Author Topic: 2013-14 NBA thread v. Adam Silver Lays the Pipe on Donald Sterling ©2014antigoon  (Read 112767 times)

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Offline ReaPsTA

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https://youtu.be/FFXsntujvZA

Best recap of the finals I've seen.
Take a chance you may die
Over and over again

Offline j

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LeBron was the only Miami player who showed up.  I don't know if this will "hurt his legacy," as people seem to be saying, but it may.  This was a total thrashing by a far superior team.  The Heat were exposed as a team that has some serious deficiencies.  They need some good role players and possibly a different coach to beat a team like the Spurs (or perhaps even a few other west teams).

Although LeBron's four consecutive Finals appearances are very impressive, don't forget that he's basically coasted there through a weak eastern conference at least 2 of those times.  I'm a huge LeBron fan, and I still think he ends up as an all time top 5 player, but lets not pretend the Heat have had any serious competition in the east for the past 2 or 3 years.

-J

Offline Syzzle

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The only competition the Heat ever had in the East were the Celtics. The Bulls and Pacers were never a real threat even though I'm sure the media will try to hype both of them up at the start of the next season.

Offline Accelerando

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https://youtu.be/FFXsntujvZA

Best recap of the finals I've seen.


BAHAHAHA Everything about this video is amusing to say the least :lol

The only competition the Heat ever had in the East were the Celtics. The Bulls and Pacers were never a real threat even though I'm sure the media will try to hype both of them up at the start of the next season.

I would have loved to see the Wizards play against the Heat this playoffs. I feel like it would have been a great, competitive series.

Offline contest_sanity

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As much as I've rooted against the Heat these past four years, this series almost made me feel bad for LeBron.  I think the situation was best epitomized by the third quarter of Game 4, when he put up 19 points and the Spurs still won the quarter; in fact, they increased their lead.  You could see him looking around like, "Jesus, a little help here?" It was that bad. I half expected him to take his jersey off and throw it away in relief after it was over a la 2010.

I'm a massive Jordan fan, which is a big reason why I didn't want LeBron to reel off 3 or 4 titles in a row, but Jordan wouldn't have led this Heat team past these Spurs.  It would have been 63 against the Celtics in the Garden again.  The Bulls lost that game and the series.  I think it's unreasonable to think LeBron should have been putting up 50-60 points a game, and even if he had, that still might not have been enough.  People forget that, especially the Bulls' second 3peat, Jordan had 2 other HoFs who were still playing at a high level (Pippen, Rodman) another borderline All-Star (Kokuc), as well as talented role players (Steve Kerr).

LeBron got little from anyone else this series; I can't put this loss on him.  It will be fascinating to see, though, what the Heat will do to reload, or if he might go elsewhere.  If he really wanted a challenge, he could go join Carmelo in New York, LOL

Online Azyiu

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https://youtu.be/FFXsntujvZA

Best recap of the finals I've seen.

Holy crap! Absolutely the BEST Finals recap video EVER!  :lol
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Offline KevShmev

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As much as I've rooted against the Heat these past four years, this series almost made me feel bad for LeBron.  I think the situation was best epitomized by the third quarter of Game 4, when he put up 19 points and the Spurs still won the quarter; in fact, they increased their lead.  You could see him looking around like, "Jesus, a little help here?" It was that bad. I half expected him to take his jersey off and throw it away in relief after it was over a la 2010.

I'm a massive Jordan fan, which is a big reason why I didn't want LeBron to reel off 3 or 4 titles in a row, but Jordan wouldn't have led this Heat team past these Spurs.  It would have been 63 against the Celtics in the Garden again.  The Bulls lost that game and the series.  I think it's unreasonable to think LeBron should have been putting up 50-60 points a game, and even if he had, that still might not have been enough.  People forget that, especially the Bulls' second 3peat, Jordan had 2 other HoFs who were still playing at a high level (Pippen, Rodman) another borderline All-Star (Kokuc), as well as talented role players (Steve Kerr).

LeBron got little from anyone else this series; I can't put this loss on him.  It will be fascinating to see, though, what the Heat will do to reload, or if he might go elsewhere.  If he really wanted a challenge, he could go join Carmelo in New York, LOL

Well said.

I think Anthony and James team up, it is way more likely to happen in Miami than in NY.  I do think LeBron will give Miami every benefit of the doubt as far as him returning there.  I'm sure he wants to stay there, but they are gonna have to show that they are making major improvements to upgrading the roster around him, for him to stay there.

Offline ReaPsTA

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Bye 2013-2014 NBA thread...
Take a chance you may die
Over and over again

Offline contest_sanity

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inb4 the lockout

lolNBAhumor

Offline TheOutlawXanadu

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Can you see though why I find LeBron's leadership untrustworthy?  A finals team shouldn't just melt like this, even with the Spurs pressure.  It's not about being perfect, if you look back at other top ten players, you'll find flaws.  But, we've seen LeBron do this four times in a row now.  From a leadership/intensity standpoint, he hasn't been there more than he has been.  I don't understand how I'm supposed to look at this guy as some kind of mythically great player.

Maybe I'm overrating the guy, but as a fellow basketball fan, I feel like you're doing yourself a disservice by not appreciating LeBron more. The dude's a gem and I consider myself lucky to be able to watch him play. Some other musings on the matter:

- LeBron's leadership style is certainly very different from guys like Bird, Jordan, Kobe, etc. I think it's fair to criticize him for having such a blatant on/off switch, and there's no doubt his inconsistent effort was contagious as times, especially during the regular season.

That being said, while LeBron's leadership may be weak in some areas, it's very strong in others. His teammates love playing with him and all of them have praised his unselfishness at some point or another. While Jordan and Kobe might have made their teammates better implicitly through fear, LeBron makes his teammates better explicitly with his passing, something Jordan and Kobe never consistently did.

The bottom line is that there's not only one way to lead. Guys like Magic, Duncan, Hakeem, and Shaq are prime examples of all-timers who were not bullies but rather very well-liked by their teammates and were more likely to encourage than they were to scold.

- To say that "so much of LeBron's reputation is hype" is a tough thing to support. For starters, he averages 27/7/7 for his career. In the playoffs, he averages 28/8/6. Those are insane numbers. In 2009, he averaged 35/9/7 for the postseason including 38/8/8 against the Magic. In 2012, he had one of the great championship runs ever: 30/10/5 while defending four positions and carrying a team whose second best player was hobbled the whole time and whose third best player missed significant time due to injury. In 2013, he had the greatest regular season ever by a small forward (27/8/7 on 57% shooting) and followed it up with an impressive 26/8/7 title run. He's had a lot of stinkers along the way, sure, but he also has the second highest postseason game-winning shot percentage in NBA history, the highest scoring average in elimination games, and I believe he's way up there in Game 7 scoring as well.

- Also hard to argue that the MVP Award is not important. It's an honor awarded to (usually) the most impressive player, based off a sample of hundreds and hundreds of games. It's incredibly difficult to win and represents an absurdly high level of performance.

- A problem I see with a lot of contemporary basketball analysis is that it overrates almost every all-timer pre-2000. Most fans and writers act like Kareem and Russell never had a bad game. The reality is that there is a long history of great players underperforming.

Take Bird in his first Finals, for example. He averaged 15 rebounds and 7 assists per game, but only 15 points and on a very weak 42% shooting. Not as bad as LeBron in 2011 but close. LeBron was 18/7/7 on 48% shooting that year I believe.

Take Magic in 1984. He had a great statistical series but played so badly late in two of the games that he was dubbed "Tragic Magic".

Take Kobe in 2004. Bar none the worst Finals performance ever by a superstar. 23/4/3 on 38% shooting.

Heck, even Jordan had bad games. He had a stretch in the 1997 playoffs I think where he shot 33% over four or five games. In the 1996 Finals he had a very average series: 27/5/4 on 41% shooting.

Look, I'm not trying to say that LeBron's bad games mean nothing. I'm also not trying to convince myself that he's the most reliable player ever. I'm just trying to say that he's not the first great player to underperform here and there. To put it a little more strongly, if you don't think what he's done the past five or six years is impressive, then maybe you need to learn a little more about NBA history, because he's pretty darn special. I hate saying that because it makes me sound like a pompous prick (you can handle it though - you know I like you), but based on what I know of the league, very few players have ever been as good as LeBron James. I guarantee you that when it's all said and done and LeBron is basically a consensus top five player ever that you're going to regret not appreciating him more.
:TOX: <-- My own emoticon!

Offline ReaPsTA

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That post was great.  I read it three times.  I disagree with a lot of parts of it, but what you're saying overall is right, so contesting the details is basically nitpicking, which isn't really right.  It's just disagreement for its own sake.  That's dumb.

The question you raise which is interesting is - why don't I enjoy LeBron James?  In a way, this is silly.  Rajon Rondo, my favorite player, is notoriously inconsistent and a very questionable team leader.  Some of the difference is attitude.  Rondo's confidence is cooler than LeBron's obvious self-consciousness.  But that doesn't really matter.

The thing, I guess, is the desire to bend the game to your will.  It's not even strictly a superstar thing.  Danny Green is a role player, but he knows he can get hot and relishes the opportunity to bomb threes and crush his opponents' spirit.  At his best, Rondo is unguardable because he can pass at any angle.  And he's maybe the best rebounding point guard in the league and he has good touch around the rim.  Watching Rajon Rondo at his best isn't watching basketball.  It's watching an artist use the basketball court as his canvas.

Obviously LeBron can't score 17 points every quarter.  It's a silly expectation.  But before game 7, he told his team "follow me."  I want to see him do that every game.  I can't enjoy watching someone with the ability to be transcendent be willing to just melt into the game.

It feels like listening to someone with a great ear for melody noodling cool stuff out on a guitar, but never improving his technique or figuring out how to turn his ideas into songs.  And then every once and a while he tells you he wrote a song, you hear it, it blows your mind, and then you have to wait forever for the next one. 

I suspect you're probably right that I should accept who he is and just enjoy what he does, but for whatever reason I can't.  To me, it's much better to watch players like Rajon Rondo (problematic, but mindblowing), Kevin Durant (not as good as LeBron, but stupidly consistent with perfect execution), and even Russell Westbrook (kinda, every game to him is a finals game 7 but his basketball IQ really is nonexistent).

If you know why this is, you know me better than I do.
Take a chance you may die
Over and over again

Offline KevShmev

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TOX, that was an awesome post. :tup :tup

I also find it amusing how so many people play revisionist history and act like the superstars of yesterday never failed, made mistakes, etc.

Can you imagine if those Wilt/Russell battles took place nowadays?  Jeez, if we think LeBron gets ripped too much, Wilt would be tarred and feathered by social media for losing 7 of 8 Final series to Russell's Celtics. 

Jordan would have been ripped unmercifully for years because of his repeated playoff losses to the Pistons.

The Tragic Magic shtick would have been far worse in 1984.

And so on and so forth.

All superstars fail at some point.  Most, more often than not, especially if you consider not winning the championship failing.

And really, you have to give James extra props for everything he has done in recent years, when you consider the expectations and pressure he has been under, not only since entering the league, but since going to Miami.  He put a target on his back with the "Not two, not three..." speech, and he delivered a Finals appearance in every season there, winning it all in half of them.  And yeah, his numbers speak for themselves.