ratul wrote:dreamshake wrote:ratul wrote:Not even sure this works for LA in terms of fit. AD becomes Kevin love. Great
Kevin Love used optimally is a high-post passing hub who needs the offense run through him. That largely overlaps with LeBron's skillset. Love is also terrible on defense.
AD is an off-ball genius who can operate in the PnR, PnP and get all kinds of garbage cleanup buckets. He's also great defensively.
They're totally different players. Love's shooting was a nice complement to LeBron, but his fundamental offensive game didn't fit with LeBron as well as AD's should. That said Kevin Love was severely underrated with the Cavaliers. The 16 & 17 Cavaliers with LeBron & Love on the floor were some of the best offenses of all time. It was defensively that they struggled.
What you are saying is AD is a better player. That’s correct. And obvious. However playing with Lebron has had fairly mixed impacts on big guys (love, bosh, mozgov even). Lebron needs to get into the paint. That impacts AD
No, I'm not just saying he's a better player. I'm saying he's a different type of player. If you want to look at past bigs LeBron has played with, a better comparison would be JJ Hickson, Birdman, or Larry Nance. They have more in common stylistically on offense despite being nothing remotely close to the player AD is. And LeBron made all 3 of those guys look a lot better than they actually are (particularly Hickson - he looked like he might become a borderline all-star with LeBron, then was out of the league a few seasons after LBJ left)
And again it's not even like those guys you mentioned were bad with LeBron. Mozgov played the best ball of his career in Cleveland before he got hurt. Love & Bosh were awesome. If it's just pure scoring volume you're concerned with, you also have to remember Love & Bosh were 3rd options behind Kyrie and Wade respectively. As it stands now AD is like option 1B at worst. I would be surprised if AD doesn't end up with a higher scoring average than LeBron this season.
