The LeBron James Thread

[ex carrabba fan]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

The Spurs were considered contenders though.. I mean at this point I think you're either choosing to ignore the facts or you're just making things up...

3/6 experts on SI said Spurs would make the conference finals
14 experts on ESPN said Clippers would make finals, 6 said Thunder, 5 said Spurs

It was always the Spurs, Thunder and Clippers as the contenders and then the Heat and Pacers in the east

[lilteapot]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

Wow, people thought the Clippers would make the finals?

[King_B_Mack]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

The Spurs were considered contenders though.. I mean at this point I think you're either choosing to ignore the facts or you're just making things up...

3/6 experts on SI said Spurs would make the conference finals
14 experts on ESPN said Clippers would make finals, 6 said Thunder, 5 said Spurs

It was always the Spurs, Thunder and Clippers as the contenders and then the Heat and Pacers in the east

What exactly does any of that matter? I'm sure we could dig up all the predictions of the Cavs making the Finals or winning it and yet your argument is still that they weren't contenders or they were only contenders because of LeBron despite that information and yet you're using that information to poke holes in wwharton's argument?

[ojandpizza]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

Wow, people thought the Clippers would make the finals?

I actually thought the Clippers or Rockets could beat anyone if they could show better defense compared to the regular season. But that didn't happen, big surprise lol.


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[OkayC]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

I actually thought the Clippers or Rockets could beat anyone if they could show better defense compared to the regular season. But that didn't happen, big surprise lol.


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You had more faith than i did. I figured even with top 10 defense, the rockets would still fall to the clips thunder or spurs. The clips with better d may have beaten the stagnant pond water of an offense the thunder like to run, but the spurs woulda ate them alive.

[ex carrabba fan]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

What exactly does any of that matter? I'm sure we could dig up all the predictions of the Cavs making the Finals or winning it and yet your argument is still that they weren't contenders or they were only contenders because of LeBron despite that information and yet you're using that information to poke holes in wwharton's argument?

Huh? I'm simply saying that wwharton is definitely incorrect in saying that the Spurs weren't contenders going into the season. I'm not saying it matters or doesn't matter, it's just flat out wrong.

Cavs were contenders with James for sure. Outside of Mo Williams in 2009 (who was the 2nd alternate) James never had another All-Star beside him the last 4 years of his Cleveland career. Makes it tough to be a contender when you don't have All-Stars around you, but James was so great he elevated his team to contender status for all those years. It's pretty remarkable actually.

[Rocky]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

Huh? I'm simply saying that wwharton is definitely incorrect in saying that the Spurs weren't contenders going into the season. I'm not saying it matters or doesn't matter, it's just flat out wrong.

Cavs were contenders with James for sure. Outside of Mo Williams in 2009 (who was the 2nd alternate) James never had another All-Star beside him the last 4 years of his Cleveland career. Makes it tough to be a contender when you don't have All-Stars around you, but James was so great he elevated his team to contender status for all those years. It's pretty remarkable actually.

I don't think Dirk had an All-Star when his team won it all.

EDIT: Yep he didn't and technically the Spurs only had 1 this year (Parker) although I get what you're saying.

[The 24th Letter]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

Seems like besides this group of people (who I seem to hear about more than actually see) that think the Cav's roster were scrubs, we aren't that far apart....

Some of us just don't think they were capable of winning a chip....and some felt this way all a long...

[VDusen04]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

My point is it's easy to say NOW that the Cavs had no shot but that's not what was believed at the time... just like now people are saying the Heat aren't built to win another one, just because they lost. The fact is championships are just hard to win, no matter the team. Along with a lot of predictable things, a lot of unpredictable things need to happen as well. The "blow it up" mentality after a team doesn't win a ring doesn't make sense.

I find an incredible amount of truth in that statement. Sports can be a little crazy in that regard. It seems there's 30 teams who want to win championships and when one of those teams finally wins, the other 29 teams are wondering why they didn't, and firing (or trading) folks by the dozen for failing seems to be an acceptable solution. Sometimes teams just win, and other times teams just lose.

I think the '09 Cavaliers are a good example. Many stand here now stating how Cleveland was not a contender that year or had no shot of winning a ring. Yet, they were a squad who won 66 games and swept through the first two rounds of the playoffs. Some say, "Well, they could not matchup with a team like Orlando." I say, Cleveland was one wide open Mo Williams jumpshot in game 1 away (his miss led to a 107-106 loss) from being up 2-0 in a series they took to six games anyway.

To me, that doesn't necessarily point to systemic failure (Cleveland also lost a game by two in overtime during that series).That just feels like basketball being basketball. However, some historic outlooks seem to suggest Cleveland never had a chance, which I find unfounded. Winning two games and losing two more by a combined 3 points suggests to me that a team was more than capable of winning that series.

As to what the '09 Cavaliers might have been able to do with the Lakers? I am uncertain. Those Lakers handled the Magic so they may have done similarly to the Cavs. Though, it would have been interesting to see what L.A. did with LeBron.

[King_B_Mack]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

Seems like besides this group of people (who I seem to hear about more than actually see) that think the Cav's roster were scrubs, we aren't that far apart....

Some of us just don't think they were capable of winning a chip....and some felt this way all a long...

Come on with this backhanded thing Two Four. No need for that. You know damn well in the years since how repeatedly trashed those teams have been. Nobody is just sitting around making up that people have been treating those Cavs teams like everybody on it was complete trash except LeBron.

[The 24th Letter]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

Nothing backhanded at all..and nah I haven't seen it nearly as much as ya'll have talked about it. We've been discussing this going on 3 pages now, and no one has chimed in with anything even close to that thought...so I don't see the need to even discuss that extreme every time this discussion comes up.

[WTF]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

Surprised nobody has came up with the Savannah Instagram post last night.

[Scofield]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

My point is it's easy to say NOW that the Cavs had no shot but that's not what was believed at the time... just like now people are saying the Heat aren't built to win another one, just because they lost.

All I'm saying that it was just as easy a conclusion to draw in real time and a number of people made the jump with good sound reasoning . The historical trend always gives us the best idea of what should happen. It's like betting in Vegas. You may win a few bones but if you stuck around long enough the house always wins out. But in both cases we're always drawn in by the momentary hope that maybe this time the odds can be beaten. That's what happened with those Cavs teams. "No chance" is an overstatement but the trend says teams like that don't usually win. Bottom line. Buts it's easy to get distracted by hype, noise and agendas.

The same goes for what just happened in the finals. Sure, there are a lot of people knee-jerking to positions in the aftermath but there also have been quite a few folks who came to those conclusions well beforehand and for good reason. The Spurs actually upgraded in the off season while Miami stayed mostly the same and were worse across the board in most every metric. The only outlier was DWade and I was never really convinced that he was ready to cause real damage. For me the test for him was centered around what he could do without LBJ on the floor against prime D. LBJs foul trouble game against Indiana closed the deal in my view, it was tangible proof of what I suspected.

[The 24th Letter]

The LeBron James Thread

Savannah's IG post

[ThreeKing]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

It honestly wouldn't mean anything, but the fact she put "the countdown is real", definitely raises some eyebrows.