(Lock Thread)The LeBron James- 23-24 NBA Playoffs & Off-Season Thread -(NO PERSONAL ATTACKS & BAITING)

[nzahir]

I hope Lebron is serious about playing with Bronny. Probably the only chance of getting him on a competent team without looking completely shameless.

We can all dream

I wonder what happens if the Suns take him....does Bron actually go to the Suns? (is it even possible?)

Suns, GS, or Sac are the only other teams that are close to LA, so that is a plus

I don't see Bron going to the East Coast unless its Cle

But how would a Suns Lakers deal even work? Are they allowed to even do a sign and trade for Beal with their cap number?

Why the **** would the lakers do that?

Something like Beal, a 1st, and something else or just let Bron walk I guess

But a mute point anyways as its not doable

[TroubleS0me]

Read on Twitter

[trickshot]

If anything the WCF shows the Lakers or any western team aren't as far away from getting a title as any bad matchup or seeding luck might make it seem. Everyone went from calling the Nuggets dominance inevitable to calling the Twolves that. I'd hope no one would move to saying a Mavs loss in the WCF would have been guaranteed for the Lakers. They would have literally had more to throw at the matchup.

Build a defence around AD to have enough two way options and defensive versatility and avoid all of this cryptonite crap. The 2020 roster had the right formula. Would have had an even easier run if Bradley joined the bubble. Weren't even at full strength and won. No one remembers Lakers were the only playoff team who had a starter sit out the bubble.

[Mos_Heat]

If anything the WCF shows the Lakers or any western team aren't as far away from getting a title as any bad matchup or seeding luck might make it seem. Everyone went from calling the Nuggets dominance inevitable to calling the Twolves that. I'd hope no one would move to saying a Mavs loss in the WCF would have been guaranteed for the Lakers. They would have literally had more to throw at the matchup.

Build a defence around AD to have enough two way options and defensive versatility and avoid all of this cryptonite crap. The 2020 roster had the right formula. Would have had an even easier run if Bradley joined the bubble. Weren't even at full strength and won. No one remembers Lakers were the only playoff team who had a starter sit out the bubble.

It seems like playoff mathcups are even more important now in the era of parity

[homecourtloss]

Watching the playoffs just brings into sharp relief how many different ways James impacts the game and cannot be gameplanned away effectively. Look at how much Edwards loses his offensive impact when they blitz him. Luka doesn’t do much defensively (honestly stunned the TWolves haven’t gone after him but really only have one offense creator), and so on. If people were willing to put aside their unreasonable, hate, they would see this and understand why James at 39 is a top 5 player in the playoffs (minimum).

Scorer in transition (gets the DReb and forces the issue), off ball post scoring, off ball cutter or screen-roller, on ball scoring, on ball passing, can’t be effectively doubled. Spot up shooting, on ball defense, team defense, even some rim protection.

[homecourtloss]

Would have had an even easier run if Bradley joined the bubble. Weren't even at full strength and won. No one remembers Lakers were the only playoff team who had a starter sit out the bubble.

More people talk about “Lakers had an unfair advantage in the Mickey Mouse tournament because they were practicing while nobody else was” than actually playing without a starter or losing homecourt advantage.

I still think the Lakers had a good shot at a title THIS year of they didn’t throw away games vs. the Nuggets.

[dcstanley]

If only they made some trades on the margin ala the PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford moves, won a few extra regular season games, and finished on the side of the bracket with a Clippers team sans Kawhi and an inexperienced Thunder team.

Hell, imagine if they just lost the first play-in game and drew OKC in round one and Dallas in round two.

[Ian Scuffling]

Damn, kind of depressing to see the Mavericks one win away from the Finals. Happy for them and I love Luka's game, but to see Kyrie playing such a pivotal role as the team's number two makes me think of what could have been. If he just would have accepted his role with the Cavaliers, Lebron probably has more championships. I know Kyrie had to go through, for Kyrie's sake, what he had to with discovering he is not a number one on a championship level team. But, as a fan of the team he left to make this "discovery" it sucks. LOL...

[Slava]

This is the first time in around 4 years that Kyrie has avoided getting his foot in his mouth or suffer a serious injury. Mavs gamble paid off but I still would not bank on him being consistently reliable.

[zimpy27]

If only LeBron was the actual GM.

You'd have Lue or Kidd coaching Kyrie-LeBron-Davis


Instead Lakers have the Mattel doll version of Rob Lowe

[rk2023]

If only they made some trades on the margin ala the PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford moves, won a few extra regular season games, and finished on the side of the bracket with a Clippers team sans Kawhi and an inexperienced Thunder team.

Hell, imagine if they just lost the first play-in game and drew OKC in round one and Dallas in round two.

Call me crazy (you might if it’s recency bias), but Dallas would have been a winnable series from LA’s perspective

[TroubleS0me]

Read on Twitter

[trickshot]

If only they made some trades on the margin ala the PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford moves, won a few extra regular season games, and finished on the side of the bracket with a Clippers team sans Kawhi and an inexperienced Thunder team.

Hell, imagine if they just lost the first play-in game and drew OKC in round one and Dallas in round two.

I'd go one step less and say if only they made literally any bare minimum move to counter the Denver matchup.

[IG2]

LA's playoff ceiling was sealed when they went into yet another postseason with DLo as their starting PG. He's simply not a guy you can rely on in big games.

[Ian Scuffling]

This is the first time in around 4 years that Kyrie has avoided getting his foot in his mouth or suffer a serious injury. Mavs gamble paid off but I still would not bank on him being consistently reliable.

Great point, but you just never know had he stayed in Cleveland happy, or at least content, as Lebron's Robin. Oh well...

[Djoker]

This is the first time in around 4 years that Kyrie has avoided getting his foot in his mouth or suffer a serious injury. Mavs gamble paid off but I still would not bank on him being consistently reliable.

This. Kyrie has only had four healthy postseasons in his entire career. 2016, 2017, the abysmal 2022 when he and KD got swept and now this current 2024 one. He is not exactly Mr. Reliable but of course when he does play he's pretty good. We know that.

EDIT; Forgot 2019 so five postseasons. Still that's pretty bad for a player who's in the league for 13 years now.

[lessthanjake]

This is the first time in around 4 years that Kyrie has avoided getting his foot in his mouth or suffer a serious injury. Mavs gamble paid off but I still would not bank on him being consistently reliable.

This. Kyrie has only had four healthy postseasons in his entire career. 2016, 2017, the abysmal 2022 when he and KD got swept and now this current 2024 one. He is not exactly Mr. Reliable but of course when he does play he's pretty good. We know that.

EDIT; Forgot 2019 so five postseasons. Still that's pretty bad for a player who's in the league for 13 years now.

To be fair, that’s not all on Kyrie. The first three years of his career, his team didn’t make the playoffs, even though he was a very good player (especially for his age). He did miss a good deal of games in those seasons, but they weren’t going to make the playoffs either way. And then his team didn’t make the playoffs last year, even though the team he left that year made the playoffs while the team he joined had a +4.9 net rating in his minutes there. So I do think there’s basically 4 years of his career where his team didn’t make the playoffs and it wasn’t his fault. Which leaves 9 other years. His record of availability is bad even when we just filter down to those 9 years, since he was unhealthy in the playoffs in 2015, 2018, 2020, and 2021. But I think it’s more like 5 out of 9, rather than 5 out of 13. Bad, but not *quite* as bad.

[Djoker]

This is the first time in around 4 years that Kyrie has avoided getting his foot in his mouth or suffer a serious injury. Mavs gamble paid off but I still would not bank on him being consistently reliable.

This. Kyrie has only had four healthy postseasons in his entire career. 2016, 2017, the abysmal 2022 when he and KD got swept and now this current 2024 one. He is not exactly Mr. Reliable but of course when he does play he's pretty good. We know that.

EDIT; Forgot 2019 so five postseasons. Still that's pretty bad for a player who's in the league for 13 years now.

To be fair, that’s not all on Kyrie. The first three years of his career, his team didn’t make the playoffs, even though he was a very good player (especially for his age). He did miss a good deal of games in those seasons, but they weren’t going to make the playoffs either way. And then his team didn’t make the playoffs last year, even though the team he left that year made the playoffs while the team he joined had a +4.9 net rating in his minutes there. So I do think there’s basically 4 years of his career where his team didn’t make the playoffs and it wasn’t his fault. Which leaves 9 other years. His record of availability is bad even when we just filter down to those 9 years, since he was unhealthy in the playoffs in 2015, 2019, 2020, and 2021. But I think it’s more like 5 out of 9, rather than 5 out of 13. Bad, but not *quite* as bad.

Good post.

He's still been very injury prone. And I think you meant 2018 not 2019.

[Colbinii]

This is the first time in around 4 years that Kyrie has avoided getting his foot in his mouth or suffer a serious injury. Mavs gamble paid off but I still would not bank on him being consistently reliable.

Great point, but you just never know had he stayed in Cleveland happy, or at least content, as Lebron's Robin. Oh well...

The Irony of it all is he ends up next to a Pseudo-LeBron type player in Luka at the end of all the saga(s).

Clearly he needed to figure out life (We all do, especially in our 20s) but the what could have been is definitely something. Cleveland completely mis-managed the Kyrie situation by trading for pennies on the Dollar, which forced them to spend more assets to try and acquire actual players which they failed to do.

Looking at Cleveland now, let's see how they manage their disgruntled star(s) now [Garland and Allen].

[PistolPeteJR]

This is the first time in around 4 years that Kyrie has avoided getting his foot in his mouth or suffer a serious injury. Mavs gamble paid off but I still would not bank on him being consistently reliable.

This. Kyrie has only had four healthy postseasons in his entire career. 2016, 2017, the abysmal 2022 when he and KD got swept and now this current 2024 one. He is not exactly Mr. Reliable but of course when he does play he's pretty good. We know that.

EDIT; Forgot 2019 so five postseasons. Still that's pretty bad for a player who's in the league for 13 years now.

You can't count it as 13 years. You have to count it as seasons where he made the playoffs. That's 7 seasons, practically half the image you're painting.

The 2 he missed were in 2018 and 2020 due to season-ending injuries. Okay, we can count 2015 as well where he got hurt in the 4th quarter of Game 1 of the Finals. That's still most of the entire playoffs that year, including the 2 missed games vs ATL in the ECFs.