The Lebron Thread | 2021 & Offseason

[thebigbird]

Giannis to the Lakers would be hilarious. Screw it, make it happen. I need LeBron to finish with 6+ rings and secure his position as the unquestioned GOAT.

[kayess]

Lol his legacy would take a hit if he won rings with Giannis

[Arrow]

^Why would it take a hit? LeBron would be 37 and in his 19th season. If he can still play at a prime level in his 19th season and win a ring, that would help his legacy, regardless of Giannis being on the team or not.

[thebigbird]

Lol his legacy would take a hit if he won rings with Giannis

No it wouldn’t. this response shows the insane standard LeBron is held to. He has 4 rings and 4 FMVPs. He just averaged 30/12/9 on 67% TS in the finals in his 17th season. He would be in his 19th season by the time he could play with Giannis. If he was capable of being a star player in his 19th season, in what world would winning rings with Giannis hurt his legacy? The vast majority of players never make it to their 19th season, and the ones who do are cooked.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Lol his legacy would take a hit if he won rings with Giannis

No it wouldn’t. this response shows the insane standard LeBron is held to. He has 4 rings and 4 FMVPs. He just averaged 30/12/9 on 67% TS in the finals in his 17th season. He would be in his 19th season by the time he could play with Giannis. If he was capable of being a star player in his 19th season, in what world would winning rings with Giannis hurt his legacy? The vast majority of players never make it to their 19th season, and the ones who do are cooked.

I mean, theres a reason no one cares about kds rings lol

[LikeABosh]

Lol his legacy would take a hit if he won rings with Giannis

A 37-38 year old LeBron? No. Everything is gravy from that point on

[homecourtloss]

Lol his legacy would take a hit if he won rings with Giannis

No it wouldn’t. this response shows the insane standard LeBron is held to. He has 4 rings and 4 FMVPs. He just averaged 30/12/9 on 67% TS in the finals in his 17th season. He would be in his 19th season by the time he could play with Giannis. If he was capable of being a star player in his 19th season, in what world would winning rings with Giannis hurt his legacy? The vast majority of players never make it to their 19th season, and the ones who do are cooked.

I mean, theres a reason no one cares about kds rings lol

KD was 28 when he joined the Warriors, not 38.

[BladeDaywalker]

Honestly, it appear to me that people are seriously overrating both Rondo and Howard's impact going forward.

Let go back to last offseason when the Lakers got Howard.

The consensus on Howard was that he was a washed up malcontent who would damage any locker room that he was a part of.

Not a single team wanted him around. The only reason the Lakers picked him up was because Cousins got hurt.

Even the Lakers were wary of Howard and the negative impact that he could have on the team.

The Lakers got lucky that Howard was willing to suppress his ego and do whatever the team needed him to do.

Not only that, he managed to avoid suffering any injuries such as his back that had bothered him in the past.

Rondo spent two regular seasons with the Lakers constantly injured or playing subpar basketball when he was healthy.

There was a reason why Lakers fans were complaining about him before the playoffs started.

If it was up to the fans, Rondo wouldn't have played in the playoffs because of how much he was disliked.

Furthermore, Rondo was lucky that the hand injury he had suffered before the playoffs only kept him out until the Rockets series and that he didn't re-injured it again.

Then, Rondo basically had an amazing 3s point shooting streak in the playoffs.

What are the odds that Howard who will turn 35 years old next week and Rondo who will be 35 in February will replicate the same exact performance during a more compressed schedule with greater back-to-back while remaining healthy?

Remember, we spent last season wondering who would be the Lakers' 3rd option. If the Lakers had Schroder and Harrell last year, they would have been the 3rd and 4th option for the team.

The reason why the Lakers had a rotating committee in the playoffs for the 3rd option was because no one was consistently good enough on a game by game basis.

This year, the Lakers don't have to search for a 3rd option in order to have a chance to win a title.

[MyUniBroDavis]

No it wouldn’t. this response shows the insane standard LeBron is held to. He has 4 rings and 4 FMVPs. He just averaged 30/12/9 on 67% TS in the finals in his 17th season. He would be in his 19th season by the time he could play with Giannis. If he was capable of being a star player in his 19th season, in what world would winning rings with Giannis hurt his legacy? The vast majority of players never make it to their 19th season, and the ones who do are cooked.

I mean, theres a reason no one cares about kds rings lol

KD was 28 when he joined the Warriors, not 38.

You cant honestly think that if we ended up getting the kawhi lebron and AD trip this ring would have meant the same as it does now right?

[Lakers LeBron]

Honestly, it appear to me that people are seriously overrating both Rondo and Howard's impact going forward.
....
This year, the Lakers don't have to search for a 3rd option in order to have a chance to win a title.

I agree with basically all of this. McGee is also likely to be worse this year than he was last year. I like that in general Pelinka aimed to get younger with his moves this offseason and he mostly got rid of the aging rotation players.

This sounds incredibly spoiled, but one thing that was frustrating about Mitch as GM is that he was always re-signing the old guys and targeting declining veterans after winning a championship. So every year after winning the team would come back looking older and slower than the year before. I remember in 08 the Lakers running the Spurs off the floor and Chuck on TNT talking about how much younger and more athletic the Lakers squad was. Then by 2011 we were the slow team getting run off the floor by the Mavs. And I'm guessing that's something Pelinka remembers that as well.

[kayess]

To everyone who replied: I meant in the eyes of the general public, who, as bigbird points out, hold him to an insane, inconsistent standard.

Obviously to me the only thing that matters is level of play.

[picko]

To everyone who replied: I meant in the eyes of the general public, who, as bigbird points out, hold him to an insane, inconsistent standard.

Obviously to me the only thing that matters is level of play.

I think you are greatly overestimating how much the general public cares about these things.

RealGM and Skip Bayless are not the general public. Most people will struggle to care now and certainly won't care in a decade or two - the same incidentally will be true for KD.

[frica]

To everyone who replied: I meant in the eyes of the general public, who, as bigbird points out, hold him to an insane, inconsistent standard.

Obviously to me the only thing that matters is level of play.

A ring is a ring, a win is a win.

That's the only thing people care about in the end.
I've seen it so often in boxing, a fighter loses but the judges gift him the win and his career goes on like nothing happened.

Brandon Rios vs. Richar Abril is a good example. One of the worst robberies of all time, Rios arguably lost all 12 rounds yet walked away with a win. Career still on track and very little happened to his stock.

Lebron is held to high standards, but no standard goes beyond a W.

[MyUniBroDavis]

To everyone who replied: I meant in the eyes of the general public, who, as bigbird points out, hold him to an insane, inconsistent standard.

Obviously to me the only thing that matters is level of play.

I think you are greatly overestimating how much the general public cares about these things.

RealGM and Skip Bayless are not the general public. Most people will struggle to care now and certainly won't care in a decade or two - the same incidentally will be true for KD.

I literally dont know a single person that gives KD full credit for his rings lol, they do def care about that

I mean even duncan people dont really give him credit lol

[KTM_2813]

To everyone who replied: I meant in the eyes of the general public, who, as bigbird points out, hold him to an insane, inconsistent standard.

Obviously to me the only thing that matters is level of play.

I think you are greatly overestimating how much the general public cares about these things.

RealGM and Skip Bayless are not the general public. Most people will struggle to care now and certainly won't care in a decade or two - the same incidentally will be true for KD.

I literally dont know a single person that gives KD full credit for his rings lol, they do def care about that

I mean even duncan people dont really give him credit lol

Even though people may not give KD full credit for his rings, he gets enough credit that most people would probably rank him as a top 11-20 player of all-time. If he never went to Golden State, I'm not sure he wins any rings, and therefore I'm not sure if people would have him as high as they do now. I think it's a situation where tainted rings > no rings, at least in the eyes of many.

Bringing the conversation back to James, if he wins a ring at 38 with Giannis, people may devalue that ring to a certain extent, but it would still benefit him more than winning nothing. Best case scenario would obviously be for him to win again without Giannis, but from a legacy perspective, I think that any ring is better than nothing (in terms of general perception).

[thebigbird]

Lol his legacy would take a hit if he won rings with Giannis

No it wouldn’t. this response shows the insane standard LeBron is held to. He has 4 rings and 4 FMVPs. He just averaged 30/12/9 on 67% TS in the finals in his 17th season. He would be in his 19th season by the time he could play with Giannis. If he was capable of being a star player in his 19th season, in what world would winning rings with Giannis hurt his legacy? The vast majority of players never make it to their 19th season, and the ones who do are cooked.

I mean, theres a reason no one cares about kds rings lol

KD had zero rings and went to join the 73 win team that had just beaten him. LeBron has already accomplished more than basically anyone in NBA history. He’s in the twilight of his career, or he would be at least if he was human. His critics will never be satisfied, so who cares what they think. At this point there are two things I want LeBron to do: get to six rings and break the scoring record. And I don’t really care how it happens. He gets hate for losing no matter how great he plays, so stack up those rings however you have to do it. It’s all gravy at this point. The record books won’t have qualifiers or asterisks 20 years from now. Kobe won a ring by averaging 15 ppg on 41% TS in the finals. Kareem won a ring when averaging 14 ppg during a playoff run. No one cares about it, and most don’t even know about it. They just care about how many rings they have. Same will be true about LeBron.

[MisterHibachi]

Read on Twitter

?s=19

Woah!

[thebigbird]

Well deserved and completely unexpected. Is this the first time LeBron actually trusts an organization? He never would’ve done this in Cleveland.

[Freighttrain]

Great news for Lakers fan who doubted he would stay, not that I think many did. I do wonder if that makes it harder to free up a max slot next season? Any cap wizard in the room?

[nzahir]

Wow very surprising

So are we giving up on 2021 FA I guess

Does he have a PO for 2022 or no?