The Lebron Thread (2015-16 Pt. 3)

[JustOneFix]

Let me just say that i follow NBA closely from like 1985. From this span, I've really seen all the all time greats of that period. I have never, ever, ever seen a so-call 'best player in the world', a 'superstar', a 'clear MVP' or whatever, with such a weak, weak offensive repertoire such as Lebron James. These last 2 games of the Finals almost made me feel sorry for him. I caught myself thinking several times "man, this guy's knows nothing, he's all power", which is something i never thought about any superstar in the past.

Usually, truly great players have only one, two black cats / nemesis at best, against whom they struggle. Jordan had Dumars to an extent, Kobe vs Tony Allen, Shaq vs Hakeem (although Shaq was still a baby back then), Barkley against Mchale etc etc. But this guy has troubles with everyone. Bruce Bowen, Dallas defense (I'm saying Dallas defense cause i don't even remember who was guarding him), Andre Igoudala, Boris freaking Diaw! You name it. In this series, he's even having troubles against Shaun Livingston for crying out loud. On couple of occassions he couldn't even finish it in isolation play against Steph Curry (he made a travel or something)! He's so limited offensively that in a serious ball game he's basically having troubles against anybody.

What bothers me the most, it's not that he's missing. It's the fact that he's not even trying to be a dominant force on the floor. GS goes up by 5, he passes the ball. They go up by 10, he passes the ball, they go up by 15 and he's STILL passing the ball! His so-call 'team play' is actually excuse for saying ' i can't do nothing on my own so i'm just going to pass the ball'.

Now, to his so call titles. Apparently, The King needs whole lots of other Kings alongside him to win anything. If it wasn't for the Ray Allen's greatest shot in basketball history, he would've basically had one, one ring under his belt. Despite playing on powerhouse full of great names such as the Heat and now a very talented team in the Cavs. It's truly a travesty to call anyone a King when he lost twice against Tim Duncan, once against Dirk Nowitzki and now it's going to be twice against Steph Curry. Not just that he lost, it was a complete embarrassment, time and time again. Is that the mark of an all time great?

In a meanwhile, he's collecting bunch of empty stats that's going to make him look good down the road (typical example was game 1. On paper you think he had a great game, near triple double, but in reality was basically not a threat whatsoever to an opposing team). He's gonna play for 20 season, collect millions of rebounds, assists, points or whatever and people will look at the lists and say 'he's definitely one of the greatest of all time', failing to realize it's all quantity over quality. Like his 7 straight trips to the Finals. 20, or 30 years from now, no one's going to remember or pay attention to the fact that the eastern conference during his era was a complete and utter joke, that he never faced a single decent team during that era (sorry, aged and way over their prime Boston Celtics team doesn't qualify) and that him doing the same in the western conference is actually a science fiction. No one's going to care about that. People love sheer numbers with no meaning and they just love myths.

I, like many others, always though about him as not a very good offensive player. Was always very suspect about his actual skills. But this Finals was just the last nail in the coffin. When we talk about big games, playing against great defenses, the moments that makes someone's legacy, his skills are basically non - existing.

This entire post is probably too harsh but I'm really very close to consider him the greatest marketing swindle in the history of basketball.

[tsherkin]

Is this a counter-argument or an agreement? Not sure from your post.

Fun, no?

Draymond probably does shoot more assisted 3's (though I'd love to see the data on that to know the exact difference).

DG: 96.0% assisted, 9.3% from the corner
LJ: 59.8% assisted (regular-season), 11.7% from the corner

Nice and easy separation there.

And part of that is sort of LeBron's fault since he insists on being so ball dominant;

This would be a more effective argument if he hadn't been explicitly posting and working off-ball as a screener more than ever before, particularly if Kyrie weren't shooting in volume off of dribble isolations.

[OnlyOneWay2Play]

Is this a counter-argument or an agreement? Not sure from your post.

Fun, no?

Draymond probably does shoot more assisted 3's (though I'd love to see the data on that to know the exact difference).

DG: 96.0% assisted, 9.3% from the corner
LJ: 59.8% assisted (regular-season), 11.7% from the corner

Nice and easy separation there.

And part of that is sort of LeBron's fault since he insists on being so ball dominant;

This would be a more effective argument if he hadn't been explicitly posting and working off-ball as a screener more than ever before, particularly if Kyrie weren't shooting in volume off of dribble isolations.

Thanks for the stats! Draymond, like most of the GSW offense, is clearly much more of a "shoot 3's within the flow of the offensive system" than LeBron, which is what I am referring to in terms of ball dominance. Very few forwards will control the ball as much as LeBron does and hence shoot off-the -ounce 3's often (Durant, maybe Paul George are probably one of few that's even anywhere close). Yes, LeBron is playing as a screener more (though in Miami he did lots off the ball, so it's not necessarily more than ever). But as your stat shows, he's still dominating the ball (and shooting unassisted) much more than many typical forwards, which leads to lower % looks.

And all this is still just 2nd-order to his overall issue: he is not a good shooter and doesn't have consistent, fundamentally sound shooting mechanics. He needs to work on that above all else for him to still be effective offensively.

[tsherkin]

And all this is still just 2nd-order to his overall issue: he is not a good shooter and doesn't have consistent, fundamentally sound shooting mechanics. He needs to work on that above all else for him to still be effective offensively.

This,I agree with. His weak shot is a problem. It's not THE problem, but it clearly isn't helping any, particularly with the way GSW is going under the screens he takes. More specifically, they need Kyrie and K-Love to not suck ass, though. That's far more important than Lebron's jumper.

[kayess]

And all this is still just 2nd-order to his overall issue: he is not a good shooter and doesn't have consistent, fundamentally sound shooting mechanics. He needs to work on that above all else for him to still be effective offensively.

This,I agree with. His weak shot is a problem. It's not THE problem, but it clearly isn't helping any, particularly with the way GSW is going under the screens he takes. More specifically, they need Kyrie and K-Love to not suck ass, though. That's far more important than Lebron's jumper.

I think the posters in this thread are exemplars for being objective about their favorite player (sometimes taking it way too far the other way - my favorite example being IG2's thoughts on 2012 LeBron LOL), so there's really little to fear from pointing out issues other than LeBron's own

But the skeptic in me does wonder - is it really THAT clear that Kyrie/Love sucking ass is the main problem? It's a resounding yes to me, not because LeBron's jumper isn't a serious problem (it is, and we all harp on him for not taking the practice 3s he's given), but because it's been evident all year that Kyrie's value when he's being exploited on D and unable to facilitate on O, and Love's when he's not making shots/being a force on the glass just isn't all that great.

Blame LeBron the GM, sure, but I think it's pretty clear that while his jumper is a serious problem, it's not THE main problem.

[tsherkin]

I think the posters in this thread are exemplars for being objective about their favorite player (sometimes taking it way too far the other way - my favorite example being IG2's thoughts on 2012 LeBron LOL), so there's really little to fear from pointing out issues other than LeBron's own

I am in complete agreement with this paragraph; there are wonderful posters on this board.

But the skeptic in me does wonder - is it really THAT clear that Kyrie/Love sucking ass is the main problem? It's a resounding yes to me, not because LeBron's jumper isn't a serious problem (it is, and we all harp on him for not taking the practice 3s he's given), but because it's been evident all year that Kyrie's value when he's being exploited on D and unable to facilitate on O, and Love's when he's not making shots/being a force on the glass just isn't all that great.

Yes, to attach onto this... in a series whose opening two games opened up with complete offensive ineptitude...

KI: 7/22 FG, 5/14 FG
KL: 7/17 FG, 2/7 FG

That's a collected 14/39 (35.9% FG) in game one and 7/21 in game 2 (33.3%). That's significant stuff right there, particularly with the bench.

Bench G1: 3/10, 1/5 3P, 3/3 FT
Bench G2: 9/27, 2/7 3P, 10/16 FT

And that's the other problem there: Lebron could have shot whatever he wanted, but when you've got the bench, Kyrie and Love combining to do that?

Kyrie, Love + Bench

G1: 17/49 (34.7% FG) of 84 total team attempts
G2: 16/48 (33.3% FG) of 79 total team attempts

Soooooo, on 58.3% and 60.8% of their total shooting attempts, they were shooting 33-35% from the field and not hitting from three.

That's not something you can saddle on Lebron. That's systemic offensive ineptitude in the face of the Warriors. Kyrie got it from Lue about over-isolating, and of course Love also had troubles because of the concussion in game 2 and that cut short his offensive production, but he hadn't been doing well even before that anyhow.

Now, Lebron has been poop as an individual scorer in this series, and he's been a turnover factory: he's having a BAD series, that's also worth noting, but his jumper isn't the reason that they're losing this series. And of course, this is only the offensive side of the ball, and doesn't even touch on the defensive issues.

[MisterHibachi]

In case anyone wasn't paying attention: Kyrie has 36 shots and 5 assists through 2 games of the Finals.

[RSCD3_]

In case anyone wasn't paying attention: Kyrie has 36 shots and 5 assists through 2 games of the Finals.

Dude's been attacking Draymond, Klay and Barnes off the dribble like they were Kendrick perkins, then he's shocked when they are athletic enough to mirror him and make him take a bad shot. Kyrie thinks he has a mismatch and it is clearly not one

[Peregrine01]

In case anyone wasn't paying attention: Kyrie has 36 shots and 5 assists through 2 games of the Finals.

Dude's been attacking Draymond, Klay and Barnes off the dribble like they were Kendrick perkins, then he's shocked when they are athletic enough to mirror him and make him take a bad shot. Kyrie thinks he has a mismatch and it is clearly not one

Kyrie has some of the worst tunnel vision I've ever seen in a point guard. It feels like he's in permanent Uncle Drew mode.

[G35]

What happened to your best player is suppose to make the supporting cast better? Is that not a relevant point or is Love and Kyrie beyond any hope of increasing their effectiveness? What is confusing is that Lebron is so smart, such a good playmaker, so good on defense, and so efficient but none of that is on display in this series.

Kyrie and Love may not be playing well but Lebron is not doing anything to help them either. When a defense that is as good as GS's knows that the best player cannot finish in the paint and can't make a perimeter shot it makes the offense very predictable......

[Sedale Threatt]

Love and Irving are high-dollar, All-Star players. They shouldn't need to be made better.

[therealbig3]

It's not like it's just been LeBron's jumper that's regressed though, it's been his FT shooting too. Coupled with the fact that he sounded extraordinarily ignorant when he was questioned about it and said "LeBron James is never going to be remembered as a great 3pt shooter" or something like that, and I think it's totally fair to wonder if he's really put enough practice into that.

Also, LeBron is a stubborn guy. I think he truly believes that what he's doing is the best way to go about things, and he needs to basically be embarrassed in order to accept that maybe there are things he can do differently. He hadn't won before 2011, but 2011 made him work on his post game. Before that, yes he had been beaten, but I think he always told himself that it wasn't because he did anything wrong or could do anything better, he probably just rationalized it as him playing well, but his team wasn't good enough. So there was nothing he had to do to get better. 2011 was the first time he had been embarrassed, and it showed that yes, you can definitely do better. And that's when he developed a post game.

And last year, anybody could see that yes, LeBron didn't have a realistic chance of winning the Finals with the supporting cast he had, but it was also obvious that he could have made things even tougher for GS if he could shoot. But it seems that what he took from that series was more of the same from his pre-2011 years: I put up monster production, I wasn't playing with great teammates, and we still put up a fight. The way I'm playing is fine just the way it is, I just need better teammates, and we're good.

But just like 2011, better teammates hasn't been the answer. It's LeBron having too big of a flaw in his game that he should have improved on by now. Now that he's getting embarrassed again, maybe now he'll come back next year with the jumper he should have had this year.

[G35]

Love and Irving are high-dollar, All-Star players. They shouldn't need to be made better.

True, they shouldn't but great players are suppose to make other players great, and right now the Cavaliers need all hands on deck. Imagine Magic with this cast and is anyone saying he wouldn't make them more effective......

[Sedale Threatt]

Love and Irving are high-dollar, All-Star players. They shouldn't need to be made better.

True, they shouldn't but great players are suppose to make other players great, and right now the Cavaliers need all hands on deck. Imagine Magic with this cast and is anyone saying he wouldn't make them more effective......

I've always thought this notion is one of those old-school cliches that doesn't really stand up to heavy scrutiny. Charles Barkley shot it down pretty effectively:

"I wish I had to make James Worthy better. I've got to make Shelton Jones better. Poor Magic. He's got to make Michael Cooper better. He's got to make Kareem (Abdul-Jabbar) better. He's got to make James Worthy better."

Obviously, Love and Irving aren't Shelton Jones. But, while James certainly hasn't played all that great, I'm gonna put the onus on their shoulders for playing even worse before I blame him. Especially when you consider how atrocious those two are on D, which doesn't have anything to do with James.

[Nbafanatic]

It's not like it's just been LeBron's jumper that's regressed though, it's been his FT shooting too. Coupled with the fact that he sounded extraordinarily ignorant when he was questioned about it and said "LeBron James is never going to be remembered as a great 3pt shooter" or something like that, and I think it's totally fair to wonder if he's really put enough practice into that.

Also, LeBron is a stubborn guy. I think he truly believes that what he's doing is the best way to go about things, and he needs to basically be embarrassed in order to accept that maybe there are things he can do differently. He hadn't won before 2011, but 2011 made him work on his post game. Before that, yes he had been beaten, but I think he always told himself that it wasn't because he did anything wrong or could do anything better, he probably just rationalized it as him playing well, but his team wasn't good enough. So there was nothing he had to do to get better. 2011 was the first time he had been embarrassed, and it showed that yes, you can definitely do better. And that's when he developed a post game.

And last year, anybody could see that yes, LeBron didn't have a realistic chance of winning the Finals with the supporting cast he had, but it was also obvious that he could have made things even tougher for GS if he could shoot. But it seems that what he took from that series was more of the same from his pre-2011 years: I put up monster production, I wasn't playing with great teammates, and we still put up a fight. The way I'm playing is fine just the way it is, I just need better teammates, and we're good.

But just like 2011, better teammates hasn't been the answer. It's LeBron having too big of a flaw in his game that he should have improved on by now. Now that he's getting embarrassed again, maybe now he'll come back next year with the jumper he should have had this year.

I agree. And you know what? I am disappointed on Lebron for him not being absolutely pissed about the way the Warriors is playing him, going under every screen, even helping off of him on some instances. As is being discussed on another thread, of course that the way you play is all that matters, but I find very hard to believe that guys like Magic or Jordan would simply be conformed and quit like this, because I got the sense that Lebron quit on this game 2. Of course we got some very clear examples in the past, like game 5 against the Celtics in 2010 and the whole 2011 finals series, but there are more subtle ways to surrender, and I think we, as fans of the game, have to be able to see that. I can totally see Lebron as a top 5 all time guy for the whole body of work, but games and series like this makes me really disappointed on him and having no chance to be considered the GOAT on my book.

[G35]

Love and Irving are high-dollar, All-Star players. They shouldn't need to be made better.

True, they shouldn't but great players are suppose to make other players great, and right now the Cavaliers need all hands on deck. Imagine Magic with this cast and is anyone saying he wouldn't make them more effective......

I've always thought this notion is one of those old-school cliches that doesn't really stand up to heavy scrutiny. Charles Barkley shot it down pretty effectively:

"I wish I had to make James Worthy better. I've got to make Shelton Jones better. Poor Magic. He's got to make Michael Cooper better. He's got to make Kareem (Abdul-Jabbar) better. He's got to make James Worthy better."

Obviously, Love and Irving aren't Shelton Jones. But, while James certainly hasn't played all that great, I'm gonna put the onus on their shoulders for playing even worse before I blame him. Especially when you consider how atrocious those two are on D, which doesn't have anything to do with James.

I can buy that to a degree but then when things are bad people tend to think the worst of those players. None of the Warrior players are high draft picks. Many of the Warriors are castoffs from other teams:

- Andre Iguodola did anyone ever think that he could have been a FMVP. He is on his 3rd team and the Nuggets gave up on him after one year. He has a career PER of 16.2

- Andrew Bogut a player that was injury prone, speculated going back to play in Australia. This guy had microfracture surgery and looks like he is always limping but he is an integral piece to the Warriors defense and is a surprisingly good passer

- Shaun Livingston another player that had a devastating leg injury that ruined a bright career and it is crazy to see that GS is his TENTH team. He is playing amazingly now and its after the fact that he "can start for any team in the league" yet it took eight other teams to figure that he could still play at a high level

- Leandro Barbosa everyone knows his history with PHX and I remember how many times he use to kill the Lakers. However, he was expected to run the team when Nash went to the bench and that was not his game. Once D'Antoni was gone so was Barbosa and he bounced around with FOUR other teams before catching on with the Warriors and now he is one of the bright spots off the bench for the Warriors.

This does not count Draymond a second round pick, Ezeli the last pick of the 1st round, Mareese Speights who bounced around the league (even playing for the Cavaliers) and all of them have been effective.

Do we really think that three years ago, Lebron would have recruited any of these players? Yes, it sounds great to say things after the fact about how "obvious" to see how good these role players would become. Yet, it takes the best player on a team to allow others to become contributors.

I remember when the Cavs signed Larry Hughes, a guy coming off his best year with Washington, and was suppose to team up with Lebron to form the next Michael/Scottie. That never materialized, Hughes just got worse every year, and I thought "Man, that was a bad signing by the Cavs...Larry didn't do jack for Lebron!"

How many times do we say that about players next to Lebron?

I think its easier to name the players that have flourished next to Lebron:

Mo Williams
Dwyane Wade (at times)
Varejao
Illgauskas
JJ Hickson

Then the players who are not living up to expectations:

Kyrie
Love
Bosh
Hughes
Mozgov


What you see is that All Star caliber players tend to underachieve next to Lebron. This is seen in multiple situations, different teams, different coaches, different organizations. We hear the same thing, the others need to step up. Why is that always the same refrain with a Lebron led team? If you think about it, its easier to make a role player look good because nobody expects anything from them. Its when you add elite talent that takes real chemistry/leadership/ability to make work......

[JordansBulls]

Love and Irving are high-dollar, All-Star players. They shouldn't need to be made better.

3 number 1 options don't fit together for the most part to maximize each ability

[Sedale Threatt]

Yet, it takes the best player on a team to allow others to become contributors.

See, I don't really agree with this, at least not the way you're phrasing it. I mean, I'm not going to say that playing with great players doesn't make the game easier for others to a certain extent. Obviously when you're on the court next to shooters like Curry and Thompson, and an elite all-around player like Green, they form the backbone of a historically great team. At that point you can bring in the veterans like you mentioned who just have to fill a role.

But it's not like these guys were crap before they showed up in Golden State. I mean, the Warriors outplayed the Cavaliers pretty significantly when Curry sat down with fouls the other night. Clearly these guys can play, as they've proven throughout their careers in other locations. Even Livingston -- he had a very solid season with the Nets before joining the Warriors. Bogut was a top pick and, while not as good as you'd expect, has almost always been very good. They weren't castoffs so much as they're aging veterans, and that's what happens at this point in their career.

Great players provide a stage for others to perform, yes. But at some point, it's up to them to take advantage of that. Which is why I think it's simplistic to look at Irving and Love playing like crap in two games and put the onus on LeBron. I don't absolve him from playing just OK -- not great, but not bad either, just OK. But more than anything, they're playing a WAY better team -- 16 more wins, double the SRS, home court advantage -- that seems to match up with them pretty much perfectly.

Your rationale here reminds me of a poster on the Lakers board -- B-Scott -- who used to drive me nuts blaming Kobe for not making Lamar Odom a better player, despite being obviously miscast as a water carrier instead of the ultra-productive role player his personality was more conducive to, as we saw after Pau arrived. Why was Odom's lack of go-to offensive game/inconsistent effort and aggressiveness Kobe's fault?

Along those same lines, what, exactly, would you like to see LeBron doing? (And again, I'm acknowledging that he's not playing great.) At what point is it your All-Star point guard's own fault for shooting horribly in two games, and being a ball-pounder with minimal playmaking skills who can't play off the ball? What is LeBron not doing that he needs to shoulder the responsibility for Kevin Love getting his ass whipped every which way by Draymond Green? What is LeBron not doing that it's his fault for both being atrocious defensive players?

My thinking is that LeBron must be doing something right in terms of Making Teammates Better to be on the run he's on, which still means something. I mean, there was a not insubstantial amount of people that wanted to blame him last year, too, which blew my mind given that he pretty much won two games by himself. I guess I just don't get the mindset to pin the fact that the Cavs are getting dog whipped by an all-time team on the one guy who is doing his job remotely well.

[imraged]

I remember when the Cavs signed Larry Hughes, a guy coming off his best year with Washington, and was suppose to team up with Lebron to form the next Michael/Scottie. That never materialized, Hughes just got worse every year, and I thought "Man, that was a bad signing by the Cavs...Larry didn't do jack for Lebron!"

How many times do we say that about players next to Lebron?

I think its easier to name the players that have flourished next to Lebron:

Mo Williams
Dwyane Wade (at times)
Varejao
Illgauskas
JJ Hickson

Then the players who are not living up to expectations:

Kyrie
Love
Bosh
Hughes
Mozgov


What you see is that All Star caliber players tend to underachieve next to Lebron. This is seen in multiple situations, different teams, different coaches, different organizations. We hear the same thing, the others need to step up. Why is that always the same refrain with a Lebron led team? If you think about it, its easier to make a role player look good because nobody expects anything from them. Its when you add elite talent that takes real chemistry/leadership/ability to make work......

How can you say that Bosh underachieved? They won two titles one of which with him as the clear second best player.

Hughes was never a legitimate all-star level player. But even if you operate under the belief that he was:

- He was injured for much of his tenure with the Cavs
- He was pushing 30 by the time LeBron really hit his prime

It's honestly kind of a joke that his name is even being mentioned here. Even current Iguodala is better than Larry Hughes.

I don't know how Mozgov fits in that group but he played the best basketball of his career last year.

[Dupp]

I remember when the Cavs signed Larry Hughes, a guy coming off his best year with Washington, and was suppose to team up with Lebron to form the next Michael/Scottie. That never materialized, Hughes just got worse every year, and I thought "Man, that was a bad signing by the Cavs...Larry didn't do jack for Lebron!"

How many times do we say that about players next to Lebron?

I think its easier to name the players that have flourished next to Lebron:

Mo Williams
Dwyane Wade (at times)
Varejao
Illgauskas
JJ Hickson

Then the players who are not living up to expectations:

Kyrie
Love
Bosh
Hughes
Mozgov


What you see is that All Star caliber players tend to underachieve next to Lebron. This is seen in multiple situations, different teams, different coaches, different organizations. We hear the same thing, the others need to step up. Why is that always the same refrain with a Lebron led team? If you think about it, its easier to make a role player look good because nobody expects anything from them. Its when you add elite talent that takes real chemistry/leadership/ability to make work......

How can you say that Bosh underachieved? They won two titles one of which with him as the clear second best player.

Hughes was never a legitimate all-star level player. But even if you operate under the belief that he was:

- He was injured for much of his tenure with the Cavs
- He was pushing 30 by the time LeBron really hit his prime

It's honestly kind of a joke that his name is even being mentioned here. Even current Iguodala is better than Larry Hughes.

I don't know how Mozgov fits in that group but he played the best basketball of his career last year.

As did Kyrie.