The LeBron Thread 2021 Off-Season Edition

[BobbyPortisFan]

KD is the best player in the world no question. Steph couldnt do anything close to that in a playoff series. No Kyrie, Harris and harden no shows. It was very lebron like and he beat a great bucks team by himself.... except his foot was just on the line..



However it does show you how insane Lebrons load was. 8 years straight carrying teams a lot of the time. Heavy minutes and deep runs. KD was completely gassed. Not sure how he’s go doing this for a few years straight in the playoffs.

Uh. Steph did a much stronger version of what durant did in the 19 finals.

What do you mean beat by himself?

Giannis versus Nets: 30.4 per 75 on +9.8% rest of team efficiency

Durant versus Bucks: 32.7 per 75 on +5.4% rest of team efficiency

Durant had more help than giannis and lost because giannis is a much better defender and because he shot below league average in 4 out of 7 games.

"Best player in the world no quesion" is a wierd take for someone who was just outplayed in the second round.

[SeniorWalker]

are you comparing lebron to other players in 2020 or to other lebron seasons?, cause if is the latter then yeah, he is not the best of course

but in 2020? his competitors are

davis (who was comparable in the post season, you have lebron a bit below davis in playoffs i have him slightly above, either way their playoffs run were comparable)

butler (great playoffs but not better than lebron and clearly not as good in regular season)

kawhi (worse regular season + worse playoffs)

giannis (better regular seasom but clearly worse in playoffs)

which one has a clear case over him that year?

giannis if you only focus on reg season, davis if you use only playoffs (and is not clear davis was better there

My point was just that LeBron was not on a separate tier from everyone else in the playoffs and that is important given that he most definitely wasn't the best reg season player, nor was he the year before when he didn't make the playoffs. I also think him playing with Davis in an underrated factor, Davis takes a lot of pressure off of him to be the guy now and I'll explain why this is important.

In 2018 LeBron had one all-star teammate who was nowhere near him in impact. He went against the warriors in the finals and while he had no chance to win that series, he was still the definitive best player on the floor. The same thing just happened with Kevin Durant.

Since then we have not seen that from LeBron. In fact, without Davis he hasn't looked like a top 5 player because he's asked to do more than just be a facilitator and occasional defender and at his age that's asking a lot. AD really dominated the playoffs up to the finals and in the early part of the series where the Lakers hit the Heat in the mouth and let them know who the better team was. LeBron did play better down the stretch but he had a guy taking enormous pressure off of him (like we say for KD in the 17 and 18 finals with Curry) and he still wasn't heads and shoulders above the field. Actually butler went toe to toe with him and had wayyyyyy less help, which frankly to me is more impressive. It was not a convincing "I'm still the guy performance" to be brutally honest. He was great, dont get me wrong, but I'm not going to overlook the fact that he wasn't really the best player all year (or the year before) and then has a stretch of games where he is kind of the best against a depleted and much inferior Heat team and has a teammate making life wayyy easier on him compared to the field. It's not a knock on LeBron for having AD, it's just that his dominance has not been demonstrable recently without him, key word being recently. When we've seen LeBron without AD he hasn't looked like the best in the league, which is important because win or lose, if you want to be considered the best you have to look utterly dominant regardless of who is on the floor with you. I.e., Steph curry all year long with that horrible warriors team and just this last week Kevin Durant. LeBron has not done that in years. Not saying he's been bad, of course not, but he's not been the absolute best which is what we're talking about and I think it's time everyone catches up and realizes he doesn't have that crown anymore.

i get all that, lebron was not the same as peak lebron and it was not his best year. my arguments is more that it does very well against the field of that specific year

he didnt dominate regular seasom like giannis but giannis had a meh playoffs

he needed davis, but davis also needed lebron, otherwise he was not leading the lakers to impressive results when lebron was ****

under the arguments you are using it should be butler who was #1 in 2020, third most impressive playoffs run + the 1 and 2 playing together

do you think butler was the best player in the world that year?

That's a hell of a strawman my guy.

Under the arguments I'm using, I'm saying that it probably isn't LeBron anymore. I'm not saying that it definitely is someone else, there's a difference. There are a handful of guys in the conversation, LeBron included, but the era of him being at the top and riding on that reputation is over.

LeBron in the last 3 years has just fallen into the pack with his level of play. Some guys have looked a lot better in the regular season and some guys have looked as good or better in the post season. All things considered, there just appear to be a handful of guys who might be better overall now. I have Curry, Durant, and Kawhi as guys I'd 100% take over him right now because I think they're just better at this stage. A few other guys have arguments too tbh. I might put Giannis up there too depending on how the Bucks finish these playoffs.

Harden when healthy was in the discussion too, truthfully he's been a better individual player than LeBron for a few years now... and I hate saying that because I largely do not like his game outside of the last few months in Brooklyn.

[Dupp]

He didn’t get outplayed nor did he have more more help. Giannis supporting cast was much better after kylie went down.

[BobbyPortisFan]

He didn’t get outplayed nor did he have more more help. Giannis supporting cast was much better after kylie went down.

Durant shot below league average on two of his games with kyrie. Middleton was only good for half the series and holdiay was a no show throughout. Brook lopez was unplayable for most of it, and the bucks for the most part couldn't shoot. harden still drew defensive attention to stop kd from getting doubled most of the time. As the quote shows, durant's team was more effecient outside of him than giannis's was outside of him.

Giannis matched kd's scoring, created more looks, and played much better defense. Durant got outplayed. Pretty simple. Even in game 7, giannis got 40 points on 12 less shots while playing some of the best defense we've seen in the playoffs.

TBH, I dont get why realgm is so high on KD. Giannis almost carried an average team to a title in his first year as a superstar. Durant got outplayed by westbrook in consecutive playoffs during his peak. KD really shouldn't be compared to b2b mvp's.

[GSP]

I hope if LeBron uses the #WashedKing hashtag next year like he did in 2020, people don't pop in here claiming that no one said he was washed after the last couple of pages of comments here.

People said the same thing heading into 2020, and then we had posters in here and elsewhere claiming that no one called him washed. Felt like I was being gas light all year.

I noticed he didnt do the zero dark thirty thing for the playoffs this year. Did he just know early on that the injuries were gonna be too much to overcome?

[MartinToVaught]

I hope if LeBron uses the #WashedKing hashtag next year like he did in 2020, people don't pop in here claiming that no one said he was washed after the last couple of pages of comments here.

People said the same thing heading into 2020, and then we had posters in here and elsewhere claiming that no one called him washed. Felt like I was being gas light all year.

I noticed he didnt do the zero dark thirty thing for the playoffs this year. Did he just know early on that the injuries were gonna be too much to overcome?

I think he stopped doing that when he went to the Lakers.

[PaulieWal]

I hope if LeBron uses the #WashedKing hashtag next year like he did in 2020, people don't pop in here claiming that no one said he was washed after the last couple of pages of comments here.

People said the same thing heading into 2020, and then we had posters in here and elsewhere claiming that no one called him washed. Felt like I was being gas light all year.

I noticed he didnt do the zero dark thirty thing for the playoffs this year. Did he just know early on that the injuries were gonna be too much to overcome?

I think he stopped doing that when he went to the Lakers.

He stopped the social media blackout last year due to the ongoing BLM and other protests at the time. I remember he said it was important for him due to the social circumstances to be on social media during the PS last year.

[FC93]

He didn’t get outplayed nor did he have more more help. Giannis supporting cast was much better after kylie went down.

Durant shot below league average on two of his games with kyrie. Middleton was only good for half the series and holdiay was a no show throughout. Brook lopez was unplayable for most of it, and the bucks for the most part couldn't shoot. harden still drew defensive attention to stop kd from getting doubled most of the time. As the quote shows, durant's team was more effecient outside of him than giannis's was outside of him.

Giannis matched kd's scoring, created more looks, and played much better defense. Durant got outplayed. Pretty simple. Even in game 7, giannis got 40 points on 12 less shots while playing some of the best defense we've seen in the playoffs.

TBH, I dont get why realgm is so high on KD. Giannis almost carried an average team to a title in his first year as a superstar. Durant got outplayed by westbrook in consecutive playoffs during his peak. KD really shouldn't be compared to b2b mvp's.

I feel like this board is low on KD compared to the general public. In the recent top 100 he was around 20; someone I follow on Twitter asked if he was top 20 and almost every single person who replied said he’s definitely top 15 and about half said top 10. A couple people said he’s better than Shaq and Hakeem. Not to say this board is wrong and that consensus is correct (obviously not the case) but I don’t think it’s right to say this board is high on KD since almost anyone who isn’t invested in the NBA analytics movement would have him way higher than this board does.

[Lakers LeBron]

I'm such a big fan of LeBron that if I saw him in person and had a chance to meet him, I'd actually pretend I didn't see him because I'm sure he hates fans coming up to him and bothering him

[BobbyPortisFan]

He didn’t get outplayed nor did he have more more help. Giannis supporting cast was much better after kylie went down.

Durant shot below league average on two of his games with kyrie. Middleton was only good for half the series and holdiay was a no show throughout. Brook lopez was unplayable for most of it, and the bucks for the most part couldn't shoot. harden still drew defensive attention to stop kd from getting doubled most of the time. As the quote shows, durant's team was more effecient outside of him than giannis's was outside of him.

Giannis matched kd's scoring, created more looks, and played much better defense. Durant got outplayed. Pretty simple. Even in game 7, giannis got 40 points on 12 less shots while playing some of the best defense we've seen in the playoffs.

TBH, I dont get why realgm is so high on KD. Giannis almost carried an average team to a title in his first year as a superstar. Durant got outplayed by westbrook in consecutive playoffs during his peak. KD really shouldn't be compared to b2b mvp's.

I feel like this board is low on KD compared to the general public. In the recent top 100 he was around 20; someone I follow on Twitter asked if he was top 20 and almost every single person who replied said he’s definitely top 15 and about half said top 10. A couple people said he’s better than Shaq and Hakeem. Not to say this board is wrong and that consensus is correct (obviously not the case) but I don’t think it’s right to say this board is high on KD since almost anyone who isn’t invested in the NBA analytics movement would have him way higher than this board does.

Realgm's lower on kd than the general public is, but still higher than I am. Everything's relative :p

[trickshot]

I can't lie it's funny to see all of them clown the Lakers only to end up crashed out of the playoffs less than 2 weeks later.

[homecourtloss]

I mean I think they are, but it doesn't diminish Lebron's accomplishments.

You can only beat who's in front of you.

in fairness, while these bucks are better than a vast majority of lebron rival teams in the east the point kind of stands

had lebron and davis played in the east and beat these bucks it would likely get diminished retroactively

if you think about it,bucks coming into this year had similarities with lowry/demar toronto. great regular season teams that underperform in the playoffs. bucks regular seasons peaked higher with 2020 yeah, but otherwise their 2021 or 2019 regular seasons are very similar to those raptor teams regular seasons

and their worse choke (2020 vs miami and 2018 vs cavs) just as bad

This Bucks team isn’t even that good, imho. They skated by an injured Nets team literally by inches. If Durant’s are three inches behind where they were all we’re talking about is how Giannis and the Bucks choked in the playoffs once again.

It doesn’t matter who LeBron plays, they’ll always call his competition weak. Look at what people said about the Lakers in the playoffs last year. Everyone talked about how the Lakers were going to lose and them once they beat all three west teams in five their competitors was once again trash. They faced Lillard, Harden/Westbrook, and Jokic/Murray m, easily beat all three, and then the narrative became that their competition was weak.

For all the people who always talked about LeBron winning the east because it was the East, looks like it’s not so easy. Yeah, yeah different players, etc., but look at this:

ECF 2019: Raps vs Bucks
ECF 2020: Celtics vs Heat
ECF 2021: Bucks vs. Hawks

Looks like making an ECF let alone the Finals isn’t that easy.

[thebigbird]

I'm such a big fan of LeBron that if I saw him in person and had a chance to meet him, I'd actually pretend I didn't see him because I'm sure he hates fans coming up to him and bothering him

I’d never want to meet him because he’s probably a douche to fans out in public and it would ruin the fandom for me, lol.

[thebigbird]

in fairness, while these bucks are better than a vast majority of lebron rival teams in the east the point kind of stands

had lebron and davis played in the east and beat these bucks it would likely get diminished retroactively

if you think about it,bucks coming into this year had similarities with lowry/demar toronto. great regular season teams that underperform in the playoffs. bucks regular seasons peaked higher with 2020 yeah, but otherwise their 2021 or 2019 regular seasons are very similar to those raptor teams regular seasons

and their worse choke (2020 vs miami and 2018 vs cavs) just as bad

This Bucks team isn’t even that good, imho. They skated by an injured Nets team literally by inches. If Durant’s are three inches behind where they were all we’re talking about is how Giannis and the Bucks choked in the playoffs once again.

It doesn’t matter who LeBron plays, they’ll always call his competition weak. Look at what people said about the Lakers in the playoffs last year. Everyone talked about how the Lakers were going to lose and them once they beat all three west teams in five their competitors was once again trash. They faced Lillard, Harden/Westbrook, and Jokic/Murray m, easily beat all three, and then the narrative became that their competition was weak.

For all the people who always talked about LeBron winning the east because it was the East, looks like it’s not so easy. Yeah, yeah different players, etc., but look at this:

ECF 2019: Raps vs Bucks
ECF 2020: Celtics vs Heat
ECF 2021: Bucks vs. Hawks

Looks like making an ECF let alone the Finals isn’t that easy.

For all the talk about how much better the East is now than it was when LeBron played in the East, the past two playoffs say not so fast. The 5 seed Heat made it last year, and the 5 seed Hawks made it this year. In both of the last two seasons the 1 and 2 seeds failed to make it to the ECF. It’s easy for people to say “oh LeBron’s Cavs teams wouldn’t have beaten team X in the East,” but we’ll never know because it never happened. Few people a couple weeks ago expected Atlanta and Milwaukee to be meeting in the ECF yet here we are. What we do know is that LeBron went 24-0 against eastern conference teams during his 8 year run. I don’t care who you’re playing, that’s impressive as hell.

[BobbyPortisFan]

This Bucks team isn’t even that good, imho. They skated by an injured Nets team literally by inches. If Durant’s are three inches behind where they were all we’re talking about is how Giannis and the Bucks choked in the playoffs once again.

It doesn’t matter who LeBron plays, they’ll always call his competition weak. Look at what people said about the Lakers in the playoffs last year. Everyone talked about how the Lakers were going to lose and them once they beat all three west teams in five their competitors was once again trash. They faced Lillard, Harden/Westbrook, and Jokic/Murray m, easily beat all three, and then the narrative became that their competition was weak.

For all the people who always talked about LeBron winning the east because it was the East, looks like it’s not so easy. Yeah, yeah different players, etc., but look at this:

ECF 2019: Raps vs Bucks
ECF 2020: Celtics vs Heat
ECF 2021: Bucks vs. Hawks

Looks like making an ECF let alone the Finals isn’t that easy.

For all the talk about how much better the East is now than it was when LeBron played in the East, the past two playoffs say not so fast. The 5 seed Heat made it last year, and the 5 seed Hawks made it this year. In both of the last two seasons the 1 and 2 seeds failed to make it to the ECF. It’s easy for people to say “oh LeBron’s Cavs teams wouldn’t have beaten team X in the East,” but we’ll never know because it never happened. Few people a couple weeks ago expected Atlanta and Milwaukee to be meeting in the ECF yet here we are. What we do know is that LeBron went 24-0 against eastern conference teams during his 8 year run. I don’t care who you’re playing, that’s impressive as hell.

The 5 seed heat did better vs the lakers with the best and third best playoff performers(prior to the finals) injured than anyone in the west did healthy.

[falcolombardi]

My point was just that LeBron was not on a separate tier from everyone else in the playoffs and that is important given that he most definitely wasn't the best reg season player, nor was he the year before when he didn't make the playoffs. I also think him playing with Davis in an underrated factor, Davis takes a lot of pressure off of him to be the guy now and I'll explain why this is important.

In 2018 LeBron had one all-star teammate who was nowhere near him in impact. He went against the warriors in the finals and while he had no chance to win that series, he was still the definitive best player on the floor. The same thing just happened with Kevin Durant.

Since then we have not seen that from LeBron. In fact, without Davis he hasn't looked like a top 5 player because he's asked to do more than just be a facilitator and occasional defender and at his age that's asking a lot. AD really dominated the playoffs up to the finals and in the early part of the series where the Lakers hit the Heat in the mouth and let them know who the better team was. LeBron did play better down the stretch but he had a guy taking enormous pressure off of him (like we say for KD in the 17 and 18 finals with Curry) and he still wasn't heads and shoulders above the field. Actually butler went toe to toe with him and had wayyyyyy less help, which frankly to me is more impressive. It was not a convincing "I'm still the guy performance" to be brutally honest. He was great, dont get me wrong, but I'm not going to overlook the fact that he wasn't really the best player all year (or the year before) and then has a stretch of games where he is kind of the best against a depleted and much inferior Heat team and has a teammate making life wayyy easier on him compared to the field. It's not a knock on LeBron for having AD, it's just that his dominance has not been demonstrable recently without him, key word being recently. When we've seen LeBron without AD he hasn't looked like the best in the league, which is important because win or lose, if you want to be considered the best you have to look utterly dominant regardless of who is on the floor with you. I.e., Steph curry all year long with that horrible warriors team and just this last week Kevin Durant. LeBron has not done that in years. Not saying he's been bad, of course not, but he's not been the absolute best which is what we're talking about and I think it's time everyone catches up and realizes he doesn't have that crown anymore.

i get all that, lebron was not the same as peak lebron and it was not his best year. my arguments is more that it does very well against the field of that specific year

he didnt dominate regular seasom like giannis but giannis had a meh playoffs

he needed davis, but davis also needed lebron, otherwise he was not leading the lakers to impressive results when lebron was ****

under the arguments you are using it should be butler who was #1 in 2020, third most impressive playoffs run + the 1 and 2 playing together

do you think butler was the best player in the world that year?

That's a hell of a strawman my guy.

Under the arguments I'm using, I'm saying that it probably isn't LeBron anymore. I'm not saying that it definitely is someone else, there's a difference. There are a handful of guys in the conversation, LeBron included, but the era of him being at the top and riding on that reputation is over.

LeBron in the last 3 years has just fallen into the pack with his level of play. Some guys have looked a lot better in the regular season and some guys have looked as good or better in the post season. All things considered, there just appear to be a handful of guys who might be better overall now. I have Curry, Durant, and Kawhi as guys I'd 100% take over him right now because I think they're just better at this stage. A few other guys have arguments too tbh. I might put Giannis up there too depending on how the Bucks finish these playoffs.

Harden when healthy was in the discussion too, truthfully he's been a better individual player than LeBron for a few years now... and I hate saying that because I largely do not like his game outside of the last few months in Brooklyn.

i actually agree with most of what you say, i believe there has not been a clear best player hierarchy since 2018

i dont disagree that many players have caught up or maybe surpassed lebron, they for sure did in 2019 and 2021

i am just saying i believe in the 2020 season specifically he had the best year overall, not that he was a clear cut best player in the world still

my argument is focused in that season

[GSP]

Gonna be such a lost season if the Bucks make the finals and they certainly should at this point.

Lakers match up incredibly well with Milwaukee and Marc has experience defending Giannis. They dont have an elite offensive wing like Harden, Murray, Booker who have torched the Lakers. Khris is good but not that level and Lakers perimeter defense should be able to handle them with Ad.

Lakers can easily play big or small with them too and Bron has shown he can guard Giannis. Philly wouldve been a much tougher opponent but Marc has historically owned Embiid too. Brooklyn seems like a bad matchup for the Lakers with the 3pt woes and switching defense but its hard to see La losing to anyone else in the East

[BobbyPortisFan]

Gonna be such a lost season if the Bucks make the finals and they certainly should at this point.

Lakers match up incredibly well with Milwaukee and Marc has experience defending Giannis. They dont have an elite offensive wing like Harden, Murray, Booker who have torched the Lakers. Khris is good but not that level and Lakers perimeter defense should be able to handle them with Ad.

Lakers can easily play big or small with them too and Bron has shown he can guard Giannis. Philly wouldve been a much tougher opponent but Marc has historically owned Embiid too. Brooklyn seems like a bad matchup for the Lakers with the 3pt woes and switching defense but its hard to see La losing to anyone else in the East

marc seemed pretty over the hill these playoffs

[Mos_Heat]

I might make that my sig. Like what the hell

On a serious note, I do think that:

shaq wasn't that dominant
Magic's passing wasn't that great
Bird was just average guy who got pumped because he's white
Curry can't shoot under pressure
LeBron is offensively limited

Anyone else wants to chime in?

News to me that he's limited offensively.

Lebron too limited offensively? Can’t wait to hear this.

I'm sorry guys. It was stupid to suggest that Lebron in his 19th season would be worse offensively than Durant, Curry, Kawhi, Luka, Jokic or Trae. Such a crazy statement from me

[Dupp]

Look what happened to the Sixers without Denny green. Dudes just a winner.