Jordan was labeled a choker? Huh? He was labeled as selfish. He was labeled as a guy who shot the ball to much. But choker? No. The guy performed well in the clutch right from the start.

As for who to build around now? Bron at the moment, but that's only assuming this drop off doesn't continue. If it does he becomes one of a group of guys you could easily consider. I watched the game against Detroit today and saw the same things I've seen this year.

As for the minutes per game figure. . . James doesn't play 41 minutes a night. Oh, I know, the stats say he plays 41 minutes a night. But he makes up for it by sleeping on defense 15 to 20 percent of the time. That isn't an insult. He has to do it or he'd be worthless in the final five minutes of every game. He's been doing it from his rookie year, but people have overlooked it, because he's the king. They put him on the opposing teams worst offensive player most of the time for that very reason.

Would a real coach change things? I dunno. James +/- is pretty ridiculous. When he does go off the floor the team really sucks. Just because he's dropped off a bit from the previous two years doesn't mean he's not a great player and he's beyond valuable to that team. I think a new coach would have the idea of resting James more and then use him for 40 minutes anyway.

George Karl talked about using Allen Iverson for less minutes to conserve him. He's still at 42+ a night and Melo is rising up toward the 40 mark. If you take out a game where he got into foul trouble and a blowout, Melo is averaging around 41 in his last 15 games.

I don't think his minutes are going to change. Don't worry about me. I'm just selfish. I want to see the player I saw two years ago. THAT player was the guy you could compare to Mike or Magic. This one isn't quite at that level. I want to see him get back there. Shoot me.

Living in Cleveland I've watched 90% of their games. I don't think Bron and the Cavs have any shot to getting back where they were last year. Mike Brown is probably the worst coach in the league. His rotations are a joke!

Also, don't flame this but I truly feel King James has no heart. He does nothing "off the ball" for the team. You never see him give a pick or really dig for a rebound. On D he'll play a very lazy passing lane attempt to steal the ball.

To me Bron is a great player but does not have the X factor a great player has. Here is hoping the Cavs fire Brown afer they get a 5 seed and lose to the Piston in the 2nd round and hopefully get a coach in here Bron respects...

Pretty much agree with you 100% here.

I don't get the people so down on LeBron. He's 22 years old and does more with less than anyone else in the league. What other 22 year old player would you possibly want to build a franchise around than LeBron?

Does anyone think that LeBron's "drop-off" maybe have something to do with the fact that he's got a terrible coach and that the front office has surrounded him with a bunch of crap and doesn't do anything to make it better? Jordan was the greatest player ever but he had reliable help - Pippen has been named one of the 50 greatest players ever, he had Ron Harper who was a good defender and could make shots, Paxson and Kerr that could make open threes when teams doubled MJ, had Rodman to rebound and in the prime of his career Horace Grant was a more than serviceable post player.

Look what LeBron has to work with. Larry Hughes is no Scottie Pippen and at $13+ million the biggest steal he has all season is from the Cavs bank account. Drew Gooden? And they resigned him for $23 million over 3 years last summer? Z is ok by the standard of centers in the league and then you've got the flavor of the minute at the other spot (Snow, Pavlovic, Gibson). LeBron hasn't displayed the passing ability that Steve Nash has but LeBron doesn't have Shawn Marion and Amare Stoudamire to pass to either.

The fact that they're in the playoffs period shows what kind of talent LeBron is (and maybe how bad most of the teams in the East are). I think his "drop-off" - which I don't really think is much of one - is because he's tired of being a guy that people expect should be winning championships and matching feats of the greatest player of all time when he's 22 years old and has nothing around him.

The Cavs are 3-1 w/out King James. So the talent surrounding him is not that bad. It's Brown f'n up the rotation and his love for Eric Snow.

I don't have an opinion either way, but 4 games is hardly a valid sample size.

My point is that I feel their surronding talent is adequate. They're not playing to their potential...

I kind of have the theory that ESlow has compromising pictures of the coach. Otherwise there is no reason for playing a guy that should see the floor no more than 5 minutes a night. I'd bring snow in for defense at the end of quarters, and possibly for a few minutes here and there if another guy is hot. But nothing like the manlove Brown shows him. Brown finally let Pavs stay in longer than 2 minutes at a time, and the kid's showing he's a player.

His number #1 lineup should consist of:

Hughes at the point
Pav
Bron
Varejao
Z

Keep that lineup in there 80% of the time and you win games!

"". I think Troy had a fairly reasoned approach to this, but its still ludicrous - he's being blamed, at 22, for not being Jordan. If the NBA were to do a draft from scratch, does anyone doubt that Lebron would last past the #2 pick (I'm assuming someone might take Kobe)?

Again, four games is too small of a sample size to prove the point you are trying to make.

Get rid of LeBron if you want. There will be 28 other franchises ready to take him off of your hands in a few years.

dola

However, I would choose Wade over LeBron.

My own 2 cents.

Dude, if we did that, we wouldn't get to see Hot Donny clang wide open threes, and see David Wesley play! Shannon Brown can start, but he can't play more than 8 minutes total. The rotations all year have been a clusterfuck. Gooden is just a mystifing player, he's really good at times, but then he will revert back to being an invalid again and, for example, foul someone shooting a 3. There need to be wholesale changes this offseason, starting with Hughes, hopefully also Gooden, and others. Team needs to get stripped down to the studs, and basically outside of LeBron/Anderson/Z(untradeable, but still effective in spots)/Pavs/Gibson/Shannon everyone needs to go.

dola,

I'd choose Wade too, and I probably watch the cavs at least 75% of the time.

But who were the games against? What was the margin of victory? Was it the Celtics by a combined 6 points?

Actually the one game they lost this year without LeBron was vs the Celtics(no paul peirce). Celtics can't even figure out how to tank correctly.

I love watching Wade play, but there is no way I'd take him over LeBron. Wade's style of play along with his stature seem to leave him prone to having injuries problems early in his career. Besides, despite his clutch ability, he doesn't have quite the skill set of LeBron. Wade does have great intangibles which is why I could see him at least being considered ahead of LeBron by some.

Yes. Until Chicago beat the Pistons Mr. Jordan was most certainly being labelled a choker and a pretender. He was even being compared to Dominique Wilkins in the grand scheme of things. Sorry friends, but for a 22-year old, Lebron is winning a lot more NBA games than Jordan. Lay off the guy, please, before he decides New York would better appreciate his talents.

So, um, just kinda curious where all the Lebron critics stand these days.

His team still needs to win 10 more games this offseason for any measure of real success. But assuming they can finish out the nets, I'll be happy for this year if he can put together a strong perfomance vs the Pistons whether they win win or not. They just don't have all the pieces to have a championship level roster, but they're getting close.

Lets see, 4th quarter stats:

1/5 from the field
2/6 from the line

Lucky to get out of that game alive.

So would it be better if he was 1/5 from the field and 2/6 from the line in the 1st quarter and they had to play catch up the whole game to barely win?

Winner.

Nets avoid elimination despite six points in fourth

not a fun game to watch. Another game that I have watched Lebron and come away unimpressed. But somebody has to win this series, neither team is really trying to actually win it though.

you get the feeling that any team thats already been eliminated from the West would have finished of either one of these team and been playing in the Eastern championship round

If the Cavs do end up making the conference finals, I'd like to hear how amdaily continues to criticize LeBron.

The most ironic word in your sentence is "if". They should have been in the conference finals after last nights game. Did you even watch the game last night? Lebron and his team did not want it last night. They lost at home to a team that only scored 6 points in the four quarter. SIX. In the end you are judged by what you do, not what could of/should of happened. Maybe we will see Lebron take over a game, a game that defines him and sets the tone for the rest of his career, but for now, all I see him do is roll over, show really no emotion, and in the end, lose games that should be won.


Jerry West, whose body outline is the symbol used by the NBA, once said that he hated to lose. It was the worse thing. If I only scored 20 points in the game, I considered that a horrible game.

How many points did Lebron score last night... 20.

The Nets shot the ball well last night and the Cavs, as a team, didn't. Thats why they lost, it has nothing to do with emotion or rolling over or not being able to will them to win. Larry Hughes was 1 for 14 at one point and Lebron did play poorly, but it happens. You can have a bad game in the playoffs or a regular season game in November. The fact is Lebron does have a team in which he's asked carry one win away from the conference finals, which is more than anyone can realistically ask of a 22 year old with absolutely no help.

I'm sure Lebron hates to lose too, so I don't know where you're going with that. Jerry West average 23ppg in the playoffs as a 22 year old. As a 21 year old Lebron averaged 30 per game in the playoffs last season and is averaging 26.2ppg, 7.8rpg, and 8.1apg this season.

Why are people are expecting Lebron to be playing like a 10 year veteran as a 22 year old?

part of it might be that's it's hard to envision him getting much better than he is now

Was Jerry West a few years out of college?

Does Lebron James have Elgin Baylor to average over 35ppg in his first 2 trips to the playoffs like West did?

Didn't both Jordan and West have only 1 full pro season completed at age 22?

Lebron has 4. Stop comparing ages and look at professional experience.

Swell, but what does that have to do with the comment that you made in your post and I highlighted? You can't compare ages with most players then and now. It would be like me asking how many Rings did Kobe have at this point of his career compared to MJ.

Admirable try though...

Age plays just a big of a role in development as pro experience, if not bigger. Kobe didn't average over 25ppg until his 5th season in the league. Garnett didn't average 20 until his 4th.

The difference between players now and players "then" is players then had at least 2 years college experience and generally were able to step in and contribute immediately. Kobe didn't, Garnett didn't, Jermain O'Neal sure as hell didn't. Lebron did.

Kobe wasn't expected to come in and play as a rookie. Garnett wasn't either. The AAU circuit is much, much more publicized these days then before. I'm not trying to say that Kobe as an 18 year old is better then Lebron as an 18 year old, the draft spot proved that from the beginning. Kobe was good enough to play as a rookie, but he wasn't drafted with the thought that he was going to be nearly as good as he turned out to be

But the point is that years in the league couldn't even be used as an excuse for high schoolers until Lebron came around. Lebron changed everything. Until he came along high school players were seen as long-term projects that would take 2-3 years to contribute, it not longer. Age is the defining factor in a player's development and it shows when you look at the other high school players that went directly to the NBA. He stepped in and average over 20ppg as a rookie and over 30ppg in his 3rd year. Something no other high schooler had come close to matching.

The expecations for Lebron have been unrealistically high since he entered the league and for the most part he's actually surpassed them. His team won a playoff series his first time in the playoffs and he has his team 1 win from the conference finals in his second trip. Yet people make it seem like his team wins in spite of him instead of because of the things he does.

If he's overrated its because of insane expectations, not because of the things he's doing on the basketball floor. He's one of the 5 best players in the NBA in his 4th year at 22 years old. Thats awefully damn good no matter how the hell you look at it.

Obviously he was crap on Wednesday, but not to make excuses, he may have had a reason.


Between this, I hope she's okay, and Z's wife losing twins earlier this year, Hughes's Brother dying, it's been a bad 12 months for the team. Hopefully everything works out for his girlfriend.

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

Let's see, Kobe is at home, Dwayne is at home, Shaq is at home, Jason is at home, the current MVP is at home, the guy who was MVP the two previous seasons has gone home. Other than Tim Duncan which superstar has had a better postseason run than LeBron? And let's see, Michael didn't make his first conference finals until his fifth season in the league. But I'm sure the haters will come up with something else to criticize LeBron for. Like maybe his sweatband wasn't worn in a professional manner and he chewed gum at the press conference. And he committed more than one foul and missed more than one shot and how he actually had to rely on teammates to win the game. What a slacker.

A simple "I'm wrong" would have sufficed. But thats ok, keep digging.

You shouldn't speak to a more intelligent poster like that.

About sums it up.

Fixed.

Lebron needs to learn the trait of sucking the first 3 and a half quarters of a game then playing his best the last 6 minutes of the game.

Of course I don't think they should even bother keeping score the first 45 minutes of a basketball game, the first 7 innings of a baseball game, or the first 58 minutes of a football game. It should be a clutch-off to decide the winner.

So does that mean Utah and the players on its team aren't to be held in high regard since they only beat Houston and Golden State to get to the conference finals? The East may be inferior on the whole but Detroit certainly doesn't fall into that category. Then again the alleged best team in the West didn't get out of the first round...

Name me one player on the Cavs roster other than James that you want starting on your favorite team. There's nobody. He's got a supporting cast full of flashes-in-the-pan and never-will-bes and his team is in the conference finals and just beat a team with three players that many teams would LOVE to have (Kidd, Carter and RJ). Give the kid his due - despite nothing around him and a terrible coach he's got his team in the conference finals. They have little chance of beating Detroit but outside of the Spurs I don't know if anyone does so that's kind of hard to hold against LeBron.

seems to be a pretty clear division here between the basketball fans and the sports fans who watch it during basketball season or the playoffs.

the criticism of lebron is pretty shallow and subversive at this point. without james, that team may well be the worst in the entire league. with him, they have a good shot at making the nba finals. he's 22. what more needs to be said?

Keep telling yourself that clutch players exist. Really, its cute.


Your attacks on Gary's game are getting old and annoying and its looking more an more personal. I never bought his game, but I'll respect him as a game designer, as do most people here.

Fix not being clutch? What are you going to do, rub a mixture of the blood of Derek Jeter, the hair of Michael Jordan, and the sweat of Larry Bird all over him while Dr. J says a prayer for him?