Rebuttal to "10 Reasons LeBron Could Consider New York"

[Gordon Bombay]

At the end of the day I doubt it will come down to management if/when Lebron leaves. You can argue with the moves, but they've done just about anything they can to field a winner.

Ultimately it will come down to Lebron, the decision will be his, and his alone.

agreed...the current cavs fo has catered to lebron in every way imaginable. it wasnt their fault that the previous regime let boozer slip away or traded away the majority of the cavs first round picks in recent years

its on lebron's shoulders whether or not he wants to stay with a budding championship contender that has waited on him hand and foot or go to new york and join a team that is at least 2 or 3 years from contending even with lebron

So the news article are all of the sudden not a reliable source if they negatively affect Cleveland.

wait, where'd you get that from rgraca's post?

[Knicksick]

At the end of the day I doubt it will come down to management if/when Lebron leaves. You can argue with the moves, but they've done just about anything they can to field a winner.

Ultimately it will come down to Lebron, the decision will be his, and his alone.

agreed...the current cavs fo has catered to lebron in every way imaginable. it wasnt their fault that the previous regime let boozer slip away or traded away the majority of the cavs first round picks in recent years

its on lebron's shoulders whether or not he wants to stay with a budding championship contender that has waited on him hand and foot or go to new york and join a team that is at least 2 or 3 years from contending even with lebron

So the news article are all of the sudden not a reliable source if they negatively affect Cleveland.

wait, where'd you get that from rgraca's post?

Astonishing how Cavs fans really believe that. How in the world do the Cavs win more than 30-35 games without Lebron?There is NO way they'd even sniff playoffs without Lebron. It's totally beyond me how Cavs fans can honestly believe that your team minus Lebron is substantially better than the Knicks. The only way Lebron truly stays with Cleveland is if he can make more money here in Cleveland. If that's the case he'll stay or if he wins a title this season. If you think that your supporting cast is gonna keep him in Cleveland vs. New York than you'll be in for a surprise. Go ahead and compare the starters ,the bench, the coach and try to maintain that Cleveland is clearly better. Cause they're not.

[Gordon Bombay]

Astonishing how Cavs fans really believe that. How in the world do the Cavs win more than 30-35 games without Lebron?There is NO way they'd even sniff playoffs without Lebron. It's totally beyond me how Cavs fans can honestly believe that your team minus Lebron is substantially better than the Knicks. The only way Lebron truly stays with Cleveland is if he can make more money here in Cleveland. If that's the case he'll stay or if he wins a title this season. If you think that your supporting cast is gonna keep him in Cleveland vs. New York than you'll be in for a surprise. Go ahead and compare the starters ,the bench, the coach and try to maintain that Cleveland is clearly better. Cause they're not.

yea heard all about how chandler's the next pippen, gallos the next dirk/christ, toney douglas is the next defensive player of the year and jordan hills the next okafor

even with lebron, the knicks are 2-4 years from being championship contenders because no one on that team can stop howard

[Knicksick]

Astonishing how Cavs fans really believe that. How in the world do the Cavs win more than 30-35 games without Lebron?There is NO way they'd even sniff playoffs without Lebron. It's totally beyond me how Cavs fans can honestly believe that your team minus Lebron is substantially better than the Knicks. The only way Lebron truly stays with Cleveland is if he can make more money here in Cleveland. If that's the case he'll stay or if he wins a title this season. If you think that your supporting cast is gonna keep him in Cleveland vs. New York than you'll be in for a surprise. Go ahead and compare the starters ,the bench, the coach and try to maintain that Cleveland is clearly better. Cause they're not.

yea heard all about how chandler's the next pippen, gallos the next dirk/christ, toney douglas is the next defensive player of the year and jordan hills the next okafor

even with lebron, the knicks are 2-4 years from being championship contenders because no one on that team can stop howard

And who on the Cavs is gonna stop Howard?Howard put up 19/15/4 against the Cavs on above 60% shooting and 20/8 against Shaq in just 26 minutes. Howard at this point is gonna run circles around Shaq/Ilgauskas who might be the slowest Center tandem in the whole league. Howard is gonna get his in the playoffs no matter against who (except Celtics maybe). And no one is saying the above mentioned about those players BUT Cleveland's supporting cast is weak IMO. You guys still don't have that 2nd option that you can rely on in the playoffs---your supporting cast is Mo Williams,Delonte West,Z,Shaq and Varejao. I mean is anyone surprised that you guys lost to Orlando?This is no coincidence--these guys are NOT that strong. Good enough to win regular season games but this team is not gonna beat the Celtics in the playoffs.

Compare:

Williams
West
?
Varejao
Shaq

to

Duhon
Chandler
Harrington
Lee
Milicic

You guys get the nod at PG and C while we get the nod at SF. SG and PF are very close. Our bench with Nate,Gallo and Hill should be better than yours IMO. At least very close. Our coach is probably more appealing than your coach. No matter how you spin I have no clue how your team minus Lebron is much better---IMO it really isn't.

[Gordon Bombay]

that team that you are using for comparison will all be cleared out for cap space - so whats the point?

[Knicksick]

The only two expiring contracts are Shaq and Ilgauskas which is gonna leave you with no Center. If you add Lebron to West,Williams and Varejao you won't have that much caproom remaining anyways. Even from that stanpoint the Knicks are no worse off than Cleveland. In 2011 all our bad contracts are off the books.We have NO longterm salary(rookies aside).

[Knicksick]

I would still like to see a reaonable post by a Cavs fan that convinces me that Cleveland can provide the clearly better basketball future for Lebron than New York. Don't get me wrong, I'm not falling for all that Lebron to New York hype anyways and I sincerely hope that our FO isn't banking our whole future on Lebron signing with us BUT I still totally disagree with those "why would Lebron leave a much better Cleveland team for New York" sentiments who IMO do not represent reality.

[Gordon Bombay]

I would still like to see a reaonable post by a Cavs fan that convinces me that Cleveland can provide the clearly better basketball future for Lebron than New York. Don't get me wrong, I'm not falling for all that Lebron to New York hype anyways and I sincerely hope that our FO isn't banking our whole future on Lebron signing with us BUT I still totally disagree with those "why would Lebron leave a much better Cleveland team for New York" sentiments who IMO do not represent reality.

personally i think the knicks would be last of the five the lebron could skip town for - with much more attractive destinations for winning in miami, new jersey, chicago and especially with the clippers (if they can get far enough under the cap). the only thing appealling about new york in my eyes is the spotlight (like lebron needs anymore)

every knicks fan that has come over has said about all the potential team but the only player to show consistent talent (out of those four) has been wilson chandler - dude can ball not going to lie (pippen he is not, however). the others are jordan hill, toney douglas and gallinari - the first two are unproven rookies and the other was injured for a good portion of the year (i know he has 20 ppg that you all have talked about despite only averaging 6 ppg this year)

the cavs are built to win now and will worry about the future later whereas the knicks might be built for the future, nobody really knows for sure. i hope the cavs use the contract of z (with z coming back in a buyout) wisely to better construct the team built both for continued winning as well as the future

[TheOUTLAW]

The Cavs don't necessarily have a guaranteed better future, but it's not guaranteed that they'll have a worse future than the Knicks either. it takes years to get he stench of loser off of a franchise and the knicks will be no different.

[landphil]

It is not really all about offense, despite what Knicks fans and D'antoni might say. Case in point, yes offensively New York did outscore the cavs last year (105 vs 100) and yet the Knicks gave up 17 more points per game than the Cavs. They were outscored by an average of 3 per game by opponents, whereas the cavs were outscoring teams by an average of 9 points a game.

Like someone said before, who will guard Howard? they have nothing at the center position, David Lee is their only rebounder as only 1 guy on the entire team averages over 6 rebounds per game while we have 4 guys who do that on the cavs, including lebron.

The knicks give up more points, rebounds, assists, steals, turnovers, blocks, free throws, fg % than their opponents do. Even if you take off lebron from the cavs and add in the average SF performance out of a team this last year (The warriors - http://www.hoopsstats.com/basketball/fantasy/nba/teamstats/09/8/diffeff), the cavs are only outscored by 2 (same as the Knicks), still outrebound their opponents, and lose little in the way of average blocks and steals. They do lose quite a bit in free throws, assists and assist to turnover ratio i will say that. But all that being said, that is the cavs without lebron, still generally better than the Knicks.

Also to follow up with one more point, take a look at that link above and look through the different NBA team stats and see where cleveland compares to New York. Now i didnt have time to take lebron out of all of them but even so this is pretty telling...

Backcourt, frontcourt, in and out of paint, starters, bench (which you claimed the Knicks is better), PG, SG, SF, and C. Cleveland is better in all of those. The only one they are not better in is PF, which is basically because we had Varajao and Ben Wallace playing there most of last season and your best player plays at PF. With that being said, that position is better for the knicks...by 2 SPOTS!

I hope that was reasonable enough for you...

[Knicksick]

It is not really all about offense, despite what Knicks fans and D'antoni might say. Case in point, yes offensively New York did outscore the cavs last year (105 vs 100) and yet the Knicks gave up 17 more points per game than the Cavs. They were outscored by an average of 3 per game by opponents, whereas the cavs were outscoring teams by an average of 9 points a game.

Like someone said before, who will guard Howard? they have nothing at the center position, David Lee is their only rebounder as only 1 guy on the entire team averages over 6 rebounds per game while we have 4 guys who do that on the cavs, including lebron.

The knicks give up more points, rebounds, assists, steals, turnovers, blocks, free throws, fg % than their opponents do. Even if you take off lebron from the cavs and add in the average SF performance out of a team this last year (The warriors - http://www.hoopsstats.com/basketball/fantasy/nba/teamstats/09/8/diffeff), the cavs are only outscored by 2 (same as the Knicks), still outrebound their opponents, and lose little in the way of average blocks and steals. They do lose quite a bit in free throws, assists and assist to turnover ratio i will say that. But all that being said, that is the cavs without lebron, still generally better than the Knicks.

Also to follow up with one more point, take a look at that link above and look through the different NBA team stats and see where cleveland compares to New York. Now i didnt have time to take lebron out of all of them but even so this is pretty telling...

Backcourt, frontcourt, in and out of paint, starters, bench (which you claimed the Knicks is better), PG, SG, SF, and C. Cleveland is better in all of those. The only one they are not better in is PF, which is basically because we had Varajao and Ben Wallace playing there most of last season and your best player plays at PF. With that being said, that position is better for the knicks...by 2 SPOTS!

I hope that was reasonable enough for you...

First off thanks for your post. Interesting read but IMO it doesn't really prove that much of a point. With your own stats you showed that Cleveland minus Lebron gets outscored by as many points per game as the Knicks---that's the bottom line important stat--that was my point. How can a team "generally better" (without Lebron) get outscored by the same amount as the team compared to?Doesn't make that much sense IMO. If you read my post you'll see that I pretty much agree with most things you say: Cleveland has the better frontcourt, the tougher frontcourt,better rebounding,defense,shotblocking and size. There is no disputing that. I said that Cleveland has the better PG and C. Despite your stats I still maintain that the Knicks have the way better SF in Al Harrington. I wrote that SG (West compared to Chandler) and PF are very close depending on what your team needs (although you say that the Knicks have the better PF).
Our bench consists of Nate,Gallo,Hill and possibly Curry. Now if you view Gallo and Hill as non proven rookies (which is basically true and absolutely legitimate) then I can see how you get to the conclusion that the Cavs bench might be better---BUT we Knick fans believe that Gallo is our best player---right away (if healthy). Not in 3 or 4 years but right now. Most guys expect him in the 15-18 point range along with 4rebounds/5assists type of numbers. The italian team manager of chef scout or something said that Gallinari is better then Bargnani RIGHT NOW as far as I remember---just to give you an idea of what kind of player he is right now. Of course until he doesn't prove it all of that means nothing.
The best example I can give you is the comparison to New Jersey. IMO last year's Cleveland team minus Lebron has the same strengths as New Jersey at PG,SG and the Center position.

Harris>>>Williams
Carter>>>West
Lopez=Z

Cleveland has the advantage at PF but keep in mind that New Jersey won 33 games. How in the world can you tell me with a straight face that Cleveland minus Lebron is better and more talented than New Jersey?
Knicks are a 32 win team right now. I personally believe Cleveland is in the 30-35 range without Lebron---you could possibly make an argument for 36 wins but there is no way one can make an argument for either team being substantially better than the other IMO.
As for the capspace argument---Cleveland has committed 32 million for next offseason (with Lebron optin out)--New York has 22million on it's books as long as they don't add salary. For 2011 Cleveland has 22mill. on the books while the Knicks have only rookie deals worth 10mill. So you can see that the situations are again comparable--slight advantage to New York maybe (although the extension for Nate/Lee ) might negate that 10mill. advantage. Again very similar IMO.
Again I'm not saying Lebron is gonna do this or that---because I have no clue what he is going to do and a lot can happen during the season and offseason BUT the "basketball situations" in Cleveland (minus Lebron) and New York are very similar IMO. The big advantage for Cleveland is money as they can offer 20-30mill. more I believe. That is the one and only major advantage IMO. But saying Cleveland presents a much better chance at a championship is just as wrong as Knick fans saying Lebron is defenitely signing because of the spotlight---both is far from being true IMO.

[landphil]

I understand what your saying, but my point when showing you that without lebron the Knicks and the Cavs both get outscored by 2 points is that the Knicks still play no defense, which you have to do to win in the playoffs, and secondly, that was with an average production out of the SF position. With a better than average SF, they are at least as good if not better than the Knicks.

Now the salary cap issue. Yes it is true in 2010/2011 the knicks only have about 22 mil on the books. But they only have 8 players on their roster at that point with Chandler being the only proven guy on the team at that point. Their lineup even with Lebron, who would push their cap close to 45 mil or so (I think he can get about 102 mil split over 5 years, so essentially about 20 mil a year), leaving little to no room to sign any other big marquee guys and little to no room to sign anyone else. So their lineup would be...

C: Curry/?
PF: Hill/Hunter
SF:Lebron/ Chandler/Jeffries/Gallinari
SG: Crawford
PG: Douglas

Does that honestly look like a team that could win 30 games with Lebron? Without Lebron, i dont see that team winning 10 games...The cavs on the other hand, have everyone except shaq and Z on the books for 2010, have Mo, Andy, JJ, Moon, and Gibson on the books for 2011 already. So yes you are right, NY has less money committed to people as it stands now but do you or anyone else really believe Lebron wants to go to NY and commit 5 years to a team that has no one signed, no veteran players, and no depth except your best 3 players at SF? It makes much more sense financially and long term in terms of winning for Lebron to stay with the Cavs since he cant be sure of the future in NY.

[Knicksick]

Your 2010 Knick scenario is unrealistic landphil. If the cap stays at 57mill. the Knicks are gonna have 35mill. available in capspace. If worst comes to worst and the cap goes down to 53mill. then they'll still have 31mill. available. Lebron's STARTING salary (which is important not the average per year) is gonna be at 16-17mill. , leaving 15-19mill. for the Knicks to spend on other players. They'd also have the MLE available for another good player signing.

Chandler,Gallinari,Douglas,Hill,Curry,Jeffries are under contract. Add Lebron and we'll still have around 15mill. and the MLE to add to the team. The Knicks could re-sign Lee possibly for 8mill. a year, give the MLE to Nate and sign Al Harrington for 7mill. a year. My point is that with Lebron, our young core and 15mill in capspace and the MLE we can sign 2-3 good or even very good players. I find it personally more then realistic to keep Nate,Lee,Harrington while adding Lebron. If Walsh somehow manages to dump Jeffries or Curry it opens up a lot of further possibilities.

So Chandler,Gallinari,Douglas,Hill,Curry,Jeffries+Lebron+15mill. in capspace+MLE exception+20mill. in capspace for 2011 is the WORST Knick scenario that Lebron would be looking at.
If the Knicks get lucky and are able to dump either Jeffries or Curry they'll be able to offer an even more attractive scenario.

[TheOUTLAW]

You don't get an MLE if you team is under that cap.

[rjgraca]

Curious, how do you get rid of Jeffries and Curry without further gutting the Knicks? Almost every team I can think of will want sweetener in the form of the young aforementioned players you are touting for the Knicks. As previously stated...the only player that has proven anything yet for the Knicks is Chandler and guess who all the teams will want to trade expiring for Curry and maybe Jeffries for. The Knicks are doing a good job of alienating Robinson and Lee which doesn't bode well for their long-term presence on the Knicks. The Knicks probably will struggle again next season without the benefit of a first round pick for 2010. The Knicks picture is not a Rosie as some dreamers of Lebron would like to believe.

A more realistic option for the Knicks would be Amare Stoudamire from the Suns who can be plugged right into Knicks offense and be the main man he wants to be. A good complimentary player would be someone like Joe Johnson.

Free-Agent Frustration a Good Thing for Knicks

Walsh wisely pointed his cap-cutting efforts at next offseason, which only makes sense because LeBron James and friends are going to be free agents. But there have been problems with the plan. First, it remains highly unlikely that James will leave Cleveland. Second, the shaky world economy figures to further shrink the NBA’s salary cap, leaving Walsh with a lot less cash than he thought he had to spend.

The Knicks are certainly counting on combining cap space and a big-market vibe to lure free agents. Back in 2000, the Bulls found that doesn’t always work, when they were spurned by Tracy McGrady and wound up with, ahem, Ron Mercer.

http://www.sportingnews.com/blog/The_Ba ... for_knicks

[landphil]

Your 2010 Knick scenario is unrealistic landphil. If the cap stays at 57mill. the Knicks are gonna have 35mill. available in capspace. If worst comes to worst and the cap goes down to 53mill. then they'll still have 31mill. available. Lebron's STARTING salary (which is important not the average per year) is gonna be at 16-17mill. , leaving 15-19mill. for the Knicks to spend on other players. They'd also have the MLE available for another good player signing.

Chandler,Gallinari,Douglas,Hill,Curry,Jeffries are under contract. Add Lebron and we'll still have around 15mill. and the MLE to add to the team. The Knicks could re-sign Lee possibly for 8mill. a year, give the MLE to Nate and sign Al Harrington for 7mill. a year. My point is that with Lebron, our young core and 15mill in capspace and the MLE we can sign 2-3 good or even very good players. I find it personally more then realistic to keep Nate,Lee,Harrington while adding Lebron. If Walsh somehow manages to dump Jeffries or Curry it opens up a lot of further possibilities.

So Chandler,Gallinari,Douglas,Hill,Curry,Jeffries+Lebron+15mill. in capspace+MLE exception+20mill. in capspace for 2011 is the WORST Knick scenario that Lebron would be looking at.
If the Knicks get lucky and are able to dump either Jeffries or Curry they'll be able to offer an even more attractive scenario.

Again though, they have 4 SF out of 7 players including lebron, 3 of which are their best 3 players if you include lebron. With no first rounder, how can you possibly think they can sign a PG up to par with Mo Williams, a SG equal to Parker/West, a PF equal to Andy (that one you can probably do...), and a legit Center? add into that the weakness overall of the bench at both the guards spot and the center spot and while you might be able to sign lebron and some other big free agent, you are not gonna be anywhere near as deep or talented, definitely in 2010 and maybe beyond, as the cavs will be.

[landphil]

Sorry for the double post but i just saw this article which deals with this situation...

http://basketball.realgm.com/src_wiretap_archives/61314/20090826/could_knicks_re_sign_lee_or_nate_next_summer/