Shill wrote:TheStig wrote:They are pretty significant when its almost every major category. They aren't next level differences. I never said they were. But they are significant. And my entire statement was that Love was better and the stats support that. Bosh's defense also suspect in Toronto. I think that Love being better goes a long way toward covering the differences between Irving and Wade. I think the fit between skill sets is better and the supporting cast is better.
You said Love was "scarier", and I said it's debatable when factoring in defense and the, in my opinion, not-so-significant difference in the raw averages.
And the bump you get from Bosh to Love doesn't cover the gargantuan difference between Wade and Irving. Wade was a 30 PER player before teaming up with Bron and Bosh.
As I've said, Cleveland is going to be beastly. But I don't expect them to be a severe upgrade over the 2010-11 Heat.
I guess we'll find out after the trade goes through.
I think the fact that Love is a better player, the pieces fit and the fact that they actually have a front court is scarier for us. Indy and Us used to bully Miami down low to stay competitive and D up the perimeter. The fact is that you can't bully a front court of Love, Varejo and Thompson like you could Bosh, Haslem and whatever scrub they had. Varejo is also a better help defender and primary front court defender than anyone the heat had. Thompson is about equivalent to Bosh on D and a better rebounder. Love is bad but I think having less offensive responsibilities and a good help defender behind him will help. Wade also was minimized playing next to Bron. He had no outside game and Irving can work much better off the ball. The sum of the parts looks scarier to me because we won't be able to maximize our advantges and they are a much more complete team than that Heat team was.
