SinceGatlingWasARookie wrote:Some days I really hate LeBron fans.
I would be wishing for LeBron to retire if I did not think the idea of LeBron playing with Bronny was interesting.
I have nothing against LeBron but I am sick of LeBron fans.
And LeBron fans are sick of people like you, because if there's one thing that annoys us more than anything, it's people spouting nonsense because they don't know what they're talking about.
Case and point: you in this thread.
SinceGatlingWasARookie wrote:Reality free thinking bugs me. It would be nice if reality free thinking only happened in sports but itt also happens in more important subjects.
You must really hate yourself then, because that's all you really do on this forum. But more importantly, that's what you're doing in this thread.
SinceGatlingWasARookie wrote:Pretending that LeBron did not have decent support in 2009 is LeBron fans choosing to be as delusional as Orange man good and Orange man bad people.
Well for starters, no it isn't. But second and more importantly, that's not what the thread is about. It is about whether or not LeBron had a worse supporting cast in 09 than MJ did in 98. Everyone is going to have their own thoughts and feelings about whether or not LeBron's supporting cast qualifies as decent, but I'll say this now: if your second best player is incapable of putting on an average performance in the postseason, then you have a definition of decent that is way off base.
SinceGatlingWasARookie wrote:I feel sorry for you that Jordan fans just won’t accept weak arguments for LeBron being better than Jordan. I predate Jordan and never was a Jordan Stan. 20 years from now fans will be insisting that some new player is better than LeBron and they will be delusional and worshipping the new guy and you won’t like it.
I feel sorry for you that you are that clueless. The NBA is 75 years old and the guy we're talking about is, going off general consensus, the second greatest player in the history of this sport. So I love this idea that you think that a talent like LeBron can just appear out of the blue 20 years from now and not only live up to the hype he had, but have the career he had. You want to complain about people not thinking based on reality and then you hit us with this ****? Really?
SinceGatlingWasARookie wrote:I don’t want to hear LeBron fans minimizing Mo Williams and the rest of LeBron’s teammates.
There's nothing to minimize. Most people acknowledge that Mo Williams had his strengths, but the issue here is that they went away the moment the playoffs happened. And he had a lot of weaknesses that hindered his ability to truly be the true number 2 to LeBron. The guy was a complete non factor in the post season when he was needed more. When was the last time you could say that about Scottie Pippen? In his first season?
And to top it all off, you left us with this nonsense.
SinceGatlingWasARookie wrote:The weakest supporting cast of Jordan’s championship years. 2009 is the strongest supporting cast of LeBron’s first go round in Cleveland.
This right here pretty much says it all to me. The fact that you think the 2009 supporting cast was LeBron's best during his first stint in Cleveland tells me you have no idea what you're talking about, and clearly did not watch basketball at the time. You hate reality based thinking and you drop this. Jesus.
Pretty much every Cleveland fan as well as any person who was following at the time will tell you that the 2010 supporting cast LeBron had was much better than the 2009 one, and if it weren't for a few circumstances (which I'll go over in a sec), Cleveland more than likely wins the championship that season.
You've spent so much time trying to prop up the 2009 supporting cast LeBron had. In reality, it was a deeply flawed supporting cast and no superstar caliber player in history would have been able to get as much out of them as LeBron did. Williams and West (although he was at least pretty good defensively) were a small backcourt who got lit up in key matchups (Orlando and LA), Varejao had to rely almost entirely on LeBron to get any kind of offense and was more of a hustle rebounder at that point, and big Z was a walking corpse who could at least hit a corner three but that was it. The bench was non existent. And they severely lacked any talent capable of making a legitimate impact on the game outside of LeBron. In no way is that a good supporting cast.
2010 is a different story. THIS is what you can call a decent supporting cast. Hell I'd even settle for you claiming it was a good one. A lot of the issues that were present in the 2009 supporting cast weren't there with the 2010 one. And before I go any further, I'm just going to get this part out of your head now: Shaq is not who I am talking about in regards to upgrades within the supporting cast, he's a small piece of the overall puzzle, even though he does deserve mention.
Since I mentioned him, I'll at least start by mentioning what advantages Shaq brought. As I mentioned to the other poster, Shaq at least brought matchup advantages against certain teams. The fact that he was still so big and strong made him very difficult to guard for opposing teams, and it did actually lead to some problems for them, one of which was foul trouble. The other, however, was just the fact that sometimes, there was nothing teams could do to stop Shaq from doing whatever he wanted. He wasn't 2001 Shaq, but on a team with LeBron, he didn't need to be. Just to be able to give a glimpse of that was an issue. And yes, him being there meant Cleveland no longer had to double team Dwight Howard as frequently. Odds are, Cleveland wins their seven game series against them if it would have happened. Then there's the advantages he presented against LA, but I'll go over that in a moment.
EDIT:
I just realized I never followed up on what I said regarding the advantages Shaq presented against LA, so I guess I'll do it here. The thing is, it wasn't just LA. There were multiple teams in the league that season which Cleveland suddenly fared much better against just from having Shaq, but the Lakers were just the best example. The thing with Z was that he wasn't sustainable as a starting center at this point in his career. He was barely mobile and lacked the strength to bang downlow with the stronger and more agile centers of the league. As I mentioned earlier, that was something Dwight Howard exploited with little effort in the 2009 playoff series and was one of the reasons they managed to upset the Cavaliers. You couldn't do that against Shaq. Yes, Shaq gassed out pretty easily and you couldn't afford to play him more than 25 MPG on a consistent basis. And he was also immobile. But he was still 350 pounds with god knows how much of it being muscle. If you were going to outperform him, you had to really work for it just due to his size. Despite his age, he could ragdoll more than half the centers in the league. So going back to LA for a second, a lot of people tend to downplay Kobe's supporting cast in those two championship rings because the numbers just don't look all that impressive. But in reality, having the two seven footers in that lineup was a cheat code. Pau Gasol was an incredibly skilled big man who played great basketball at both ends of the floor, with a mid range jumper that allowed him to find his offense away from the basket and not clutter up the paint. And while Andrew Bynum wasn't at his all star level form yet, he was still a pretty damn good starting center. He was a physically gifted player with the strength to hang with just about anyone, was a great rim protector and a very good rebounder. Having these two in your starting five was a nightmare for opposing teams to deal with.
I said just about anyone in regards to Bynum... but just about anyone means that there are exceptions. Shaq was that exception. Shaq was the one person Bynum couldn't have his way with and he was the only player capable of being able to gain positioning just about anywhere he wanted. Even though Bynum was obviously the better player, Shaq didn't need to be better. He needed to neutralize him and take away the advantages that allowed him to help LA be as good as they were. And then there's Pau Gasol. As I mentioned before, he was incredibly skilled with a high basketball IQ and very crafty at both ends of the floor. So how do you counteract that? By throwing bodies at him who are capable of playing high tempo basketball on both ends and have the physical ability and traits to tire him out. Well then, it just so happens that Cleveland had JJ Hickson and Anderson Varejao playing the PF positions simultaneously. Yes, in the two meetings the teams had that season, this was a problem for the Lakers too. Gasol actually struggled to keep up with Hickson at times and Hickson was able to use his physical advantages to gain leverage against Gasol and even got baskets because of it. And Varejao just played balls to the wall all night long, so Gasol was always going to have his hands full. And Lamar Odom, LA's ultimate sixth man, was also given fits by the fact that Varejao, who I once again must point out made second team all defense that season, was the one mostly checking him. And Lamar, who was a capable playmaker and could run the offense from the top of the key, wasn't agile enough to shake Varejao off of him, who had no issues being able to defend him anywhere on the floor.
So to summarize... LA went from having two seven footers who could dominate regularly to now not being able to do so against this particular team. That's not to say they didn't play well, but their effectiveness was severely reduced. All of a sudden, Cleveland went from having a huge matchup problem against LA in 2009 to having a huge matchup advantage in 2010. I seriously doubt Cleveland comes out on top in a seven game series in 2009 if they faced LA in the finals, but in 2010? I'm so confident that Cleveland would have won that I would have bet money on it, even now. And this is despite LA improving in 2010 too. If that doesn't tell you everything you need to know, I don't know what will, but the rest of the post continues.Some of the players who were with the team from 09 improved significantly in 2010. Even though Williams wasn't a repeat all star, he was much better at picking his spots and controlling the flow of the offense when LeBron was sitting. And he actually had some notable performances in the playoffs that season, which was a vast improvement over the previous season where he was a complete non factor. Hell, he outright won Cleveland their first game against Boston and was a reason they were within striking distance in game 6. JJ Hickson became a regular rotation player who actually caused a lot of huge matchup problems for opposing teams due to his athleticism. LeBron being able to have someone who could run up and down the floor with him like that did wonders for him, as well as Cleveland's offense. And it was good to have someone who could handle the physicality of the game. But the most improved player without question was Anderson Varejao, who on top of making actual improvements offensively, made huge strides defensively and actually became one of the best defenders at his position (and he even ended up making the all defensive team that season). He was the ultimate sixth man.
But there were additional changes made to the team that also boosted this supporting cast. Anthony Parker was brought over to the team and he proved to be a reliable 3/D SG who provided additional length to the starting unit after they had a small backcourt last year (EDIT: I just realized I didn't even mention the biggest benefit of getting Parker on the team: allowing West to go to the bench, which greatly improved Cleveland's depth and overall structure. Now Cleveland actually had a legitimately good PG caliber player who could come off the bench, help run the offense with Mo whenever LeBron sat and who could actually play defense). And of course, there was Antawn Jamison who was brought over in a trade involving Z who was bought out and then came back over to Cleveland immediately after (so basically he was traded for nothing).
The 2010 Cavaliers also fared much better against the top teams in the league than the 2009 team did. One thing people don't realize about the 2009 Cavs is that they, while remarkably consistent, weren't very good against the playoffs contenders. In fact, they were below .500 against the top six teams in the league. Keep in mind that they only lost 16 games that season.
But the 2010 Cavaliers were a different story. They were able to split the season series with Dallas, Orlando and Boston (something they couldn't do the previous season where they lost each series) (EDIT: something I didn't even remember, but LeBron actually didn't play in the final game against Orlando that season, and neither did Shaq, and yet they still only lost by six despite Orlando playing their full team. Obviously Orlando took it easy on them, so it means nothing. But it's worth noting that compared to last season where Orlando was 2-1 against Cleveland, if we choose not to count this game, then Cleveland ended up being 2-1 against Orlando. I know we like to pretend that regular season doesn't matter, but in reality it absolutely does. It gives us an idea of how well the teams matchup against each other and typically, more often than not at least, the teams that show clear superiority in their respective matchups in the regular season are the ones that usually come out on top), and won both of their meetings against LA (something they also couldn't do the previous season where they lost both) AND PHX. They were the heavy favorites to win that season and it wasn't just due to how great LeBron was at that point. Many people acknowledged that the Cavaliers team was very deep and loaded with firepower. They had so many options for who they could go with at both the backcourt and frontcourt departments. If they wanted size, they had it. If they wanted more athletic and hustle, they had it. If they wanted spot up shooters, they had it. If they wanted people who could actually create their own offense and run it, they had it. They had everything.
So the questions becomes: how the hell did Cleveland lose in the second round that season? Since I already know you don't know the answer to that question (because I know you didn't watch at the time), I'll answer it.
It came down to three factors.
1. Boston got hot AND healthy at the right time and was severely underestimated. Many people wrote off Boston that season due to how poorly they played in the regular season that year. They only managed to win 50 games. But in reality, they were actually a loaded team filled with a very deep rotation. They had injury and consistency issues all season. But right around the end of the season, they were finding their groove and it never went away. But it didn't go on long enough before the playoffs started for anyone to notice. Had they played the way they did throughout the entire season, no one in their right mind would have picked Cleveland to beat them.
2. Mike Brown made a lot of questionable coaching decisions that series which ultimately led to his dismissal as a coach. I'm not going to go through all of them. But I will say that the biggest mistake he made was keeping Antawn Jamison in the starting lineup after it became very clear in the first two games that he was getting dominated by Garnett and nothing was going to change that (although Jamison did manage to have his only good game of the series in game 3 when he put up 20/12). In the regular season, Boston had a very difficult time playing against Cleveland when they went with a more athletic and physical brand of basketball due to their advanced age. If Mike Brown had any idea what he was doing, he would have either started Hickson at PF instead of Jamison, or at least would have played him a LOT more than he did. Instead, he barely played him at all. Hell, he didn't even play at all in game 6, which was a game Cleveland had a legitimate chance of winning.
3. LeBron himself. People don't actually criticize LeBron enough for this series, and I've found that very strange because you'd think they would jump on the opportunity to do so. But yes, LeBron deserves criticism for how he played in this series and in fact, people don't realize it because they blindly go off box score numbers. In the 2009 playoffs, LeBron was a fearless animal who gave no **** and dominated anyone and everyone in his path. That wasn't the case at all in 2010 against Boston. LeBron himself went on record to state that he never truly believed that Cleveland had any chance of beating the Celtics, and while I personally think that's false, the way he played definitely showed that he thought this way. The insane amount of effort and hustle he was giving in the Orlando series wasn't there in this one, and his body language told the whole story. People only notice the game 5 performance because that was, without question, one of his worst playoff performances of all time. But really, the way he played in that game wasn't any different from the way he played the rest of the series, apart from ONE GAME. One. And that was game 3, where he actually played like his life was on the line and was out there with a clear purpose. I theorize that the reason he was so motivated was because his jump shot was actually falling in this game, which gave him added inspiration. It definitely helped that the Celtics were relaxed and the rest of the Cavaliers were hot for vengeance, but either way, this was the one game in the entire series where Cleveland looked like they were the better team. If LeBron gave the same kind of effort in this series that he gave in 2009, Cleveland would have went to the finals and I think they would have beaten LA to win their first championship.
So there you have it. The 2010 supporting cast was pretty easily better from top to bottom. They didn't lose any key assets that made them so good in 2009, they improved upon them. They made actual upgrades to their roster while some of their role players actually got better. As I said before, had it not been for certain circumstances, that supporting cast would have been more than enough to land LeBron a championship that season because all the signs pointed to that happening. It just ended up not working out that way.
Now please, stop posting in this thread.
Yea, he sure “elevated” the Magic, not the iconic superstar duo of Shaq/Penny.