Plus PG1985 declared them a dynasty after they won the title which kinda sealed their inevitable downfall

Getting to the Finals with that crew is a far greater accomplishment than 99% of NBA championship teams. Not one player on that team was a regular starter on another team after leaving. Not one. Of the few guys who are still plying, none of them start. He basically made the NBA finals with a team where noone else was even an NBA starter. I think he has established himself.[/quote]


Tell me you didn't waste all that bandwidth trying to drum up kudos for Labron beating the Wiz without Arenas and Butler, the comatose NJ Nets 41-41, and the Pistons on their way to two years of non playoff appearance stature. Sorry I'm not buying it until the guy shows me something other than one finals appearance they got swept in.

Tell me you didn't waste all that bandwidth trying to drum up kudos for Labron beating the Wiz without Arenas and Butler, the comatose NJ Nets 41-41, and the Pistons on their way to two years of non playoff appearance stature. Sorry I'm not buying it until the guy shows me something other than one finals appearance they got swept in.[/quote]

Exactly as i said, smart guys who are blinded by the ridiclous notion that individual players arent "worthy" until they are lucky enough to land in a situation in which all the other factors add up to a championship. Cleveland without LeBron that year was a 15 win team...maybe.

Hard to believe that I have to defend Lebron James...have you seen him play?

[quote=Cannon Shell;640215][quote=docicu3;640207]

The Heat are a lottery team with a superstar. If the Celtics are coasting then you better tell Doc Rivers who is playing Pierce and Rondo 40+ minutes a game.

Minutes so far in playoffs

Pierce 36.7 minutes
Allen 34.1 minutes
Garnett 35.3 minutes

James 40.5 minutes
Rondo 41.4 minutes

So not exactly as you said Chuck and yes I do think the C's coasted to exactly where they wanted to finish the regular season so they
1) maintained home court for a series and 2) got Cleveland early after that to minimize the number of games played before a max effort which they would need to challenge the Cavs......

Congrats on your previous post about LJ taking a 15 win team to the Eastern finals in 2006-2007 during the same year his own coaches went on record in amazement at how little he actually knew about the strategy of the NBA game.

He was of course a high school kid who missed playing at all at the college level so where would he learn the subtleties of the NBA game? Truth is even at this point he is a prolific scorer but remains an average midrange shooter who can jump through the roof with incredible show stopping end of quarter field goal range but is far from having excellent ball handling or passing skills. At least according to the NBA skills guru quoted below in this article.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...vin/index.html

He has more wow power than any player in the NBA game including Kobe who is a better shooter, so when LJ refines his fundamentals he will really have something but he's not there yet as his game is not polished like that of a great champion.

C's/Cavs should be a decent watch but it's not the mismatch your making it out to be.

[quote=docicu3;640302][quote=Cannon Shell;640215]First of all, the article was talking about a training session two years ago. Is it fair to say that maybe, just maybe, lebron has improved since? Maybe?

Secondly, in what bizarro world does lebron not have excellent passing skills as you say? He is one of the best passers in the league. He doesn't have to go out there like Kobe Bryant and decide he isn't going to shoot for an entire quarter to get his teammates involved. Its natural to lebron. He is a pure passer.

Doc, im not trying to insult you, but what "subtleties" is lebron missing? I watch him play all the time and I can't see one particular weakness. He doesn't really have a pet move but he really doesn't need one at this point.

Is there a better player in the league? Besides Michael Jordan, have you seen a better player in the last 30 years. Larry? Magic? Okay, you have an argument...maybe. Beyond that?

The whole thing about him not having a title is incredibly weak. If he is on that lakers team last year in place of Kobe, do they win a title? If he is on that Celtic team two years ago in place of Paul Pierce, does he win a title?

Lebron is most definately an excellent passer. One of the best. When I saw him play in High School at the Palestra in Philly (what a gym!) the skill that stood out to me the most was his great passes. He makes his team mates better. And he's a darn good defender also. The whole package!

LeBron James is a great, great passer who posseses phenomenal court vision...you can't even argue the opposite on that one. You can certainly argue he's not a great on ball defender. He tried to guard Rose at the end of game 3 and Rose actually abused him. Rose is pretty good though. He is far from a zero on defense however.

Cannon is 100 percent dead on in his assessment of taking the 2007 team to the finals...that would to me still be a greater accomplishment than if they win a title with this team. Sasha Pavlovic started on that team. Today he can't even break the Minnesota Timberwolves rotation. Daniel Gibson played big minutes on that team...he is a better player now and isn't even in the rotation. For God's sake, Eric Snow played big minutes on that team. Larry Hughes started at Point guard.

To say LeBron's game is not polished is pretty far out there.

In the end, however, I see no evidence that the Celtics can't play with them and win multiple games in the series. Cleveland's free throw shooting will cost them one game in the series. The Cavs are a better team though.

Well I'm glad that's cleared up now.....

Lebron's in Pistol Pete's class as a passer....

Dribbles better than Cousy....

Shoots better than Jerry West or Bird....

Knows more about the game than Jackson and Auerbach...

Rebounds better than Russell....

Thanks for getting my mind back on track, LeBron's not hype he's just the best ever.

Does he need to do all of those individual things as well as those guys to be a better player than any of those people that you named?

You said he doesnt have excellent passing skills. This is the first time that I have heard anyone say that but I disagree.

Is Lebron James a more dominant player than any of those players that you named? Russell is the the only one in the same realm.

You've got that well backwards....LeBron's played over 100 less games to this point than Pistol Pete in his career and has multiple hundreds more assists than Pete. Pete was a much better showman...but effective passer? nowhere near LeBron.

I have to say.. that Bird guy was pretty darn good and dominant..

Bird was a great player. But could he do for a team what Lebron does? Bird, for all of his great play, was a defensive liability man to man. When the Celts played the lakers, Mchale guarded worthy-not bird.

Bird was lucky enough to have Mchale, Parish, DJ. Sure he made them better but what does he do with Lebron's supporting cast?

Your point is valid though and you could certainly argue it.

This has certainly become far more spirited than I imagined when I threw this out there but in retrospect let me clear something up that I mispoke/wrote.

I should have been more definitive about separating ball handling and passing. I should have just left this critical remark to ball handling and even then a lot of even this is my disdain for what passes for dribbling as opposed to palming or carrying in the NBA currently. LeBron is a better passer than he is a ball handler. The point of the article above was mostly a knock on his dribbling and ball handling skills not his passing.

And before we waste a lot of time and energy here on how common a carry is in the NBA, yes Jordan made it an art form, but Lebron is even worse. Iverson was another incredible felon with this.

We are not going to agree on alot of this but that's okay, if we did it would be boring as hell.

They all palm the ball these days. Only gets called at the High School level.

Name one thing that LBJ cant do? If he decided to become a post up player do you think he wouldnt be the best low post scorer in the NBA? He has the vision of a top point guard, is a very good rebounder, excellent on ball and help defender, has the most range of any player alive, is unstopable in the open court, is as fast as anybody end to end, is as good an athlete as anyone and is 6'8" 260 and 25 years old.

He is like a ringer you create in a videogame, except he isnt fake, he is real.

This is the first year that he deserves some heat if they dont get the ring or get beat in a 7 game series. His previous teams were all fatally flawed but this team has the right mix of athletic role players, a low post presence, a complimentary star with a unique game and a ton of depth. They play defense, shoot well, are deadly in transistion and can go 9 deep without much drop off in production. Horseofcourse made a great point when he said they are prone to missing Ft's which may cause them to blow a close game.

But they are going to polish off the celtics in 5 and I believe that orlando isnt nearly a tough of a matchup for them as they were last year with Hedo as they are with Carter. Sure Nelson is playing well but they lost the unique dimension that Turgolu gave them and Cleveland matches up fine with them.

I agree with what you are saying. Still, I wouldnt underestimate the magic. Nelson is a huge component that they were missing last year. Vince, half man-half retired, can still have his moments.

They played their best ball the second half of the season. Look at their record over the last forty games.

They are live again and this year i think the winner comes out of the east.

Nelson has played really well but...

Vince Carter=Subtraction by addition

I think we are going to see a lot of Mr. Howard at the FT line. Shaq/Ilgaugkas/AV = 18 fouls between them

If he can make them early in the series it will be close. If he goes into a funk because he is missing or commits bad fouls like he did in the last game against Cha, orlando is in trouble. With him in the game James is a bit wary about going to the hoop. Without him in there it becomes a dunkfest.

Everyone thinks that the big Cleveland addition for the Orlando series was Shaq to matchup against Howard. While that is the marque matchup the addition of parker and moon, long athletic defenders to guard the perimeter may be the key move

Those Cavs sure look scaaarrrry tonight :eek::eek:

Shaugnhnessy-like analysis

So you're allowed to ignore whichever games make you look silly, as usual.