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Basketball ended when Michael Jordan stopped playing.
oregonblitzkrieg
Member Posts: 15,288
Labron Fucktwat is not the second coming. It's just not worth watching with no Jordan.
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The NBA is as well played as it's ever been. The rules make it more fun to watch. The coaching and scouting has reached a very high level.
It's the best sport going and Lebron is the biggest reason why.
His best case is Top 5 of all time ...
I've seen him owned enough times to just laugh at the thought that he's as good as those in the Top 5 of all time ...
Everybody loves to run their mouth about his stats and how he's so fucking great:
LBJ Career Averages:
27.5 ppg; 7.2 rpg, 6.9 apg; .494 fg %, .747 ft %
Larry Bird Career Averages:
24.3 ppg, 10.0 rpg, 6.3 apg; .496 fg %, .886 ft % ...
Wake me up when he's achieved more than Larry Joe Bird ... the Basketball Jesus.
Lebron has 2 titles, 2 Finals MVPs and 4 MVPs.
Wake up.
The East has been a fucking dreckfest for most of LBJ's career.
There are currently 3 teams over .500 in the East of the NBA right now.
LBJ is a really good player ... I have no problem saying that he'll end up in the Top 10 of all time.
But he's not Bird.
He's not Magic.
He's not Russell.
He's not Jordan.
And from a physical freak standpoint, he's not Wilt.
That's your Top 5 of all time.
And to top it up, forget Wilt's selfish ass, none of the others had to leave their teams to go win a title. There's an asterisk next to LBJ's title by trying to put together a super team. Sure, he beat the Bastard Sonics b/c they were flat out better than them (and the Bastards were too young to know how to fucking win), but they should have lost to the Spurs last year and would have if it wasn't for Jesus Fucking Shuttlesworth.
LBJ's greatest asset as a basketball player is that he's elite from a genetic lottery standpoint. That makes him a Top 10 player. From a pure talent standpoint, he's not a Top 10 talent.
LBJ = Dr. J to me.
You asked when Lebron accomplished more than Bird to wake you. He's already even in the three most important categories. Titles, Finals MVPs and MVPs.
Then Bird and Magic have asterisks next to all their titles. Playing with other great players doesn't count! And the excuse making for who they beat and how they beat them for the title is weak. The list of guys Lebron has beat in the NBA Finals is impressive. Durant, Duncan, Parker, Ginobili, Harden and Westbrook are all Hall of Famers. I hate Lebron but even I wouldn't sink to the pathetic level of discounting his championships.
Get the fuck out of here that he isn't Larry Bird. If you actually think LeBron wouldn't win 2 titles with McHale, Parish, Dennis Johnson, etc, you are a fucking idiot. LeBron didn't have one guy even close to that level when he played in Cleveland. Same with Magic. Magic had Kareem, James Worthy, Michael Cooper, Wilkes, Scott, etc. You need to watch some NBA classic and get reacquainted with those teams. They were absolutely loaded.
Jordan is better. So is Russell. After that, LeBron is right there and could end up at #3. He's got quite a few good years left. The script is still being written.
It's true they wouldn't have beaten the Spurs without Ray Allen, but how did they get to that point? I seem to remember LeBron losing his headband and taking the game over to lead a Heat comeback from double digits.
This is from espn.com: MVP: LeBron James was slow to start, going 3-for-12 in the first three quarters. However, he exploded in the fourth, scoring 16 points sans his trademark headband. He finished with 32 points, 10 boards and 11 assists, becoming the first since Charles Barkley in '93 to put up a 30-point, 10-rebound, 10-assist game in the Finals.
I don't really like LeBron and have never rooted harder for a non Seattle team than I did for the Mavericks when they beat the Heat in the finals, but you couldn't be more wrong about LeBron. Larry Bird is a great player and a true legend, but LeBron is better. APAG had it right. Wake up!
APAG: If you are going to cite the 1984-1985 NBA season, please get your fucking facts straight. Wikipedia is your fucking friend. Let's cite all the areas that you have wrong about 1985:
1) Bird didn't win the Finals MVP - that was Kareem.
2) The Bulls made the playoffs with 38 wins ... not 30 wins.
3) Saying that the Bucks weren't a fucking great team is borderline comical. They won 59 games and led the league in defense. Statistically, they were the best team in the league during the regular season. Their leading scorer was Terry Cummings. Top Cat was the 2nd overall pick in the '82 draft behind James Worthy and ahead of Dominique Wilkins. His lowest scoring average per game in his first 8 NBA seasons was 19.6 points per game. Sidney Moncrief was a 5-time NBA All-Star and essentially averaged a 20/5/5 for 5-straight years before his career fell apart due to injuries. In the mid-80's, Moncrief was widely considered one of the better all-around players in the league. Other solid contributors on that team included Paul Pressey (solid all-around wing player), Craig Hodges, Alton Lister (a guy Sonics fans often laugh about but he was a servicable big that could get you close to a double double on average back in a day where almost everybody had quality bigs).
The reason that history doesn't "kindly" remember the Bucks of the early to mid 80's it's because they never could get past elite all-time teams in Boston and Philly. And speaking of Philly, they won 58 games in 1984-1985 and were 2 years removed from a title.
4) You're a fucking idiot if you think that the point that I'm making against LBJ is that b/c he's playing with great players in Miami that means that nobody should have won titles if they weren't playing with great players. That's FS. The complaint against LBJ is that of all the greats to ever play the game, he's the only elite player to ever win his titles by essentially hand picking his team through free agency. There have been other players that have moved teams via free agency or trade, etc. that went on to win titles. But generally speaking, those players were first acquired and then it took time to build the pieces around them to win titles.
Moreover, you have to have great players to win a championship. No doubt about that. Part of being a great player is that you make those around you significantly better. Additionally, being a great player is being great when you have to be. I don't always feel like LBJ makes those around him that much better as much as it is that he has the ball in his hands so often and he draws so much attention given his unique genetic lottery win. His record in needing to be great when the situation demands it is a bit hit or miss.
5) I'd agree with you in saying that Duncan, Ginobili, and Parker are most likely all going to be future HOFers. Durant will be as well unless something freakish happens to him. Westbrook is starting to have enough injury issues with his knees now that you never really know what you're going to get going forward. It's not a given that he'll make it. And at this point, Harden's not done enough to suggest that he will be. He's a very good player, but he's far from a slam dunk HOFer. Going back to the '85 Bucks, if you asked people in 1985, I'm pretty sure that they'd say that there was no doubt that Sidney Moncrief would have been a future HOFer.
One of the fundamental challenges in your argument is comparing the players that players played with in the 1980s versus the players that they are playing with today.
In the 1980s, there were 23 teams in the league. Today, there are 30 teams.
Generally speaking today, I would say that you need to have 2 of the top 20 players in the NBA. With LBJ, Wade, and Bosh on the same team.
We all like to think about how great Parish and McHale were, but most forget that McHale didn't become a full-time starter until the 1985-1986 season. Not saying he wasn't a significant contributor at the time, but in 1985, Kevin McHale wasn't Kevin McHale. And when comparing back to Bird, 2 of his 3 titles were during this time period. I love Robert Parish ... he was a very, very solid big. But there were a lot of good/great bigs during that time period. For instance, if you look at Bill Cartwright's stats during the early part of his career before injuries and compare to Parish's, there isn't a significant difference. Is part of the reason that we have a fondness for Parish compared to some of the other bigs of the era simply tied to the fact that Parish won titles and others didn't?
If you want to really attach a player to Larry Bird and point to his ability to win titles, point to Dennis Johnson. It was the Celtics acquisition of Johnson and his ability to guard Andrew Toney and Magic that really gave the Celtics the chance to win the '84 and '86 titles.
Quickly moving to LBJ and his shooting %, I'll give him all the credit in the world for the fact that he's right up there for most unique genetic player to ever play the game with Wilt. He's too fast for most people his height and too strong for the players that are quick enough to guard him. He SHOULD shoot a high % given that he can pretty much get to the basket whenever he wants. He's a good, but not great shooter. His improvement in 3's to me is as much about shot selection as it is anything else. You will never convince me that a guy who has never shot higher than 78% from the line is a great shooter. Good shooter. Not great shooter.
Also, as a slight aside, two additional mistaken points regarding LBJ and Bird that should be pointed out. First, LBJ's career usage rate is 31.6% ... Bird's career usage rate is 26.5%. Only once in his career ('87-'88 season when the Celtics were on their last legs with their core group as a serious title contender) did Bird ever have a usage rate of over 30% (30.2% - also arguably his greatest statistical season of 29.9/9.3/6.1). LBJ has had a usage rate over 30% for 8 straight years (and is just under 30 for this season). Second, for those stat geeks that like win shares, Bird led the league in defensive win shares 4x in his career. LBJ hasn't done that. Moreover, if you want to look at steals and blocks as a measure of defensive ability, both have averaged about 1.7 steals per game and just under a block per game. I'd definitely say that LBJ is a superior on-ball defender given his athletic gifts. But the thought that Bird wasn't a good defender, particularly as a help defender, is really just a fallacy.
Regarding the Bastard Sonics, they are a TERRIBLE matchup for the Spurs then and now. It's the one team in the West that I don't think that the Spurs can beat in a 7 game series if both sides have their pieces. Not saying that others can't beat the Spurs, but I also think that the Spurs would be favorites against everybody else in the West. Matchups matter in the NBA.
Finally, Game 6 in last season's Finals is the kind of game that will be showing up on TV for years. It was one of the great games in Finals history. James had a GREAT 4th quarter to give the Heat a chance at winning. However, his effort wasn't going to be enough if the Spurs would have closed out the game (as they should have at the line) or if they would have grabbed a rebound. In an example of where I think stats can sometimes be misleading, I thought that LBJ played a far better game in Game 7 than he did in Game 6.
Huh?
In 80-81, the Celtics were a balanced scoring team with 5 guys averaging over 10 per game and 8 guys averaging 8 per game.
In 83-84, Parish averaged 19 and 10.7 on 55% shooting. McHale averaged 18.4 and 7.4 on 56% shooting coming off the bench. They had 6 guys averaging double figures with 11.6 by Gerald Henderson being the lowest. Yes, games were higher scoring back then, but that's a team with a lot of weapons.
In 85-86, McHale averaged 21.3 and 8.4 on 57% shooting. Parish went for 16.1/9.5/55. LeBron has NEVER had a supporting cast as good as Bird's.
LeBron went to Miami because he wanted to win. When your 2nd best player is either Mo Williams or Antawn Jamison, your team sucks. When LeBron was 22, he led a team to the finals with Larry Hughes, Big Z, Drew Gooden to the finals. Eric fucking Snow was the PG of that team. Saying LeBron doesn't make his teammates better is FS. He played on teams that had Wally Szerbiak and Delonte West starting in the playoffs playing 30+ minutes. Szerbiak could barely even run. I didn't like how LeBron went about it, but he had to get out of Cleveland. I could go on and on. You are underrating LeBron because you have seen him choke a couple times.