The MIA Heat Show Thread

[DaKCMan AP]

LA will be dethroned. The LAC Lake Show will be dead. So it's time to create a thread to follow the new dynasty.

Going on tour starting this October.

[tk13]

I think the funniest stat is that the Heat pretty much have to win out to avoid having a worse record than the Cavaliers had the last two years.

That was the only thing I didn't like, when people said the Cavs didn't put a good enough team around LeBron. Maybe not... but that was a 60+ win team two years in a row... that's not easy to do.

[DaKCMan AP]

Miami Heat’s recent losses troubling, but hardly conclusive

BY DAN LE BATARD

DLEBATARD@MIAMIHERALD.COM

Agnostic: A person who claims that they cannot have true knowledge about the existence of God but does not deny that God might exist.

I’m a sports agnostic. I’m not much of a believer in the unseen, in things like intangibles. But I’m not an atheist about them, either. I just believe that odd things happen all the time in sports, a single bounce or call or game changing everything, and I usually don’t see that as proof of anything unseen except randomness, God laughing as humans scurry to decipher the holy code in His joke. I’m comfortable with “I don’t know” as the answer for why the more talented team lost a single game. I don’t need to go on a religious pilgrimage through “clutchness” and “coaching” to find answers for results that surprise or confuse me.

But I understand why people would wonder now about the Miami Heat’s mental toughness as inexplicable losses stack up, the locker room weeps and the national narrative from a laughing America becomes about an inability to win close games. And I get why scared fans would want legend Pat Riley to step in for his young coach, even though I don’t think that is an answer, and it ignores that Riley is already around Spoelstra and these players all the time with his teaching, prodding and counseling.

“Yeah, but he’s like your grandfather,” one NBA player told me. “Your grandfather sees you once in a while. He spoils you. He enjoys you. Then he gives you back to Daddy, and that’s who has to discipline you and get your respect daily. How can Spoelstra teach them how to get to success if he’s never had it?”

I don’t believe the Heat needs new discipline or new Daddy, and I don’t believe Dwyane Wade needs a diaper. I believe the Heat needs someone, anyone, to make a late shot. I believe the Heat needs Wade and LeBron James to stop standing uselessly in the corner while the other works. I believe Mike Miller needs to stop going 0 for 5 on wide-open threes. I believe, in other words, in the tangibles. But this Heat team has done a very good job of challenging some of the things I don’t believe over the past week, especially with this latest loss to the -Bulls.

WHERE THE HURT IS

Three healthy and motivated stars, trying very hard to be unselfish, are losing close games at home to decent but not great teams. New York, Orlando and Chicago are all second tier. Losing at home when you have the more talented team doesn’t happen that way that much in the star-powered NBA meritocracy, though it happened to the defending champion Lakers just a few months ago. The media feeds then, and it engulfs the players in questions inside and outside the locker room, everything from “Is this team a fraud?” to James himself having to wonder quietly, “What have I done with my career? Did I make a mistake joining up with these guys?”

This as America mocks, the pressure and weight and doubt grow, and the scoreboard denies you any soothing answers from above. It takes an uncommon strength to withstand all that. It will make even a big, strong man like James cry and wonder why after a meaningless regular-season game. I wonder about the corrosive effects of that. I wonder if carrying that weight daily will make the muscles and muscle memory stronger, as Spoelstra believes, or will merely crush them all, him included. There is this idea that young teams have to lose in the playoffs a few times before they get strong enough to win. Maybe the Heat is essentially doing all that now, getting it out of the way without needing the actual playoffs.

Why is this happening? I don’t know. And this is where being a sports agnostic hurts me. Believers often pray at the altar of the intangibles here, trying to explain disquieting randomness by using the scoreboard high above as proof of something larger. Here’s how the sermons go: The winner must have the divinities of coaching, heart, will, leadership, chemistry. The loser must be plagued by the unholiness of selfish, soft, divided, not clutch, whatever. It feels intellectually lazy. The result is a surprise? The coaching must be bad. Intangible. Losing is frustrating? Not enough leadership, toughness, etc. Intangible. In the absence of a tangible explanation, intangible will do.

While not irrelevant, the value of these things, to me, is consistently overstated as a reason for results. It feels nicer to believe in the power of team and miracles, even though saying that the San Francisco Giants won the World Series last year because of how united they were is like saying they won because they prayed together to a magical unicorn. What I believe in, above all else in sports, is talent – followed closely by blessed luck. But talent, as we have all seen, has just lost four in a row. And talent, as we didn’t see but heard, was crying in the locker room after the last one.

I also believe one-game sample sizes are so random that they can trump talent over a short-term without meaning anything, that the Bulls can beat the Heat three times in a row by a combined eight points without it being representative of anything other than one team making a shot at the end and one team missing it. That’s something that would even out over time, I believe, but I’m confused by the worst-in-the-league stat of the Heat being 1 for 16 on shots to tie or lead with 10 or fewer seconds remaining. If it were 1 for 100, I’d believe that stat as truth revealing a foundation flaw that these pieces don’t fit. Sixteen feels large enough to alarm but not quite large enough to pass as proof. Albert Pujols goes 1 for 16 sometimes.

A football season is 16 games, right? And here’s the kind of distortion that can happen when the sample size is that small:

Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers allegedly couldn’t win the big one right up until he did, and this makes him a champion forevermore. But if Michael Vick doesn’t throw an interception in the end zone late as Rodgers watched helplessly from the sideline, Rodgers is knocked out of the playoffs in the first round without being any lesser of a quarterback leader and without ever getting to answer the questions about his greatness. Heck, if DeSean Jackson doesn’t return a punt against the Giants in a game that Rodgers didn’t even play in, Rodgers and the Packers don’t even make the playoffs.

One of the oddest statistics in sports last year was that the Packers never trailed by more than one touchdown. One-score games tend to be pretty random – sometimes the Dolphins beat the Super Bowl Packers by a field goal in overtime, sometimes they lose to the Super Bowl Steelers because the refs blew a call – but our need for explanations is forever assigning character traits to winners and losers in small sample sizes based on random results. It doesn’t make good television if Trent Dilfer, paid and asked to explain, shrugs his shoulders and says, “I don’t know.” So instead he said, when the Packers were struggling with injuries and losses earlier in this year, that the team had no soul.

UNITY OR TALENT?

Talent usually wins with very few upsets in the NBA playoffs because a best-of-7 sample size rewards it by reducing aberrations and randomness. That 16-for-27 from three the Magic pulled off the other day works once, not four times, which is why no team ever wins The Finals from out there. The NFL playoffs and March Madness are magical, but all they give you is finality, not the best team. Basketball, with no hot goalie or no incredible pitching ace, does a better job of isolating and rewarding the best team while minimizing the impact of randomness.

And this is where the sports agnostic in me gets confused and challenged: The Heat is more talented than the Bulls. Not a lot more talented top to bottom, actually, but more talented. But are the intangi-Bulls a better team?

We can quibble over fractions here, but Derrick Rose is essentially Dwyane Wade. Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah, together, give you more than Chris Bosh. Miami’s biggest advantage is LeBron James over Luol Deng. Deng has made one game-winner against Miami this year; James has missed one against Chicago. Many of my anti-Heat media friends are taking this three-game sample size as proof that Chicago is better than Miami, which I don’t believe, and that the better team will knock out the better talent in the playoffs, which I also don’t believe. But it does make me wonder about this:

If there isn’t much difference between two talented teams, can something as small as an intangible make a difference there? Everyone on the Bulls knows their role. It is the same role all of them have had their entire careers. It is comfortable. In Miami, everyone is trying to be a little bit different than what they have always been, in the name of team, in the name of being unselfish. And it has been uncomfortable. Miller could miss five straight shots with amnesia before because he would immediately get five more. Here, he misses all five, loses the game and has to live with that for two days until he maybe gets that many shots the next game. This climate will, as Spoelstra keeps preaching, either make his team stronger or break it in half.

Can formed and great players be as effective and efficient when asked to change?

Riley laughed when I asked him the question. He has never had to ask a great player to change. Why would he? But what he has before him now, what he built, doesn’t have a lot of precedent.

I asked Riley — genius, mastermind, legend — how you get a formed player to change.

And his response was the honest and correct answer to a lot of the toughest questions in sports.

“I don’t know,” he said.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/0...#ixzz1G1zSOOQ1

[SAUTO]

Originally Posted by milkman

Because Wade was already there, and Bosh is just the third wheel.

LeBron is supposed to be the centepiece free agent acquisition that vaults the Heat to new heights.

but wade could have left also. he was a FA too you know. what if he had gone?

you could still sub in his name and get the same results IMO

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by milkman

Wow.

KC connection is a dumbass.

Stick to what you know.

Basketball isn't it.

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by tk13

I think the funniest stat is that the Heat pretty much have to win out to avoid having a worse record than the Cavaliers had the last two years.

That was the only thing I didn't like, when people said the Cavs didn't put a good enough team around LeBron. Maybe not... but that was a 60+ win team two years in a row... that's not easy to do.

Shows the importance of everyone fitting into a role (also how good LeBron James actually was last year).

One of the biggest problems with the Heat is that nobody's fit into their roles, they are all playing for themselves.

[dirk digler]

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/41960577/ns/sports-nba/

It is a quiet moment, still hours before tipoff, and Dwyane Wade and LeBron James are the only remaining players in the gym following shootaround.With ice on both knees, sitting in the stands about eight rows up from the court, with James to his left but beyond earshot, Wade offers a moment of candor.

"You know what?" he says in his typical soft-spoken manner. "I thought it would be easier."

He pauses."It hasn't really changed," he adds.

The question was about life away from the court, the gym, venues such as these, of whether playing alongside fellow stars in James and Chris Bosh had eased the frantic pace of appearances, publicity events and team functions.

"It's become a little more now, because of the three guys," he says. "Now everyone not only wants you individually, but they want you three. So the demands of what people want probably has gone up a little bit."

What Wade says is not as extraordinary as how he says it. He truly, honestly did not know how this was going to play out. And if he did, this was not necessarily the vision.

That doesn't make it bad, just different.

The same could be said about the chemistry between Wade and James on the court. It is working, at least as far as the statistical story and in terms of the standings, with the Heat poised to reach regular-season heights the team did not even reach in its 2006 championship season. It just is not working as seamlessly as perhaps Wade and James envisioned when they put pen to Pat Riley's paper in early July.

Instead, as if toddlers, the two are playing nicely, but side-by-side, not necessarily in concert. The endgame has become an either-or equation, with either Wade, or, mostly, James taking the final shot. Wade-to-James or James-to-Wade has been the exception.

Oh, there have been moments, extraordinary box-score-filling moments, such as when Wade recorded a triple-double in Charlotte and James came within one assist and two rebounds of matching the feat, the two joking side by side in the locker room afterward about getting the ball out of the other's hands long enough to get those shots and assists.

But the reality is Wade just as often can be found standing in a corner when James is breaking down the defense. And when Wade is on one of his rolls, James often can be seen motioning for the ball, as if stranded on some desolate non-scoring island.

Through it all, each stands near the top of the league in scoring, in their traditional spots, and in transition their connection has been dynamic and absolute, be it Wade fullcourt passes for James layups in stride or James assist for Wade baseline tomahawks.

But to appreciate why the partnership has only gotten so far is to separate the fiction from reality.

Friendly, but not really friends

LeBron James and Dwyane Wade did not enter this partnership as best friends. Friends? Yes, but more typical of the bond built during promotional appearances, league get-togethers and the occasional two- or three-week tours with a national team. "Friendly" stands closer to the truth.

Even now, this is nothing close to what Wade even had with former teammate Dorell Wright, the nights spent at his friend's house working his way through life's travails, being silly, sharing countless meals together on the road, even as Wright deemed everything on the menu "Bomb!," much to the amusement of Wade.

For James, NBA life, and life in general, is bigger than that. LeBron almost always has his people on the road with him; Wade mostly settles in with the company of teammates, often second- and third-tier talents. He is much more of the everyman in the equation.

Through it all, though, there is a projected common front. It is not by coincidence that the media sequence after almost every Heat home game is the same. First coach Erik Spoelstra offers his comments. Then Bosh enters alone. Finally, Wade and James field questions side-by-side.
Because of the dynamic, it is rare that either comments about the other, let alone critiques or criticizes. It would be too awkward.

And yet, after the nationally televised Sunday loss to the Bulls, the one that dropped the Heat into third place in the Eastern Conference, Wade offered a moment that made many wonder about the bond, the relationship.

"I'm used to coming down in the fourth, having the ball, making mistakes, getting a chance to make up for them," he says to a somewhat surprised media audience. "You try to do your best. That's all you can do. That was one of the things we got to understand when we all decided to come together, that there were going to be sacrifices that have to be made. And you live with the consequences."

For James, the sacrifices have not been nearly as steep. Like Wade, he, too, took less than a maximum contract, so Riley could better maximize the roster. But Wade took an even steeper cut to make sure there would be salary-cap space for veteran power forward Udonis Haslem, his truest, closest friend on the team.And yet, because of those contracts, that all-for-one approach to free agency, there is limited recourse.

Often, in such situations, a player works out the rough edges through his agent, who becomes a middleman with the team, lest the player be branded a malcontent. The agent is the one who either subtly, or not so subtly, tries to smooth things over with management, whether it is a concern about a diminished role or the lack of opportunities in the late-game situations.

What worked in July doesn't necessarily work now
Except, in this case, Wade and James share the same representation, namely Creative Artists Agency. What suited their collective needs in July doesn't necessarily meet individual agendas at times such as these.

"This is why that doesn't work," says a leading agent who does not represent a player on the Heat roster. "Now who do they go to? Leon (Rose, James' primary agent) and Henry (Thomas, Wade's primary agent) work closer together than you think."

But this also is nowhere near critical mass, merely another rut in what has turned into an up-and-down ride that nonetheless has the Heat near the top of the standings.

This certainly is nothing like Wade's end game with Shaquille O'Neal, when veteran-vs.-hotshot tensions were raised, with O'Neal muttering about Wade being coddled like some sort of "wonder boy."

As contemporaries, Wade and James appreciate that they sink or swim together.

So no sooner did Wade offer his comment about not getting the ball down the stretch of games, and no sooner did Spoelstra raise doubts about the team's emotional wherewithal with his comments about players crying after the recent loss to the Bulls, then James and Wade attempted to quiet the hype through humor, collective humor.

"Didn't you and me have a fight after the game?" James says to a media pack that had seized on Spoelstra's "crying" comments.

"Uh, oh," Wade, alongside, grins.

"Uh, oh," James grins.

And so it has gone this season.

Comedy on demand.

Candor? Not so much.Chemistry? For Wade, it was a touchy lesson with O'Neal, producing one championship and a not-so-amicable parting. For James, there has never been a definitive second wheel, let alone a "1" and "1A" partnership.

For now, Wade is the one learning the LeBron life, which is something larger than he ever has experienced in Miami.

As for the leading-man role? Lots of tip-toeing around that one. James is introduced first at AmericanAirlines Arena, followed by a lengthy pause. Wade is introduced last. Each has his moment.

The team's marketing wing is just as vigilant.

"There's times where it's 'LeBron James and the Heat.' It's times where it's, 'LeBron James and Dwyane Wade and the Heat.' It's not just about my name instead of his name," Wade says.

And then there are the times when opposing fans cast their vote. That's when both can smile, as they try to make it all work. The animus is unanimous when it comes to the road.

"You get fans that yell, 'LeBron's better!' 'Dwyane's better!' " Wade says. "We're like, 'All right, whatever.'"

[dirk digler]

Originally Posted by KC_Connection

One of the biggest problems with the Heat is that nobody's fit into their roles, they are all playing for themselves.

which is what a lot of people predicted would happen

[The Bad Guy]

I love Wade's comments about how basically everyone wants them to fail and how "all is right in the world now that the Heat lost"

What a bunch of inflated bullshit.

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by The Bad Guy

I love Wade's comments about how basically everyone wants them to fail and how "all is right in the world now that the Heat lost"

What a bunch of inflated bullshit.

"I do chuckle a little bit when they sort of complain about the scrutiny when they get," Van Gundy said. "My suggestion would be if you don't want the scrutiny, you don't hold a championship celebration before you've even practiced together. It's hard to go out yourself and invite that kind of crowd and celebration and attention, and then when things aren't going well, sort of bemoan the fact that you're getting that attention. To me, that doesn't follow."

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by dirk digler

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/41960577/ns/sports-nba/

It is a quiet moment, still hours before tipoff, and Dwyane Wade and LeBron James are the only remaining players in the gym following shootaround.With ice on both knees, sitting in the stands about eight rows up from the court, with James to his left but beyond earshot, Wade offers a moment of candor.

"You know what?" he says in his typical soft-spoken manner. "I thought it would be easier."

He pauses."It hasn't really changed," he adds.

The question was about life away from the court, the gym, venues such as these, of whether playing alongside fellow stars in James and Chris Bosh had eased the frantic pace of appearances, publicity events and team functions.

"It's become a little more now, because of the three guys," he says. "Now everyone not only wants you individually, but they want you three. So the demands of what people want probably has gone up a little bit."

What Wade says is not as extraordinary as how he says it. He truly, honestly did not know how this was going to play out. And if he did, this was not necessarily the vision.

That doesn't make it bad, just different.

The same could be said about the chemistry between Wade and James on the court. It is working, at least as far as the statistical story and in terms of the standings, with the Heat poised to reach regular-season heights the team did not even reach in its 2006 championship season. It just is not working as seamlessly as perhaps Wade and James envisioned when they put pen to Pat Riley's paper in early July.

Instead, as if toddlers, the two are playing nicely, but side-by-side, not necessarily in concert. The endgame has become an either-or equation, with either Wade, or, mostly, James taking the final shot. Wade-to-James or James-to-Wade has been the exception.

Oh, there have been moments, extraordinary box-score-filling moments, such as when Wade recorded a triple-double in Charlotte and James came within one assist and two rebounds of matching the feat, the two joking side by side in the locker room afterward about getting the ball out of the other's hands long enough to get those shots and assists.

But the reality is Wade just as often can be found standing in a corner when James is breaking down the defense. And when Wade is on one of his rolls, James often can be seen motioning for the ball, as if stranded on some desolate non-scoring island.

Through it all, each stands near the top of the league in scoring, in their traditional spots, and in transition their connection has been dynamic and absolute, be it Wade fullcourt passes for James layups in stride or James assist for Wade baseline tomahawks.

But to appreciate why the partnership has only gotten so far is to separate the fiction from reality.

Friendly, but not really friends

LeBron James and Dwyane Wade did not enter this partnership as best friends. Friends? Yes, but more typical of the bond built during promotional appearances, league get-togethers and the occasional two- or three-week tours with a national team. "Friendly" stands closer to the truth.

Even now, this is nothing close to what Wade even had with former teammate Dorell Wright, the nights spent at his friend's house working his way through life's travails, being silly, sharing countless meals together on the road, even as Wright deemed everything on the menu "Bomb!," much to the amusement of Wade.

For James, NBA life, and life in general, is bigger than that. LeBron almost always has his people on the road with him; Wade mostly settles in with the company of teammates, often second- and third-tier talents. He is much more of the everyman in the equation.

Through it all, though, there is a projected common front. It is not by coincidence that the media sequence after almost every Heat home game is the same. First coach Erik Spoelstra offers his comments. Then Bosh enters alone. Finally, Wade and James field questions side-by-side.
Because of the dynamic, it is rare that either comments about the other, let alone critiques or criticizes. It would be too awkward.

And yet, after the nationally televised Sunday loss to the Bulls, the one that dropped the Heat into third place in the Eastern Conference, Wade offered a moment that made many wonder about the bond, the relationship.

"I'm used to coming down in the fourth, having the ball, making mistakes, getting a chance to make up for them," he says to a somewhat surprised media audience. "You try to do your best. That's all you can do. That was one of the things we got to understand when we all decided to come together, that there were going to be sacrifices that have to be made. And you live with the consequences."

For James, the sacrifices have not been nearly as steep. Like Wade, he, too, took less than a maximum contract, so Riley could better maximize the roster. But Wade took an even steeper cut to make sure there would be salary-cap space for veteran power forward Udonis Haslem, his truest, closest friend on the team.And yet, because of those contracts, that all-for-one approach to free agency, there is limited recourse.

Often, in such situations, a player works out the rough edges through his agent, who becomes a middleman with the team, lest the player be branded a malcontent. The agent is the one who either subtly, or not so subtly, tries to smooth things over with management, whether it is a concern about a diminished role or the lack of opportunities in the late-game situations.

What worked in July doesn't necessarily work now
Except, in this case, Wade and James share the same representation, namely Creative Artists Agency. What suited their collective needs in July doesn't necessarily meet individual agendas at times such as these.

"This is why that doesn't work," says a leading agent who does not represent a player on the Heat roster. "Now who do they go to? Leon (Rose, James' primary agent) and Henry (Thomas, Wade's primary agent) work closer together than you think."

But this also is nowhere near critical mass, merely another rut in what has turned into an up-and-down ride that nonetheless has the Heat near the top of the standings.

This certainly is nothing like Wade's end game with Shaquille O'Neal, when veteran-vs.-hotshot tensions were raised, with O'Neal muttering about Wade being coddled like some sort of "wonder boy."

As contemporaries, Wade and James appreciate that they sink or swim together.

So no sooner did Wade offer his comment about not getting the ball down the stretch of games, and no sooner did Spoelstra raise doubts about the team's emotional wherewithal with his comments about players crying after the recent loss to the Bulls, then James and Wade attempted to quiet the hype through humor, collective humor.

"Didn't you and me have a fight after the game?" James says to a media pack that had seized on Spoelstra's "crying" comments.

"Uh, oh," Wade, alongside, grins.

"Uh, oh," James grins.

And so it has gone this season.

Comedy on demand.

Candor? Not so much.Chemistry? For Wade, it was a touchy lesson with O'Neal, producing one championship and a not-so-amicable parting. For James, there has never been a definitive second wheel, let alone a "1" and "1A" partnership.

For now, Wade is the one learning the LeBron life, which is something larger than he ever has experienced in Miami.

As for the leading-man role? Lots of tip-toeing around that one. James is introduced first at AmericanAirlines Arena, followed by a lengthy pause. Wade is introduced last. Each has his moment.

The team's marketing wing is just as vigilant.

"There's times where it's 'LeBron James and the Heat.' It's times where it's, 'LeBron James and Dwyane Wade and the Heat.' It's not just about my name instead of his name," Wade says.

And then there are the times when opposing fans cast their vote. That's when both can smile, as they try to make it all work. The animus is unanimous when it comes to the road.

"You get fans that yell, 'LeBron's better!' 'Dwyane's better!' " Wade says. "We're like, 'All right, whatever.'"

Bosh left Toronto for more attention and he gets none of it.

As the third wheel, he's just the scapegoat.

[dirk digler]

Originally Posted by KC_Connection

"I do chuckle a little bit when they sort of complain about the scrutiny when they get," Van Gundy said. "My suggestion would be if you don't want the scrutiny, you don't hold a championship celebration before you've even practiced together. It's hard to go out yourself and invite that kind of crowd and celebration and attention, and then when things aren't going well, sort of bemoan the fact that you're getting that attention. To me, that doesn't follow."

I absolutely agree with Stan. They brought all of this on themselves

[milkman]

Originally Posted by KC_Connection

Stick to what you know.

Basketball isn't it.

I know this.

Not a single person in this thread has suggested that LeBron James is not a great player.

I don't need to know basketball to know that you are an idiot that thinks anyone said otherwise.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by KC_Connection

Shows the importance of everyone fitting into a role (also how good LeBron James actually was last year).

One of the biggest problems with the Heat is that nobody's fit into their roles, they are all playing for themselves.

I love how everybody points to Cleveland's record and says "this shows how good Lebron is." The Cavs won 61 games last season. Unless Miami wins out, they're not going to top that.

And Cleveland is not that bad. Since February, they've only lost one game by more than 10 points. They're as bad as any team would be when you lose a superstar and have no opportunity to replace him with zilch. Not to mention losing Delonte, Z, and Shaq and playing most of the season without Varejao and Moe Williams. Anybody who's watched them play this season will tell you that when they hustle, they're not horrible. After they lost to Miami in the big showdown early in the year, it was pretty clear that the team flat-out gave up.

The question is, if you replaced Lebron in 2010 with a player like Durant, Derrick Rose or any other all star calibre player, would the Cavs have been a deep playoff team? Given the way they're scrapping close losses in February, why in the world would they not be contenders next year if they get two impact lottery picks?

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by milkman

I know this.

Not a single person in this thread has suggested that LeBron James is not a great player.

I don't need to know basketball to know that you are an idiot that thinks anyone said otherwise.

Follow the points being made in the argument next time. It might help.

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

I love how everybody points to Cleveland's record and says "this shows how good Lebron is." The Cavs won 61 games last season. Unless Miami wins out, they're not going to top that.

And Cleveland is not that bad. Since February, they've only lost one game by more than 10 points. They're as bad as any team would be when you lose a superstar and have no opportunity to replace him with zilch. Not to mention losing Delonte, Z, and Shaq and playing most of the season without Varejao and Moe Williams. Anybody who's watched them play this season will tell you that when they hustle, they're not horrible. After they lost to Miami in the big showdown early in the year, it was pretty clear that the team flat-out gave up.

The question is, if you replaced Lebron in 2010 with a player like Durant, Derrick Rose or any other all star calibre player, would the Cavs have been a deep playoff team? Given the way they're scrapping close losses in February, why in the world would they not be contenders next year if they get two impact lottery picks?

Cleveland is the worst team in the league, broke the record for consecutive losses in a season, and are getting outscored by an average of 10 points a game (significantly worse than the next closest team, Washington, with 7 points, and the worst point differential for a team in the NBA over the last decade). Yes, they are that bad. You can argue that they are this bad for more reasons than LeBron's absence...but it is mostly LeBron's absence.