you play LeBron does you need to conserve energy...but teammates see what they see, and we should remember that so much of this "all on LeBron" thing happening in Cleveland came as a result of LeBron resisting a system there after willingly playing in one in Miami. LeBron has earned the right to play how he wants, but he's not free of the consequences.

None of this applies to the warriors since his defensive effort was fine. The cavs had effort on defense, the problem is simple. curry and Durant could attack Kevin love or korver or etc. on switches, and the cavs were too undersized without them and would give up easy dunks, along with most players not being good defenders period.

Me blaming him for these issues doesn't mean I don't recognize the good. I recognize both.
Re: LeBron GOAT playoff run. General rule, to have the GOAT playoff run, you need to look like the GOAT when going up against the major league conference, and not just for one game, and not just until you decide you can take it any more and do something stupid.

Since we aren’t including lebrons game 1, let’s not include hardens game 1 either

I’m just trying to wrap my head around that the guy that averaged 28-11-9 on 58TS and 5 turnovers a game with a creation load far, far exceeding what those numbers look like, while playing solid defense, is dissapointing, but the guy who averaged 26.7/6/6 on 50.5TS and 5 turnovers a game on solid defense is fine and only slightly worse because his teammates played better defense because his offensive style allows them to rest more on offense, which lebron does better anyway.

The only big difference between lebron in the finals and lebron in the other rounds, aside from him shooting worse because of his hand (but still efficiently) is that he passed it out to open shooters more and they bricked their shots more.

I’m just picturing myself as lebrons teammate, a bum that should be in a lottery team, looking at him single handedly take me to the finals giving me open shots from three with all the work I have to do is standing on the perimeter, with my only job being to defend, and thinking “wow this guy didn’t see that guy cutting backdoor and isn’t sure if he wants to spend the rest of the career here with us even though he dragged our lottery asses into the finals, and has expressed faith in us these playoffs even in JR who threw away what would be the greatest final performance in nba history by forgetting what the score was, and even the ownership traded irving for a broken hip and an average 3 and D player. I’m so demoralized”

You literally have guys saying “man playing with lebron is hard they blame us when we lose and only credit him when we win” even though generally he wins in spite of them and he always loses because of them. In wins this playoff run he averaged nearly a 40 point triple double. I don’t know what else to say honestly.

You literally have a guy that either gets you an open three, an open layup or scores a layup nearly every possession and all you have to do is make the three and they can’t even do that, and lebrons to blame because he “makes the morale” bad.

If I see my teammate literally dominate the crap out of another team and give everyone open shots on a silver platter with a broken hand and think to myself “wow he broke his hand” instead of thinking “wow he’s doing all this with a broken hand I should try even harder” then That says a lot about my character

But then it’s the Lebrons fault I’m on the team because him not committing to a historically horribly run franchise that couldn’t even give a player a proper physical when trading away their greatest non best player in the world asset, and it’s also his fault I have a bad coach that vast majority of the team vouched for because lebron is rumored to have fired the coach before him, who allegedly got the entire team against him because he tried to baby lebron kyrie and love. They win a title, the first in the teams history and the suddenly the team doesent want him fired. Then, they make the brilliant trade of adding rodney hood, george hill, Jordan clarkson, and Larry nance. So essentially, for kyrie Irving + a few other assets (expiring contracts) they got a guy who hustle, george hill, and multiple other players who obviously weren’t going to contribute in the playoffs.

And we are trying to criticize lebron for not committing to the team in the future and breaking his hand (averaged a 28 point triple trouble afterward which realistically underrated his impact) when really he should be criticized for breaking his hand by punching a whiteboard instead of breaking it punching every cavaliers player’s face


The only criticism that’s valid in my mind is that he held out to get Thompson a better contract. And yet if they don’t sign him they don’t win in 2016, so in hindsight it was the right decision.

Best post of the thread! This is all the stuff I was thinking that I didn’t have the energy to lay out. Very well said.

[iggymcfrack]

Re: LeBron GOAT playoff run. General rule, to have the GOAT playoff run, you need to look like the GOAT when going up against the major league conference, and not just for one game, and not just until you decide you can take it any more and do something stupid.

What - he was dropping 30-10-10 in the games after game 1?

I mean come on man, he had a 7 game series against a defense that was better than GSW's just the round before, and was dropping 40 points like nothing. You can't expect him to drop 40-10-10 for four series in a row...

The thing I don’t understand is

He shot effectively
He gave his teammates a ludicrous amount of good looks
He completely ran the offense
The offense performed better against the warriors than any other offense they faced
They were the only team to face a healthy warriors team for the majority of the series
His 11 assists per game heavily underrate how many assists he should have gotten if his teammates shoot normally.
He plays solid defense
The warriors actively avoid him when he’s defending a player limiting his impact

28-10-10 doesent overrate his impact, if anything it underrates it.

Another fantastic post. Couldn’t have possibly laid out the argument more clearly and concisely.

[HeartBreakKid]

This new narrative about James being toxic is almost as amusing as him being a choker

[dhsilv2]

I think people need to bring this back to the real world. LeBron is an employee. His value is defined by all the impact he has, positive or negative, to the franchise he plays for. If he chooses to protect himself to the extent that he undermines the franchise this is his right, but he then gets blame for the damage he does.

It's not about loyalty, it's about having faith in the people you work with that they'll do good work.

Did the Cavs deserve that faith? Well no, but LeBron's the one who decided to get back in bed with them. When he pulled this sort of thing the first time around in Cleveland I was very sympathetic, but seeing it all repeat it's quite clear what LeBron's role in forcing short-term thinking was.

This is so dead on where my mind was at.

I worked for a tech startup years back, and with startups you get some interesting personalities. Often really really smart people who just don't really fit in with larger organizations...often don't play nice with others and rules don't work for them. One such guy had been a critical part of the company before I got there and in reality he was a brilliant beyond words developer who really did add a huge amount of value. The problem was he didn't get anything he was asked to do done, instead he was fixing other people's issues, going off writing rogue code (some was of value), and getting into screaming matches with a lot of the people asked to manage the processes.

Eventually despite the guy being the best and brightest developer, it just wasn't enough to make him useful for the team long term and he was fired. Lebron this year might well have been the best player in the league, but he brought with him more baggage and more problems than anyone else in the league. It got him to the finals again, but at some point all that baggage starts weighing down the end results.

People need to understand that in a team, being the best at even the most important things isn't enough if you fail elsewhere.