@Teq, you might want to check the stats of McHale and Parish on the Celtics championship teams. McHale was a great player in 1985. I love those Celtics teams and watch them almost every time I see them on the NBA network or ESPN classic. Chris Bosh isn't even close to the player that Kevin McHale was. If you swap 1985 Kevin McHale for Chris Bosh, the Heat probably win 65+ games and coast to an easy title. They surely would have beaten Dallas in 2011. There's not one big in the league right now that is on McHale's level as a low post scorer. He made a few all defense teams as well.
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.
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.
I was talking about the 85-86 season.
I can't be dealing with the rest of this. You're doing my head in.
I hate when people say Lebron took the easy way out to titles. The "easy" way out was going to Chicago with or without Wade as they had the best record the next two seasons without Lebron.
Also every great player has a good supporting cast to win a title. Lebron won four MVP's in a five year stretch and should have won five in a row. Lebron carried a shit franchise to heights it has never seen and never will see.
While in Miami he dominated both Finals while Wade and Bosh were solid they weren't anything close to being stars especially in the 2013 Finals .
In the 2013 NBA Finals Lebron averaged 25.3 PPG, 10.9 RPG, 7.0 APG, 2.0 steals and 0.9 blocks while shooting 44.7%/35.3%/79.5% against a really good Spurs team. Given their championship chops I'd say that was a tougher opponent than Michael Jordan has ever defeated in the Finals.
Meanwhile Wade averaged 19.6 PPG, 4.0 RPG, 4.6 APG so he was solid.
Chris Bosh was only 11.9 PPG, 8.9 RPG which again is solid but not exactly all-star level either.
Lebron had a crazy stretch where he won the regular season MVP, NBA Finals MVP, was the best player on the Olympic Gold Medal team, won regular season MVP, NBA Finals MVP.
I don't know if we'll ever see a player pull that one off again.
In the 2013 NBA Finals Lebron averaged 25.3 PPG, 10.9 RPG, 7.0 APG, 2.0 steals and 0.9 blocks while shooting 44.7%/35.3%/79.5% against a really good Spurs team. Given their championship chops I'd say that was a tougher opponent than Michael Jordan has ever defeated in the Finals.
The old LA Lakers are nothing to sniff it. Also Charles Barkley and the Suns were a hot team, they only lost about 11 games the entire season that they went to the championship. And don't forget the Portland Blazers, lol.
In the 2013 NBA Finals Lebron averaged 25.3 PPG, 10.9 RPG, 7.0 APG, 2.0 steals and 0.9 blocks while shooting 44.7%/35.3%/79.5% against a really good Spurs team. Given their championship chops I'd say that was a tougher opponent than Michael Jordan has ever defeated in the Finals.
The old LA Lakers are nothing to sniff it. Also Charles Barkley and the Suns were a hot team, they only lost about 11 games the entire season that they went to the championship. And don't forget the Portland Blazers, lol.
The Lakers team that Jordan defeated weren't that great. No Pat Riley or Kareem. It was a choke job by the Blazers.
Really only the 1992 Blazers could compete with the Spurs but they were mentally weak.
Just watch this clip to represent how everyone viewed those Blazers.
In the 2013 NBA Finals Lebron averaged 25.3 PPG, 10.9 RPG, 7.0 APG, 2.0 steals and 0.9 blocks while shooting 44.7%/35.3%/79.5% against a really good Spurs team. Given their championship chops I'd say that was a tougher opponent than Michael Jordan has ever defeated in the Finals.
The old LA Lakers are nothing to sniff it. Also Charles Barkley and the Suns were a hot team, they only lost about 11 games the entire season that they went to the championship. And don't forget the Portland Blazers, lol.
Or 20, but who is counting? Suns squeaked into the finals by shooting a shit load of FT's in game 7 of the conference finals against the Sonics.
In the 2013 NBA Finals Lebron averaged 25.3 PPG, 10.9 RPG, 7.0 APG, 2.0 steals and 0.9 blocks while shooting 44.7%/35.3%/79.5% against a really good Spurs team. Given their championship chops I'd say that was a tougher opponent than Michael Jordan has ever defeated in the Finals.
The old LA Lakers are nothing to sniff it. Also Charles Barkley and the Suns were a hot team, they only lost about 11 games the entire season that they went to the championship. And don't forget the Portland Blazers, lol.
Or 20, but who is counting? Suns squeaked into the finals by shooting a shit load of FT's in game 7 of the conference finals against the Sonics.
Comments
I can't be dealing with the rest of this. You're doing my head in.
McHale's low post moves should be shown to every kid learning the game of basketball.
They are great players. I'm not trying to say that they aren't.
But there were a lot of great players during that era and more of them were on championship teams than not given the number of teams in the league.
I'd be very interested to see a guy like McHale play in today's game. The ability to score in the post is a complete and total lost art.
Also every great player has a good supporting cast to win a title. Lebron won four MVP's in a five year stretch and should have won five in a row. Lebron carried a shit franchise to heights it has never seen and never will see.
While in Miami he dominated both Finals while Wade and Bosh were solid they weren't anything close to being stars especially in the 2013 Finals .
In the 2013 NBA Finals Lebron averaged 25.3 PPG, 10.9 RPG, 7.0 APG, 2.0 steals and 0.9 blocks while shooting 44.7%/35.3%/79.5% against a really good Spurs team. Given their championship chops I'd say that was a tougher opponent than Michael Jordan has ever defeated in the Finals.
Meanwhile Wade averaged 19.6 PPG, 4.0 RPG, 4.6 APG so he was solid.
Chris Bosh was only 11.9 PPG, 8.9 RPG which again is solid but not exactly all-star level either.
Lebron had a crazy stretch where he won the regular season MVP, NBA Finals MVP, was the best player on the Olympic Gold Medal team, won regular season MVP, NBA Finals MVP.
I don't know if we'll ever see a player pull that one off again.
Really only the 1992 Blazers could compete with the Spurs but they were mentally weak.
Just watch this clip to represent how everyone viewed those Blazers.
BTW I miss NBA on NBC, fuck ESPN on ABC!
http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/PHO/1993.html