All-Season Player of the Year Discussion thread

[Doctor MJ]

Havent you said something where curry's ORAPM maybe inflating his DRAPM because him carrying a load allows those around him to focus defensively and thus give more defensive impact. Well as others have said this primitive offense has been helping to boost their defense. By slowing down the game, theyve been able to limit the warriors insane transition offense.

The Cavs speeding it up, and trying to make it into a track race, heavily favors the warriors. Thus the primitive offense you describe has been a counter to the warriors transition game.

Alos their agressive defense on curry has led to the warriors wings initiating a lot of half court offense, because steph is either covered by delly who blatt basically told " never help at all, forget about any other players just guard curry " or if that is blown up he is doubled/hedged so he's forced to give up the ball. As we see now the result of that is the wings posting up and that has been that effective, theyve managed to do a really good job with limiting the effectiveness of the 4-3 advantage off these plays.

Oh there's absolutely no doubt that this is one of those situations where a guy is helping the defense with his offense. I would draw a distinction though:

While I don't disagree that LeBron's presence has everything to do with why the rest of the players can do their thing, I don't think his teammates need to spend this little focus on offense in order to play their best defense. I don't think that LeBron's magically found the right balance here, I think he's gone overboard. And hey, that's not some terrible crime. It's tough to find the right balance on the fly, but I don't look at what the Cavs are doing and think "Wow, that's just the perfect way for them to play.", and when people object to me saying its "ugly" the impression I'm getting is that they are watching the same thing I'm watching and that they are concluding that this is some optimal approach from the Cavs.

As mentioned in my last post, it's a hell of a lot closer to optimal on this depleted team than it would be when they are healthier, but when I talk about ugliness, I'm just saying I'm seeing things that shouldn't just be praised because the scoreboard results are better than we expected.

It's very impressive that the Cavs are still succeeding as they are, but this doesn't mean we have to stop critiquing things that we would critique if the scoreboard said otherwise. If the Warriors stop missing makable shots and go on to win this series with a bit of room to spare, this should not change how we evaluate the Cavs, and yet if this was already happening, we'd certainly point to the Cavs horrendous offensive efficiency so far in this series and say "Well obviously, that's a problem." Bring it all together, and what you have is a Cavs team that may win it all, and that would be amazing, but it would be amazing in part because there's no reason to think they've even hit their own Loveless/Irvingless potential.

[Texas Chuck]

Short answer is, I expect LeBron to be pretty resistant to playing in more advanced schemes going forward and this bothers me.

Why do you think that tho? I guess I'm not sure why you think Lebron is essentially going to morph into Kobe when that's not what he's been about for basically his entire career.

Lebron has always been a team guy. Even in high school with all the hype, he was still a team guy. But he also wants to win, so sometimes what's best for the team is Lebron just taking the ball every possession and playing iso ball like he is right now. But give Lebron other options and I feel very confidant, based on his career to date and everything about what he says and does in relation to his teammates, that he willingly plays within a more refined system going forward.

. It really seems like LeBron isn't simply playing like this because he has to, he's doing it because he prefers it.

I wish you would go into your reasoning behind thinking that this unique experience forced upon him in these playoffs is going to change him into a completely different guy. Because while I respect that you think that. I think quite the opposite. I think the basketball purist in Lebron hates this as much as you do.

[bondom34]

Thing is, part of what I mean is that the Cleveland offense here is just plain stupid. There are many ways to be better than what they are, and at this point I feel like LeBron is actually really comfortable in the stupidity because it basically relies on him to make stuff happen which means he gets to use his brain, but the rest of the team is underutilized. It's incredibly impressive if they can win a title like this in some ways, but this isn't an optimal way to play whether we're talking about aesthetics or actual efficacy, and I don't like teams simply accepting this type of play because it "works". No, it could work better, so make it work better.

I don't see anything as "ugly" if it's truly optimally effective. People may bemoan someone like Shaq just doing his thing, but him doing his thing was THE right thing to do. The ugliness here is just in my belief that as effective as the Cavs are right now, the way they've regressed to primitive status isn't a good thing, and this is something that started BEFORE the injuries took hold so that isn't really an excuse.

As I say this what I have to acknowledge is that this primitive offense is something that the Cavs were able to adopt essentially instantaneously and remained effective no matter the non-LeBron injuries the team had. As such, there is an aspect of rugged beauty in what LeBron is doing here. It's just that LeBron I don't think should be playing like this when he has serious firepower next to him.

At this point? I'm not sure what "serious firepower" there is left. Kyrie and Love sure, but nobody else out there really qualifies for that monicker to me. JR can get hot but can kill you too, Shumpert isn't a huge threat, Delly definitely isn't. TT isn't, and Mozgov is more a defender than anything.

That said, I'm enjoying the gritty/ugly type of play so far, its sort of a weirdly refreshing viewing experience for me where I don't feel like either team is comfortable at all.

I don't understand why several smart posters jumped in in response to my post by basically just attacking the last sentence and ignoring the paragraph it is attached to.

I'm not saying LeBron's playing next to great talent right now, but what we're seeing is an extreme version of what we were already seeing before the injuries. LeBron went from Miami playing a highly refined scheme based on getting the whole team involved, to playing Blatt's highly refined scheme based on getting the whole team involved, to much more simplistic stuff that just relies on LeBron making stuff happen. It really seems like LeBron isn't simply playing like this because he has to, he's doing it because he prefers it.

That's not a problem if that's truly the best way to run things, but I'm not convinced it is. And so what if it's really NOT the best way to do things generally, but it works okay in this particular finals because the team has less options and the Warriors aren't prepared for it? Short answer is, I expect LeBron to be pretty resistant to playing in more advanced schemes going forward and this bothers me.

Yeah, I'm w/ Chuck on this. I don't know what the reasoning is behind why you think he wouldn't be keen on changing if there were options available he felt were nearly as good. His teams have traditionally run through him because, well, he's the best player on the planet. You said it yourself in the first post, he doesn't have as many options now and it remained an effective offense despite the lack of options. He's shown the ability to adapt before, and I don't know what shows he isn't. I'm gonna bring it up again, but I think there's this villainization of any isolation basketball right now where sometimes it is done b/c it works. It was done w/ Westbrook, and showed to be the best available option. Its happening again, on a bigger stage, with a better player, and is working better. At the same time I'd still be shocked if CLE wins the series just due to exhaustion, but its been a show and this is in reality the only available option out there. I haven't seen anything that shows me that Lebron or really any player isn't willing to run an offense if its the best option. It just isn't right now.

[E-Balla]

At this point? I'm not sure what "serious firepower" there is left. Kyrie and Love sure, but nobody else out there really qualifies for that monicker to me. JR can get hot but can kill you too, Shumpert isn't a huge threat, Delly definitely isn't. TT isn't, and Mozgov is more a defender than anything.

That said, I'm enjoying the gritty/ugly type of play so far, its sort of a weirdly refreshing viewing experience for me where I don't feel like either team is comfortable at all.

I don't understand why several smart posters jumped in in response to my post by basically just attacking the last sentence and ignoring the paragraph it is attached to.

I'm not saying LeBron's playing next to great talent right now, but what we're seeing is an extreme version of what we were already seeing before the injuries. LeBron went from Miami playing a highly refined scheme based on getting the whole team involved, to playing Blatt's highly refined scheme based on getting the whole team involved, to much more simplistic stuff that just relies on LeBron making stuff happen. It really seems like LeBron isn't simply playing like this because he has to, he's doing it because he prefers it.

That's not a problem if that's truly the best way to run things, but I'm not convinced it is. And so what if it's really NOT the best way to do things generally, but it works okay in this particular finals because the team has less options and the Warriors aren't prepared for it? Short answer is, I expect LeBron to be pretty resistant to playing in more advanced schemes going forward and this bothers me.

Yeah, I'm w/ Chuck on this. I don't know what the reasoning is behind why you think he wouldn't be keen on changing if there were options available he felt were nearly as good. His teams have traditionally run through him because, well, he's the best player on the planet. You said it yourself in the first post, he doesn't have as many options now and it remained an effective offense despite the lack of options. He's shown the ability to adapt before, and I don't know what shows he isn't. I'm gonna bring it up again, but I think there's this villainization of any isolation basketball right now where sometimes it is done b/c it works. It was done w/ Westbrook, and showed to be the best available option. Its happening again, on a bigger stage, with a better player, and is working better. At the same time I'd still be shocked if CLE wins the series just due to exhaustion, but its been a show and this is in reality the only available option out there. I haven't seen anything that shows me that Lebron or really any player isn't willing to run an offense if its the best option. It just isn't right now.

Watching the games Lebron isn't even giving anyone chances. In game 2 there were long stretches of play where Lebron got the rebound and no one on his team touched the ball before the shot went up. There's a point where you're doing too much and in game 2 I don't think he hit that point much but the 3rd quarter and end of the 4th in game 1 was some terrible basketball from Lebron.

[SideshowBob]

I don't understand why several smart posters jumped in in response to my post by basically just attacking the last sentence and ignoring the paragraph it is attached to.

I'm not saying LeBron's playing next to great talent right now, but what we're seeing is an extreme version of what we were already seeing before the injuries. LeBron went from Miami playing a highly refined scheme based on getting the whole team involved, to playing Blatt's highly refined scheme based on getting the whole team involved, to much more simplistic stuff that just relies on LeBron making stuff happen. It really seems like LeBron isn't simply playing like this because he has to, he's doing it because he prefers it.

That's not a problem if that's truly the best way to run things, but I'm not convinced it is. And so what if it's really NOT the best way to do things generally, but it works okay in this particular finals because the team has less options and the Warriors aren't prepared for it? Short answer is, I expect LeBron to be pretty resistant to playing in more advanced schemes going forward and this bothers me.

But that seems like a stretch Doc. Why would he all of a sudden become resistant to more advanced schemes? Doesn't it make more sense that its only the situation forcing him into it? I mean they spent the regular season running a pretty solid system that was providing results (114 ORTG/+8.5 offense in Lebron's 69 games, 115 ORTG/+9.3 offense with the big 3, and 117 ORTG/+11 offense with Mozgov + big 3). Problem is, we only got 3 games out of this group in the playoffs and in those 3 they seemed to line up with what we had been seeing all along (114 ORTG/+10 offense). They were doing stuff that was working remarkably when the team was healthier and this was over a much larger sample; why shouldn't I trust that Lebron will revert to that when they regain that health?

While obviously we did see shades of the overly Lebron centralized offense in all of those stretches, but I don't see why that would be reason to believe that he would be resistant to going back to a more refined system just because of what's happening now. His tone in the interviews seems to imply the opposite, he recognizes that this is ugly and inefficient but seems to believe that given what they're working with right now, this seems to be the best option. Maybe I'm reading too much into it but he doesn't come across as someone who prefers the way they're playing right now, hell in most previous situations he's the one who's gotten criticized for sticking to the system a little too much (criticism that I've generally disagreed with).

[bondom34]

I don't understand why several smart posters jumped in in response to my post by basically just attacking the last sentence and ignoring the paragraph it is attached to.

I'm not saying LeBron's playing next to great talent right now, but what we're seeing is an extreme version of what we were already seeing before the injuries. LeBron went from Miami playing a highly refined scheme based on getting the whole team involved, to playing Blatt's highly refined scheme based on getting the whole team involved, to much more simplistic stuff that just relies on LeBron making stuff happen. It really seems like LeBron isn't simply playing like this because he has to, he's doing it because he prefers it.

That's not a problem if that's truly the best way to run things, but I'm not convinced it is. And so what if it's really NOT the best way to do things generally, but it works okay in this particular finals because the team has less options and the Warriors aren't prepared for it? Short answer is, I expect LeBron to be pretty resistant to playing in more advanced schemes going forward and this bothers me.

Yeah, I'm w/ Chuck on this. I don't know what the reasoning is behind why you think he wouldn't be keen on changing if there were options available he felt were nearly as good. His teams have traditionally run through him because, well, he's the best player on the planet. You said it yourself in the first post, he doesn't have as many options now and it remained an effective offense despite the lack of options. He's shown the ability to adapt before, and I don't know what shows he isn't. I'm gonna bring it up again, but I think there's this villainization of any isolation basketball right now where sometimes it is done b/c it works. It was done w/ Westbrook, and showed to be the best available option. Its happening again, on a bigger stage, with a better player, and is working better. At the same time I'd still be shocked if CLE wins the series just due to exhaustion, but its been a show and this is in reality the only available option out there. I haven't seen anything that shows me that Lebron or really any player isn't willing to run an offense if its the best option. It just isn't right now.

Watching the games Lebron isn't even giving anyone chances. In game 2 there were long stretches of play where Lebron got the rebound and no one on his team touched the ball before the shot went up. There's a point where you're doing too much and in game 2 I don't think he hit that point much but the 3rd quarter and end of the 4th in game 1 was some terrible basketball from Lebron.

Again though, a lot of these stretches are with James Jones and Miller sharing the court with the best offensive threat being.....JR?

[Texas Chuck]

I now wish I hadn't posted above and just let Bob express my thoughts for me as per usual he does so with much more eloquence.

[E-Balla]

Yeah, I'm w/ Chuck on this. I don't know what the reasoning is behind why you think he wouldn't be keen on changing if there were options available he felt were nearly as good. His teams have traditionally run through him because, well, he's the best player on the planet. You said it yourself in the first post, he doesn't have as many options now and it remained an effective offense despite the lack of options. He's shown the ability to adapt before, and I don't know what shows he isn't. I'm gonna bring it up again, but I think there's this villainization of any isolation basketball right now where sometimes it is done b/c it works. It was done w/ Westbrook, and showed to be the best available option. Its happening again, on a bigger stage, with a better player, and is working better. At the same time I'd still be shocked if CLE wins the series just due to exhaustion, but its been a show and this is in reality the only available option out there. I haven't seen anything that shows me that Lebron or really any player isn't willing to run an offense if its the best option. It just isn't right now.

Watching the games Lebron isn't even giving anyone chances. In game 2 there were long stretches of play where Lebron got the rebound and no one on his team touched the ball before the shot went up. There's a point where you're doing too much and in game 2 I don't think he hit that point much but the 3rd quarter and end of the 4th in game 1 was some terrible basketball from Lebron.

Again though, a lot of these stretches are with James Jones and Miller sharing the court with the best offensive threat being.....JR?

I get that for game 2 which is why I mentioned it got bad at times but I don't hold it against him. In game 1 he had Kyrie on the floor with him and while Kyrie wasn't great he was just as efficient as Lebron but Lebron still stopped everything to go into Tyreke Evans mode and barely gave Kyrie the ball to make things happen in a game where the offense was struggling. Plus I swear half the people (*not saying you) giving Lebron a pass weren't giving Melo the same pass when he was playing with JR (who was caught partying the night before games - and played like he was partying) as his second option and hogging the ball way less anyway. At least Doc MJ is consistent on this topic.

[Texas Chuck]

Oh and despite all my posts supporting Lebron over the past couple weeks itt, I want to make it clear I still have Curry comfortably in front of him for POY. But I'm certainly thinking I was too hasty in placing Paul and Harden above him. Current top 5 for me:

Curry
Lebron
Harden
Paul
Davis

[E-Balla]

I don't understand why several smart posters jumped in in response to my post by basically just attacking the last sentence and ignoring the paragraph it is attached to.

I'm not saying LeBron's playing next to great talent right now, but what we're seeing is an extreme version of what we were already seeing before the injuries. LeBron went from Miami playing a highly refined scheme based on getting the whole team involved, to playing Blatt's highly refined scheme based on getting the whole team involved, to much more simplistic stuff that just relies on LeBron making stuff happen. It really seems like LeBron isn't simply playing like this because he has to, he's doing it because he prefers it.

That's not a problem if that's truly the best way to run things, but I'm not convinced it is. And so what if it's really NOT the best way to do things generally, but it works okay in this particular finals because the team has less options and the Warriors aren't prepared for it? Short answer is, I expect LeBron to be pretty resistant to playing in more advanced schemes going forward and this bothers me.

But that seems like a stretch Doc. Why would he all of a sudden become resistant to more advanced schemes? Doesn't it make more sense that its only the situation forcing him into it? I mean they spent the regular season running a pretty solid system that was providing results (114 ORTG/+8.5 offense in Lebron's 69 games, 115 ORTG/+9.3 offense with the big 3, and 117 ORTG/+11 offense with Mozgov + big 3). Problem is, we only got 3 games out of this group in the playoffs and in those 3 they seemed to line up with what we had been seeing all along (114 ORTG/+10 offense). They were doing stuff that was working remarkably when the team was healthier and this was over a much larger sample; why shouldn't I trust that Lebron will revert to that when they regain that health?

While obviously we did see shades of the overly Lebron centralized offense in all of those stretches, but I don't see why that would be reason to believe that he would be resistant to going back to a more refined system just because of what's happening now. His tone in the interviews seems to imply the opposite, he recognizes that this is ugly and inefficient but seems to believe that given what they're working with right now, this seems to be the best option. Maybe I'm reading too much into it but he doesn't come across as someone who prefers the way they're playing right now, hell in most previous situations he's the one who's gotten criticized for sticking to the system a little too much (criticism that I've generally disagreed with).

It's strange to explain it but you can tell when someone is just being a ball hog and Lebron's stepped over that line a ton especially in game 1. I mean he still had Kyrie and he wouldn't let him touch the ball instead opting to try to take Iguodala off the bounce towards the end of the 4th (and it was as bad as you'd expect).

[Dr Spaceman]

I don't understand why several smart posters jumped in in response to my post by basically just attacking the last sentence and ignoring the paragraph it is attached to.

I'm not saying LeBron's playing next to great talent right now, but what we're seeing is an extreme version of what we were already seeing before the injuries. LeBron went from Miami playing a highly refined scheme based on getting the whole team involved, to playing Blatt's highly refined scheme based on getting the whole team involved, to much more simplistic stuff that just relies on LeBron making stuff happen. It really seems like LeBron isn't simply playing like this because he has to, he's doing it because he prefers it.

That's not a problem if that's truly the best way to run things, but I'm not convinced it is. And so what if it's really NOT the best way to do things generally, but it works okay in this particular finals because the team has less options and the Warriors aren't prepared for it? Short answer is, I expect LeBron to be pretty resistant to playing in more advanced schemes going forward and this bothers me.

But that seems like a stretch Doc. Why would he all of a sudden become resistant to more advanced schemes? Doesn't it make more sense that its only the situation forcing him into it? I mean they spent the regular season running a pretty solid system that was providing results (114 ORTG/+8.5 offense in Lebron's 69 games, 115 ORTG/+9.3 offense with the big 3, and 117 ORTG/+11 offense with Mozgov + big 3). Problem is, we only got 3 games out of this group in the playoffs and in those 3 they seemed to line up with what we had been seeing all along (114 ORTG/+10 offense). They were doing stuff that was working remarkably when the team was healthier and this was over a much larger sample; why shouldn't I trust that Lebron will revert to that when they regain that health?

While obviously we did see shades of the overly Lebron centralized offense in all of those stretches, but I don't see why that would be reason to believe that he would be resistant to going back to a more refined system just because of what's happening now. His tone in the interviews seems to imply the opposite, he recognizes that this is ugly and inefficient but seems to believe that given what they're working with right now, this seems to be the best option. Maybe I'm reading too much into it but he doesn't come across as someone who prefers the way they're playing right now, hell in most previous situations he's the one who's gotten criticized for sticking to the system a little too much (criticism that I've generally disagreed with).

I'll let Doc respond in more detail, but honestly there are a few issues with the "he's doing this out of necessity" theory:

1. This isolation ball started in the regular season, with all of the big 3 healthy. It was something I and others brought up immediately after the LeBreak. I know the counter is that Cleveland still had an excellent offense, but that doesn't mean they're still not underperforming.
2. What happened to Blatt's Princeton offense that they ran throughout the preseason? It just sort of went away, and the stuff they started running in January isn't materially different from what they're running now, and is far closer to their playoff offense than their October offense.
3. If you follow Zach Lowe, he has brought this up on his podcast numerous times. Earliest was I believe a JVG pod in December which I'm not going to dig up, but he talked about it with Russillo: http://espn.go.com/espnradio/play?id=12956987 and Windhorst: http://espn.go.com/espnradio/play?id=12933623 Zach Lowe generally doesn't say anything without an airtight source. The fact that he's made it a talking point in everything he's done recently is pretty telling.
4. What the hell happened to Kevin Love? He's legitimately one of the five or so best offensive players in the league when he's right, and I know he was injured this year, but his shot chart is so far removed from what he's actually good at that it's discouraging. I'd go as far as to say any offense that doesn't make much better use of a talent like Love is far from "optimal". There was a point this season where Andy Varejao was legitimately outpacing Love in FGA/36.

No one is saying LeBron isn't amazing, or that he doesn't deserve credit for what he's doing now, or that he's some kind of petulant coach killer or other such nonsense. But the Love thing is a big deal, and all evidence points to LeBron being part of the problem. It's honestly hard to not see this as a mark against.

[Texas Chuck]

Love is not legitimately one of the 5 best offensive players in the league. He's only the 3rd best offensive player on his own team. He's only really had 2 great offensive years in his career and only last year could be described as a top 5 season.

There is no question that he didn't get integrated into the team optimally. And fault lies with Love, Lebron, Blatt, along with others. But let's not confuse Love with the truly elite offensive players in basketball.

And other than volume, his shot chart really isn't that different. Shooting a few more 3's and a few less long 2's. He's not feasting on put-backs is probably the single biggest change. But that isn't really hurting the Cavs because they have more limited players who are really good at that(see Thompson) so why not take advantage of his elite floor spacing especially when you have Lebron/Kyrie?

I think too much is made out of Love's decrease in numbers--mainly because Love dealt with it so poorly himself. Bosh seemed to understand what he was getting into. Love seemed much concerned with maintaining his previous volume.

[bondom34]

Watching the games Lebron isn't even giving anyone chances. In game 2 there were long stretches of play where Lebron got the rebound and no one on his team touched the ball before the shot went up. There's a point where you're doing too much and in game 2 I don't think he hit that point much but the 3rd quarter and end of the 4th in game 1 was some terrible basketball from Lebron.

Again though, a lot of these stretches are with James Jones and Miller sharing the court with the best offensive threat being.....JR?

I get that for game 2 which is why I mentioned it got bad at times but I don't hold it against him. In game 1 he had Kyrie on the floor with him and while Kyrie wasn't great he was just as efficient as Lebron but Lebron still stopped everything to go into Tyreke Evans mode and barely gave Kyrie the ball to make things happen in a game where the offense was struggling. Plus I swear half the people (*not saying you) giving Lebron a pass weren't giving Melo the same pass when he was playing with JR (who was caught partying the night before games - and played like he was partying) as his second option and hogging the ball way less anyway. At least Doc MJ is consistent on this topic.

Ah, I see some of what you're getting at though I honestly didn't notice it much even in game 1. As well, I've been consistent on the issue as well, this is what to an extent Westbrook had to do, though he got even more criticism.

[RSCD3_]

I don't understand why several smart posters jumped in in response to my post by basically just attacking the last sentence and ignoring the paragraph it is attached to.

I'm not saying LeBron's playing next to great talent right now, but what we're seeing is an extreme version of what we were already seeing before the injuries. LeBron went from Miami playing a highly refined scheme based on getting the whole team involved, to playing Blatt's highly refined scheme based on getting the whole team involved, to much more simplistic stuff that just relies on LeBron making stuff happen. It really seems like LeBron isn't simply playing like this because he has to, he's doing it because he prefers it.

That's not a problem if that's truly the best way to run things, but I'm not convinced it is. And so what if it's really NOT the best way to do things generally, but it works okay in this particular finals because the team has less options and the Warriors aren't prepared for it? Short answer is, I expect LeBron to be pretty resistant to playing in more advanced schemes going forward and this bothers me.

But that seems like a stretch Doc. Why would he all of a sudden become resistant to more advanced schemes? Doesn't it make more sense that its only the situation forcing him into it? I mean they spent the regular season running a pretty solid system that was providing results (114 ORTG/+8.5 offense in Lebron's 69 games, 115 ORTG/+9.3 offense with the big 3, and 117 ORTG/+11 offense with Mozgov + big 3). Problem is, we only got 3 games out of this group in the playoffs and in those 3 they seemed to line up with what we had been seeing all along (114 ORTG/+10 offense). They were doing stuff that was working remarkably when the team was healthier and this was over a much larger sample; why shouldn't I trust that Lebron will revert to that when they regain that health?

While obviously we did see shades of the overly Lebron centralized offense in all of those stretches, but I don't see why that would be reason to believe that he would be resistant to going back to a more refined system just because of what's happening now. His tone in the interviews seems to imply the opposite, he recognizes that this is ugly and inefficient but seems to believe that given what they're working with right now, this seems to be the best option. Maybe I'm reading too much into it but he doesn't come across as someone who prefers the way they're playing right now, hell in most previous situations he's the one who's gotten criticized for sticking to the system a little too much (criticism that I've generally disagreed with).

I'll let Doc respond in more detail, but honestly there are a few issues with the "he's doing this out of necessity" theory:

1. This isolation ball started in the regular season, with all of the big 3 healthy. It was something I and others brought up immediately after the LeBreak. I know the counter is that Cleveland still had an excellent offense, but that doesn't mean they're still not underperforming.
2. What happened to Blatt's Princeton offense that they ran throughout the preseason? It just sort of went away, and the stuff they started running in January isn't materially different from what they're running now, and is far closer to their playoff offense than their October offense.
3. If you follow Zach Lowe, he has brought this up on his podcast numerous times. Earliest was I believe a JVG pod in December which I'm not going to dig up, but he talked about it with Russillo: http://espn.go.com/espnradio/play?id=12956987 and Windhorst: http://espn.go.com/espnradio/play?id=12933623 Zach Lowe generally doesn't say anything without an airtight source. The fact that he's made it a talking point in everything he's done recently is pretty telling.
4. What the hell happened to Kevin Love? He's legitimately one of the five or so best offensive players in the league when he's right, and I know he was injured this year, but his shot chart is so far removed from what he's actually good at that it's discouraging. I'd go as far as to say any offense that doesn't make much better use of a talent like Love is far from "optimal". There was a point this season where Andy Varejao was legitimately outpacing Love in FGA/36.

No one is saying LeBron isn't amazing, or that he doesn't deserve credit for what he's doing now, or that he's some kind of petulant coach killer or other such nonsense. But the Love thing is a big deal, and all evidence points to LeBron being part of the problem. It's honestly hard to not see this as a mark against.

I don't have numbers but watching the boston games in the 1st round It looked like love was being utilized a lot more on offense than in the RS, than he got assassinated by Kelly Harvey Oswald. They were running stuff through him more and while yeah you can say small sample size, it looked like part of blatt's plan was to involve him more in the offense.

[bondom34]

Love is not legitimately one of the 5 best offensive players in the league. He's only the 3rd best offensive player on his own team. He's only really had 2 great offensive years in his career and only last year could be described as a top 5 season.

There is no question that he didn't get integrated into the team optimally. And fault lies with Love, Lebron, Blatt, along with others. But let's not confuse Love with the truly elite offensive players in basketball.

And again I'm gonna agree here. He was when he was on a poor Minnesota team but to this point nothing Love has done has shown him to be a top 5 offensive player on a good team.

[E-Balla]

Again though, a lot of these stretches are with James Jones and Miller sharing the court with the best offensive threat being.....JR?

I get that for game 2 which is why I mentioned it got bad at times but I don't hold it against him. In game 1 he had Kyrie on the floor with him and while Kyrie wasn't great he was just as efficient as Lebron but Lebron still stopped everything to go into Tyreke Evans mode and barely gave Kyrie the ball to make things happen in a game where the offense was struggling. Plus I swear half the people (*not saying you) giving Lebron a pass weren't giving Melo the same pass when he was playing with JR (who was caught partying the night before games - and played like he was partying) as his second option and hogging the ball way less anyway. At least Doc MJ is consistent on this topic.

Ah, I see some of what you're getting at though I honestly didn't notice it much even in game 1. As well, I've been consistent on the issue as well, this is what to an extent Westbrook had to do, though he got even more criticism.

I only noticed it last game when I realized Lebron missed 3 straight shots and nobody on the team other than him touched the ball. It was strange to watch. During game 1 I was screaming at the TV for him to pass to Kyrie when Iggy was guarding him on touches started at the top of the key. It wasn't a good look.

[bondom34]

I get that for game 2 which is why I mentioned it got bad at times but I don't hold it against him. In game 1 he had Kyrie on the floor with him and while Kyrie wasn't great he was just as efficient as Lebron but Lebron still stopped everything to go into Tyreke Evans mode and barely gave Kyrie the ball to make things happen in a game where the offense was struggling. Plus I swear half the people (*not saying you) giving Lebron a pass weren't giving Melo the same pass when he was playing with JR (who was caught partying the night before games - and played like he was partying) as his second option and hogging the ball way less anyway. At least Doc MJ is consistent on this topic.

Ah, I see some of what you're getting at though I honestly didn't notice it much even in game 1. As well, I've been consistent on the issue as well, this is what to an extent Westbrook had to do, though he got even more criticism.

I only noticed it last game when I realized Lebron missed 3 straight shots and nobody on the team other than him touched the ball. It was strange to watch. During game 1 I was screaming at the TV for him to pass to Kyrie when Iggy was guarding him on touches started at the top of the key. It wasn't a good look.

Honestly, now you're gonna have me looking for it.

[E-Balla]

Love is not legitimately one of the 5 best offensive players in the league. He's only the 3rd best offensive player on his own team. He's only really had 2 great offensive years in his career and only last year could be described as a top 5 season.

There is no question that he didn't get integrated into the team optimally. And fault lies with Love, Lebron, Blatt, along with others. But let's not confuse Love with the truly elite offensive players in basketball.

And other than volume, his shot chart really isn't that different. Shooting a few more 3's and a few less long 2's. He's not feasting on put-backs is probably the single biggest change. But that isn't really hurting the Cavs because they have more limited players who are really good at that(see Thompson) so why not take advantage of his elite floor spacing especially when you have Lebron/Kyrie?

I think too much is made out of Love's decrease in numbers--mainly because Love dealt with it so poorly himself. Bosh seemed to understand what he was getting into. Love seemed much concerned with maintaining his previous volume.

How in the world... That's his point. A player who is top 5 next to Rubio utilizing his post game and all of his skills is relegated to the 3rd best (and at times 4th best) next to Lebron where his most utilized skill is his spot up shooting (which is something he is good at but it's not what makes him special). Do you not see Lebron's possible inability to play with a great bigman scorer as a phenomenon worth mentioning?

[E-Balla]

Ah, I see some of what you're getting at though I honestly didn't notice it much even in game 1. As well, I've been consistent on the issue as well, this is what to an extent Westbrook had to do, though he got even more criticism.

I only noticed it last game when I realized Lebron missed 3 straight shots and nobody on the team other than him touched the ball. It was strange to watch. During game 1 I was screaming at the TV for him to pass to Kyrie when Iggy was guarding him on touches started at the top of the key. It wasn't a good look.

Honestly, now you're gonna have me looking for it.

Hopefully Blatt gets him to calm down because he is going to run out of steam at the rate he's going.

[lorak]

I agree with those, who are saying LeBron is doing that because he has to. And I think numbers back it up, because sportsVU says that in regular season LeBron averaged 81.7 touches per game and hold the ball 6.1 min - in both these categories he was behind several players (15-25). In playoffs he is second (behind Wall) with 100.9 touches/g and also second (behind John too) with 8.7 min/g. He was always ultimate team player (even in HS, when his athletic advantage allowed him to easily dominate by playing iso/hero ball) and now is playing that kind of way, because his team needs that.