Doctor MJ wrote:Interesting. I was wondering how you'd rank LeBron & Wade mopper. Care to expound a little more?
Apologies if this is a little rambling...
I was one of the few people who saw very little separation between the two during the regular season, so you'd think the playoffs would make me lean more towards Wade. I actually often found myself going back-and-forth on it a lot on this. Lebron obviously had the ball in his hands more and as a result flat-out produced more, even minutes-adjusted, and played more minutes overall and per-game, which is a big deal. At the same time, I felt like this season re-affirmed my belief that Wade has a better feel for the game, how to pick his spots, change speeds, etc.
My impression is that Wade is able to more effective in short bursts than Lebron can be on a consistent basis. For Lebron to reach Wade's ceiling of offensive impact, he needs to have his J going, whereas Wade can basically get there just by trying harder. And when he gets to that peak energy level
and has his J going? He's better than Lebron can be IMO.
But how valuable is that if he can only do that for short bursts? Obviously, as we saw in the Finals, when the finish line is close, he can just do it seemingly all game, but throughout the regular season there's no way he can keep that energy level up, and is able to "pick his spots" like that in part because of Lebron's ability to play long minutes at consistent energy levels.
I'm pretty sure Wade is better at the game of basketball, and I texted my friend during game 6 (right after he blocked that Chandler layup) that Lebron might be the best player on the planet, but if I needed to absolutely win one game, give me Wade. He's a huge Lebron fan and he wrote back that he agreed. I'm not sure what that means.
Wade might be better at the game, but he's not as big, as strong, as resistant to injury, or as versatile defensively as Lebron, which means he's not necessarily more valuable, if that makes sense. Maybe for some people then by definition he is not "better" but that's more semantics.
Wade started the year somewhat injured, which was a big part of Miami sputtering to a 9-8 start. He played 3 fewer games and ~200 fewer minutes than Lebron for the balance of the regular season. His Chicago series was better than Lebron's Finals, if for no other reason than he managed to make big plays at the end of games while Lebron failed to do that same, but it was still pretty bad.
My dilemma: if it seems like Miami only really picked it up defensively when Wade did, is that a sign that Wade was a leader for the Heat? That his energy was "infectious"? Or was it a sign that the Heat's defense really took off if and only if both Wade and Lebron played at a high level, and Lebron was
always at that level, so it just seemed like Wade was the catalyst because the conditions were met when Wade played hard and not met when he didn't? How do you parse that out? And doesn't he lose points then for not always being at that level?
So, I guess, I see them as roughly equal, and the recency of the Finals and the fact that it was not just the most recent games but also, well, the Finals, makes me want to rank Wade above Lebron. But overall body of work? It's hard to argue with the guy who scored more points, grabbed more rebounds, dished out more assists, played more games and more minutes, and played defensively at a more consistent level.
I will say this: I felt like all season long Lebron was more resistant to coaching than Wade. He seemed more reluctant to let go of control of the offense, more reluctant to start doing things like setting screens, etc, and I think that slowed the development of Miami's offense. He also seemed more to prone to breaking off plays after one or two triggers rather than running it through, especially pre-March.
I'll also add that its pretty obvious to me that Wade has a far superior understanding of how to attack a zone compared to Lebron. Even when Lebron moved the ball it didn't seem to me he was passing to move the zone, and he certainly didn't seem to understand the driving angles or anything like that.
The thing is, all 4 of them are so close. Now I want to put Wade ahead of Lebron, even though its pretty undeniable that Lebron did more (in the rawest sense) for the team, lol.
edit: So, in short, Wade's peaks were higher, but his valleys lower, and he was more up and down whereas Lebron was more steady. Since the peaks and valleys were as a much product of effort at anything else, the guy with the higher peaks is more valuable for a game or a series, but I'm not sure he's more valuable over the course of a season. Right now I'm leaning towards the guy who's more consistent, even if IMO he has a lower bball IQ.
Doc, am I excluded? I thought what we had was special!