The Lebron Thread (Pt. 3)

[E-Balla]

LeBron is the focal point of both the offense and the defense. If they are playing well on both ends, and winning in blowout fashion, I see no reason to even care what the numbers say.

It's only poor scoring by LeBron's lofty standards. Paul Pierce was getting the "best player in the world" moniker when he was able to lift himself to 20 a game on 44% shooting.

Anyway, no one outside of LeBron was doing any heavy lifting, and the Heat rolled. Good on them. If he starts getting single coverage, and the offense stalls out, and he can't/won't score, then I'll be worried.

But Lebron did no heavy lifting. The man had 4 in the first half and Miami still led by 5. He had 10 on 4-14 shooting to start the fourth and they had still a 10 point lead.

[E-Balla]

In short, the answer to everything is everybody sucks or is injured, and in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king

This is the last bullet to fire for Skip Bayless' wannabes. It's immensely amusing. There is no where else for them to go at this point.

And your point seems to be that even when he looks bad out there and his numbers are bad what's really happening is that he is magically possessing the bodies of D. Wade and Chalmers to allow Wade to win them the first half and Chalmers to wrap things up in the third.

[JulesWinnfield]

In short, the answer to everything is everybody sucks or is injured, and in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king

This is the last bullet to fire for Skip Bayless' wannabes. It's immensely amusing. There is no where else for them to go at this point.

And your point seems to be that even when he looks bad out there and his numbers are bad what's really happening is that he is magically possessing the bodies of D. Wade and Chalmers to allow Wade to win them the first half and Chalmers to wrap things up in the third.

My point is more big picture than just game 2 of this series. He wasn't great by Lebron standards last night. Although the notion that he was useless to Miami's cause is pretty ridiculous. So is the notion that Wade played a bigger role in the outcome than Lebron. Even when he was scoring in the 1st half, Danny Green was torching him leading miami to switch Lebron over in that 2nd half. And much of what chalmers accomplished yesterday was off of the pick and roll with Lebron. Of course there is no stat for that unless hes getting an assist or a bucket, so it falls on deaf ears when he is out there making impactful ball screens, that is just 'Rio carrying Lebron'

[semi-sentient]

LeBron's defense and rebounding definitely left a lot to be desired for most of the game. People need to stop with the revisionist history. This game was played less than 24 hours ago for crying out loud. His intensity didn't really pick up until late in the 3rd and continued into the 4th, but before that he wasn't closing out on shooters, got beat several times off the dribble, and generally did a poor job of rotating compared to his normal self. The Spurs were getting a ton of offensive rebounds (18 after 3 quarters -- including team offensive rebounds), and part of that was on LeBron for not boxing out or going aggressively after rebounds. Duncan didn't even play in the 4th and that's where LeBron racked up several to get his totals up to 8 (3 in the 4th). You can certainly say that he had a great rebounding quarter but you also have to put his numbers into context.

LeBron had a phenomenal stretch though and at the end of the day the Heat played great as a team so I don't think it particularly matters that he struggled early on. That's the whole point of playing with other highly talented players. They pick up the slack when things aren't going your way.

[E-Balla]

First off your talking about the big picture in comparison to other greats. You went out and found evidence to show that the Heat are a very weak championship team and immediately called me out for saying they were. Then you tried to act like they did nothing the whole postseason even though they just won a game without help from Lebron. So which is it. Is Lebron playing at all time great level (even though nothing indicates that he is this postseason) or is he playing teams weak enough for Miami to beat?

Secondly what the hell does Carmelo have to do with this? Are you really do inept at forming a coherent argument that you must bring up a player that's out the playoffs in an attempt to discredit me as a poster (he's a Knicks fan LOLZ!!!!)? If you want to talk about what Lebron did this season it's whatever. He was great.

[CJ_18]

LeBron is the focal point of both the offense and the defense. If they are playing well on both ends, and winning in blowout fashion, I see no reason to even care what the numbers say.

It's only poor scoring by LeBron's lofty standards. Paul Pierce was getting the "best player in the world" moniker when he was able to lift himself to 20 a game on 44% shooting.

Anyway, no one outside of LeBron was doing any heavy lifting, and the Heat rolled. Good on them. If he starts getting single coverage, and the offense stalls out, and he can't/won't score, then I'll be worried.

But Lebron did no heavy lifting. The man had 4 in the first half and Miami still led by 5. He had 10 on 4-14 shooting to start the fourth and they had still a 10 point lead.

You must be one of those guys who think Basketball is all about scoring and Carmelo is a top 3 player in the league.

He does everything for Miami, not just score. When he wasn't scoring yesterday, he was setting screens, drawing defenders in and then finding the subsequent open shooters. Like Magic Johnson mentioned, it seemed like he had alot more than 7 assists because he was constantly finding shooters whose defenders were cheating inside due to being worried about the possibility of LeBron penetrating. I also don't know how you can say 8 rebounds is horrible. Its average for him, and very good for any other forward in the NBA.

And defensively? The spurs were not very successful on offensive outside of a couple no-name shooters getting hot from 3. We all know LeBron is the leader defensively and Miami's best defender, so San Antonio's inefficiencies were related to James. Spurs were turnover machine which is also a large credit to LeBron who is the catalyst for that, which then also sparks their transition game. And of course we also saw LeBron at his rim-protecting best last night.

The only true weakness in his game last night was his scoring. I don't expect him to score 30 points when a team is collapsing inside and basically not letting him drive off the dribble. His jumper was off for the most part and he decided to stop shooting them for some reason. The only problem was this lack of desire to try to score in other ways.. or lack of aggressiveness in finding his own shot. Every other aspect of his game was good from him.

[E-Balla]

We all know LeBron is the leader defensively and Miami's best defender, so San Antonio's inefficiencies were related to James.

Did Tyson Chandler play good defensively in the playoffs? The Knicks did and he's their leader on defense.

[NaturalThunder]

I'm not going to go to the extreme GC Pantalones is going to, because I don't agree with some of what he's saying. However, it does seem that, on here at least, LeBron has reached Michael Jordan status in that he's immune to much more than mild criticism.

Before his driving layup last night with 1:50 left in the third quarter that gave Miami a 69-62 lead, LeBron had 6 points, 5 rebounds, and 4 assists on 2-for-12 shooting. He scored 9 of his 17 points in the 4th quarter when Miami already had a double-digit lead. I won't go as far to say he was a frontrunner or whatever last night, because that type of stuff gets overstated, but he was really bad last night until the Heat started opening things up a little bit. That's fine, players have games like that. But the overselling of his two man game with Chalmers, where he was the screener more often than the scorer, is mildly annoying. If LeBron was working a great two-man game with Bosh or Haslem, where LeBron was doing most of the scoring and Bosh or Haslem were the screener, no one would be praising Bosh or Haslem; LeBron would get most of the credit.

As for LeBron's defense, it wasn't up to his usual standards. I saw someone post Leonard's shooting numbers...really? I specifically recall 2 or 3 instances in the first half where Leonard missed point-blank layups. He also had 8 offensive rebounds last night. Leonard had quite a bit to do with his poor FG%. On top of the 2 or 3 missed lay-ups, he bricked a couple of open corner 3's. So if you want to give LeBron credit for those 4 or 5 (of his 8 total) misses, that's fine, but at least put them into context.

I understand how great LeBron is and I'm not trying to say last night's game ruined what he did in the ECF and in the regular season this year. He's still the best player in the NBA by a considerable margin. However, last night was the first time I thought he looked like 2011 Finals LeBron since, well, the 2011 Finals. His jumper abandoned him, thus he was very timid to take the open jumpers he was getting, and his overall impact was very minimal until late in the 3rd quarter and in the 4th quarter after the Heat had opened up a double-digit lead. I just can't think of any viable argument or reason to be apologetic of his performance last night.

I'm also understanding and willing to be forgiving of it, though, given the load he's had to carry for the Heat this year. Aside from their 40 point beatdown and the 20ish point win in the ECF, that was the only other time in the playoffs where I thought the entire Miami team stepped-up and made a positive impact. It wasn't all LeBron and just one or two other players with decent contributions. Everyone played well and I think the focus on last night's game should be on the team, not LeBron. They all did what he's done for them most of the playoffs, and that's pick-up the slack and played well. That was the Miami team I think most of us thought we'd see more often in the playoffs. That was the 27 game win-streak Heat.

[JulesWinnfield]

First off your talking about the big picture in comparison to other greats. You went out and found evidence to show that the Heat are a very weak championship team and immediately called me out for saying they were. Then you tried to act like they did nothing the whole postseason even though they just won a game without help from Lebron. So which is it. Is Lebron playing at all time great level (even though nothing indicates that he is this postseason) or is he playing teams weak enough for Miami to beat?

Secondly what the hell does Carmelo have to do with this? Are you really do inept at forming a coherent argument that you must bring up a player that's out the playoffs in an attempt to discredit me as a poster (he's a Knicks fan LOLZ!!!!)? If you want to talk about what Lebron did this season it's whatever. He was great.

Again i reject the notion that they won yesterday without help from Lebron, or that they win yesterday without him. That's your starting point, and frankly that is absolutely absurd on so many levels beyond the box score. And if they do win a game without much help from Lebron, it wouldn't negate the fact that he has carried them in this postseason. He's allowed to get help every now and then. As for the Melo comment, I removed it shortly after making it because i realized it was kind of pointless.

[E-Balla]

Well this postseason the only team they really played was Indiana and I said he was good against them. Nothing spectacular and not best ever level but pretty good (29/7/5 on 61 TS).

But again Chicago and Milwaukee were clearly bad teams and he hasn't been great against the Spurs so your still arguing 2 great seasons and 1 great postseason against guys like Hakeem and Shaq (who I believe have the best 2 year runs). He falls short in comparison to both.

[JNelson43]

LeBron's defense and rebounding definitely left a lot to be desired for most of the game. People need to stop with the revisionist history. This game was played less than 24 hours ago for crying out loud. His intensity didn't really pick up until late in the 3rd and continued into the 4th, but before that he wasn't closing out on shooters, got beat several times off the dribble, and generally did a poor job of rotating compared to his normal self. The Spurs were getting a ton of offensive rebounds (18 after 3 quarters -- including team offensive rebounds), and part of that was on LeBron for not boxing out or going aggressively after rebounds. Duncan didn't even play in the 4th and that's where LeBron racked up several to get his totals up to 8 (3 in the 4th). You can certainly say that he had a great rebounding quarter but you also have to put his numbers into context.

LeBron had a phenomenal stretch though and at the end of the day the Heat played great as a team so I don't think it particularly matters that he struggled early on. That's the whole point of playing with other highly talented players. They pick up the slack when things aren't going your way.

That's exactly how I saw it. Said the same thing on the general board, its interesting to see two extremes have the exact same reaction no matter how Lebron actually plays. Pro-Lebron folks cherry pick the good stuff that will always happen just because he's Lebron- that means more attention to him than Mario Chalmers. But we don't have to expound on how brilliant that is and then ignore a passive Lebron being about 2-12 and letting players grab boards right from under him. Or at best only say "He shot poorly" or "Wasn't his best game".

The sad part is that Lebron haters are much, much worse and will manufacture the most obscure standards that Lebron must adhere to, otherwise he's somehow subpar.

I see myself as much closer to the pro-Lebron side, yet I do have some sympathy for the nay-sayers simply because of how highly touted Lebron has become. If we have to put up with dozens of Lebron vs. Jordan statements from every direction, it shouldn't be a mortal sin to point out when he has had an inferior game by his own standards.

As far as the specific game, I agree with the assessment. Lebron's game was downright puzzling up to the point where they started to pull away. He missed a break away dunk, he missed an easy point blank shot in the post, he wouldn't take wide open threes that the Spurs were giving him. Then near the end of the third quarter you could really see Lebron pick up his effort even though his jump shot was off, and that played a huge part in Miami's ability to pull away. Prior to that point he did have a positive effect as far as drawing attention away from other players, but like I said- that's something that will happen every single time he steps on to the court. He deserves ultimate credit for it, but its not something that he actually did in this game (if that makes sense).

[JulesWinnfield]

Well this postseason the only team they really played was Indiana and I said he was good against them. Nothing spectacular and not best ever level but pretty good (29/7/5 on 61 TS).

But again Chicago and Milwaukee were clearly bad teams and he hasn't been great against the Spurs so your still arguing 2 great seasons and 1 great postseason against guys like Hakeem and Shaq (who I believe have the best 2 year runs). He falls short in comparison to both.

There are arguments but the notion that its absurd to elevate Lebron into this debate (assuming he caps this off) is just simply not fair

And even while he has underwhelmed you in this postseason (admittedly not going full bore in the first 2 rounds against inferior competition when it wasn't necessary) his current 2013 postseason PER would still be the best by an alpha title winner in a decade (besides his own 2012). And his WS/48 would be the best since MJ in '96 (besides his own 2012). Should he win this title with this version of Wade and Bosh, I have no issue calling it a great postseason. He had a huge conference final against the best D in the league, and I would hold off before projecting him to average 17.5 pts in these finals as it continues.

[E-Balla]

Well this postseason the only team they really played was Indiana and I said he was good against them. Nothing spectacular and not best ever level but pretty good (29/7/5 on 61 TS).

But again Chicago and Milwaukee were clearly bad teams and he hasn't been great against the Spurs so your still arguing 2 great seasons and 1 great postseason against guys like Hakeem and Shaq (who I believe have the best 2 year runs). He falls short in comparison to both.

There are arguments but the notion that its absurd to elevate Lebron into this debate (assuming he caps this off) is just simply not fair

And even while he has underwhelmed you in this postseason (admittedly not going full bore in the first 2 rounds against inferior competition when it wasn't necessary) his current 2013 postseason PER would still be the best by an alpha title winner in a decade (besides his own 2012). And his WS/48 would be the best since MJ in '96 (besides his own 2012). Should he win this title with this version of Wade and Bosh, I have no issue calling it a great postseason. He had a huge conference final against the best D in the league, and I would hold off before projecting him to average 17.5 pts in these finals as it continues.

PER in the playoffs is based off the the series stats and not the overall playoffs. Basically if you average 25/5/5 on 50 TS but the series average was 70 ppg on 45 TS your PER would shoot up when adjusted. This applies to Lebron because he's played scrub teams. It's not an apples to apples comparison between everyone here.

[PCProductions]

As for LeBron's defense, it wasn't up to his usual standards. I saw someone post Leonard's shooting numbers...really? I specifically recall 2 or 3 instances in the first half where Leonard missed point-blank layups. He also had 8 offensive rebounds last night. Leonard had quite a bit to do with his poor FG%. On top of the 2 or 3 missed lay-ups, he bricked a couple of open corner 3's. So if you want to give LeBron credit for those 4 or 5 (of his 8 total) misses, that's fine, but at least put them into context.

That was me, bro. The point was that if Lebron's defense was so bad as to call it horrible (as per GC's statement), then where does it show, exactly? I watched the whole damn game and I wouldn't call it that bad. His DRtg on the court was second lowest to Bosh/Bird who both had 89 DRtg. Sure, Parker blew past him on a few plays and Lebron did not box off Kawhi to allow some offensive boards but that block on Splitter alone should show that he wasn't entirely lackadaisical on that end either (along with 3 blocks + 3 steals). He had a much better outing the previous game on that end, admittedly.

Listen, Lebron had a pretty lame game, but sometimes we pro and anti Lebron people need to level each other out. I don't think he was "horrible" defensively and that's all I wanted to iterate. Otherwise, carry on with the justified criticisms of his game overall last night.

[E-Balla]

Again what's "anti Lebron" about saying his team got a 10 point lead while he was playing like ass (for anyone's standards) and using that to assume they would've won without him? Game 1 was disappointing by his standards. The last game was bad by all standards. Seriously look at NT's criticisms and look at mine. THEY'RE EXACTLY THE SAME. If Lebron was bad (at least) on defense and 3-13 on offense, how was he not terrible last game? Please explain this to me. Do you think saying terrible is harsher than saying he only correctly guarded 4-5 of his man's 14 shots, missed rotations, and allowed 8 offensive boards to his man? Because that description NT gave of Lebron's defense made him sound pretty terrible.

Also acting like you thought he didn't play defense because someone else said he played like crap on defense? Nice goalpost shift.

[JulesWinnfield]

Well this postseason the only team they really played was Indiana and I said he was good against them. Nothing spectacular and not best ever level but pretty good (29/7/5 on 61 TS).

But again Chicago and Milwaukee were clearly bad teams and he hasn't been great against the Spurs so your still arguing 2 great seasons and 1 great postseason against guys like Hakeem and Shaq (who I believe have the best 2 year runs). He falls short in comparison to both.

There are arguments but the notion that its absurd to elevate Lebron into this debate (assuming he caps this off) is just simply not fair

And even while he has underwhelmed you in this postseason (admittedly not going full bore in the first 2 rounds against inferior competition when it wasn't necessary) his current 2013 postseason PER would still be the best by an alpha title winner in a decade (besides his own 2012). And his WS/48 would be the best since MJ in '96 (besides his own 2012). Should he win this title with this version of Wade and Bosh, I have no issue calling it a great postseason. He had a huge conference final against the best D in the league, and I would hold off before projecting him to average 17.5 pts in these finals as it continues.

PER in the playoffs is based off the the series stats and not the overall playoffs. Basically if you average 25/5/5 on 50 TS but the series average was 70 ppg on 45 TS your PER would shoot up when adjusted. This applies to Lebron because he's played scrub teams. It's not an apples to apples comparison between everyone here.

Regardless, you're basically writing off this postseason as nonexistent (2 great regular seasons one great playoff run) when the guy is 3 wins away from leading a potential champion in every conceivable facet imaginable, getting less production from a 2nd scorer than less than a handful of title alphas in history. Guys don't lead title teams in scoring, rebounding and assists all the time. In fact with 3 wins Lebron will have done it just as many times as its been done besides him in history. This is not common. He's definitely doing this with less help than Shaq in 00 and 01. You want to take the same fine tooth comb to him, unlike Shaq Lebron didn't mail in an entire regular season defensively during his two year run to prove a childish point to a teammate. that counts for something. Nor was he ever the 2nd best player on his own team in an elimination game during his two year run (Blazers game 7).

25-8-7 on 60% TS is nothing to gloss over. Especially when you're basically penalizing him for not stat padding earlier in the playoffs when it wasn't necessary.

[E-Balla]

No ones blaming him for not stat padding. Those games are throwaways. The Bucks and the Bulls had no chance. Again I'm really only thinking of the Spurs and Pacers series. He was great against the Pacers but not Shaq or Hakeem level by any stretch of the imagination. Against the Spurs so far he had one game that wasn't comparable to any all time great and another where he was flat out bad. If the last 2 games were on the level of his regular season I wouldn't be saying this. Again after every one of his games I had the time to watch I've posted here and now that I'm posting comments on his bad game and saying he's not playing on all time level this postseason I'm hating?

And Shaq had more help but he played good teams (and in 01 when he didn't he swept or Blackfoot swept everyone). Also Shaq's 01 regular season was still on all time great level.

And again your admitting Lebron didn't need to play 100% but your saying he has one of the weakest supporting casts ever. So does that mean he's playing crappy teams (see now we're back full circle).

[JulesWinnfield]

He was playing crappy teams in the first 2 rounds. We all know the East isn't deep, and reeling off 27 game win streaks and going 66-16 tends to earn you some favorable draws. They did go 8-1 in those rounds though with an average win margin of 14 points with Lebron leading the way.

He gets this done and its a massive accomplishment. Crapping on the Bucks and Bulls is not an auto dismissal of that.

[E-Balla]

But the difference is that it's entirely possible that he continues what he's doing in the Finals and they still win. In that case I'd say the league sucked more than he dominated. Personally after the last 2 I can't see Lebron going in Cleveland mode and dominating. He's more content with sitting back and seeing if his team can win with (relatively) little contribution from him.

[TheChosen618]

Lebron's 2012 Playoff run was ranked as #2 greatest playoff run of all-time behind Jordan's 1991 playoff run.

http://espn.go.com/nba/playoffs/2013/st ... easons-1-5

There's something about the first title run. Like Jordan, James quieted the critics and earned a coveted championship with a historic playoff performance. Unlike the Bulls' romp to the title, however, James' postseason saw him rise to the moment when the Heat appeared to be in trouble.

With Miami trailing the Indiana Pacers 2-1 and down at halftime of Game 4 in the conference semifinals, James exploded for 21 of his 40 points and 13 of his 18 rebounds in the second half as Miami outscored Indiana 55-39 and went on to win the series, 4-2. In the conference finals, the Heat faced elimination in Game 6 at Boston, but James responded with a performance for the ages, making 12 consecutive shot attempts and scoring 30 points by halftime en route to 45 in a win. He topped it off with 31 at home two nights later, clinching the series and sending Miami to a second straight Finals.

No such comebacks were needed in a 4-1 rout of the Oklahoma City Thunder in the next round, but James delivered two free throws in the closing seconds to seal Game 2 and gave the Heat the lead for good with his 3-pointer in Game 4 while battling cramps.

James' overall dominance is tough to deny. He came within six boards of joining Oscar Robertson (in 1963) as the second player to average at least 30 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in a playoff run.