Don't compare Kobe-Pau to LeBron-Love, compare to LeBron-Kyrie.

[Suguru101]

It's dumb to compare Kobe's impact on Pau with LeBron decreasing Love's stats. Pau was a 2nd option, and Love a 3rd. It's a dumb comparison.

The comparison to be made is with LeBron's impact on Kyrie... and even then it's not an exact comparison because Kyrie had to take less shots because of Love too. But anyways, LeBron's impact on Kyrie?

Kyrie's stats not only increased, but his efficiency also increased while playing with LeBron. LeBron clearly makes his 2nd option better... it's the 3rd option who suffers but not because of LeBron only since Kyrie also takes shots away.

It's just a basketball/possessions issue. 3 stars cannot average 20 ppg while having a balanced team because of the amount of possessions that exist on an average NBA game.

Just look at the Finals. Kyrie averaged 25 points per game on good efficiency... which is a bigger jump in ppg compared to regular season average than Pau ever did. Why was Kyrie able to be so good and efficient? Because Love took less shots and because of LeBron's impact.

So yeah, this was just an fyi for anybody who's tired of hearing that argument.

[warriorfan]

It's dumb to compare Kobe's impact on Pau with LeBron decreasing Love's stats. Pau was a 2nd option, and Love a 3rd. It's a dumb comparison.

The comparison to be made is with LeBron's impact on Kyrie... and even then it's not an exact comparison because Kyrie had to take less shots because of Love too. But anyways, LeBron's impact on Kyrie?

Kyrie's stats not only increased, but his efficiency also increased while playing with LeBron. LeBron clearly makes his 2nd option better... it's the 3rd option who suffers but not because of LeBron only since Kyrie also takes shots away.

It's just a basketball/possessions issue. 3 stars cannot average 20 ppg while having a balanced team because of the amount of possessions that exist on an average NBA game.

Just look at the Finals. Kyrie averaged 25 points per game on good efficiency... which is a bigger jump in ppg compared to regular season average than Pau ever did. Why was Kyrie able to be so good and efficient? Because Love took less shots and because of LeBron's impact.

So yeah, this was just an fyi for anybody who's tired of hearing that argument.

Look at the progress of All-Star Level Players from age 19 to 23 and you will see the same rate of progression

Kyrie's increase in production was a function of a very young player coming into his prime, not playing with LeBron

[tpols]

what about the terrible fit with Wade?

Kyrie is the only guy out of Love, Bosh, Wade, and himself that fits well with Lebron. This is because Kyrie excels supremely at the one weakness in Lebron's game.. halfcourt scoring / shooting / floor spacing / clutch. Think about it, kyrie doesnt do anything else exceptionally, while Lebron does everything else exceptionally. They are a perfect puzzle piece fit. The problem with Bosh, Love, and Wade is that they all are more complete players than kyrie.. they are all very much multi dimensional.. but that doesnt fit with Lebron, because Lebron himself wants to do all that stuff and already does it at a very high level, so he consumes their games and makes them into more one dimensional models to support his own.. aka spot up shooters, or in wade's case, just ugly clunky, clogged paint hero ball.

[Suguru101]

what about the terrible fit with Wade?

Kyrie is the only guy out of Love, Bosh, Wade, and himself that fits well with Lebron. This is because Kyrie excels supremely at the one weakness in Lebron's game.. halfcourt scoring / shooting / floor spacing / clutch. Think about it, kyrie doesnt do anything else exceptionally, while Lebron does everything else exceptionally. They are a perfect puzzle piece fit. The problem with Bosh, Love, and Wade is that they all are more complete players than kyrie.. they are all very much multi dimensional.. but that doesnt fit with Lebron, because Lebron himself wants to do all that stuff and already does it at a very high level, so he consumes their games and makes them into more one dimensional models to support his own.. aka spot up shooters, or in wade's case, just ugly clunky, clogged paint hero ball.

No. I don't know id you remember, but the games during which either Wade or Bosh didn't play, and it was only LeBron-Wade or LeBron-Bosh their stats went way up. Not because of fit, but because if you only have 2 stars sharing shots, theirs stats automatically go up. It was something like Bosh averaging more than 20 points when Wade missed a game, and Wade going up to about 25.

What you are saying has merit though. I get it. But it's not as drastic as you're making it seem.

[tpols]

No. I don't know id you remember, but the games during which either Wade or Bosh didn't play, and it was only LeBron-Wade or LeBron-Bosh their stats went way up. Not because of fit, but because if you only have 2 stars sharing shots, theirs stats automatically go up. It was something like Bosh averaging more than 20 points when Wade missed a game, and Wade going up to about 25.

What you are saying has merit though. I get it. But it's not as drastic as you're making it seem.

i saw on off stats from the playoffs from 2013 or 2012 that showed an enormous difference in team +/- with Bron and the shooters, vs bron and wade.. and just eye test in general im talking, not stats. Look at their games. Kevin Love and Chris Bosh had reduced roles as in they arent doing things they did that made them stars anymore. Bosh has an amazing face up game and did very well with it as third option in 2011.. he was gradually phased out of that role. Kevin Love has a deadly post game, but it doesnt fit with Bron because his defender tends to sag off and help, which makes Love's job harder and Bron having to launch kickout shots? Cleveland figures its better the other way around, and it is. Kevin's role is still reduced though.

Look at Lamar Odom.. third option for the Lakers, his role was never reduced. Throw stats out the window. Odom was allowed to dribble the ball around, create, play make, and work himself into grooves. He was given complete freedoms to play his game.. as third option. The main argument that should be had isnt box scores but changing roles.

[Smoke117]

Pau Gasol was a borderline top 10 player 2008-2010.

[Suguru101]

i saw on off stats from the playoffs from 2013 or 2012 that showed an enormous difference in team +/- with Bron and the shooters, vs bron and wade.. and just eye test in general im talking, not stats. Look at their games. Kevin Love and Chris Bosh had reduced roles as in they arent doing things they did that made them stars anymore. Bosh has an amazing face up game and did very well with it as third option in 2011.. he was gradually phased out of that role. Kevin Love has a deadly post game, but it doesnt fit with Bron because his defender tends to sag off and help, which makes Love's job harder and Bron having to launch kickout shots? Cleveland figures its better the other way around, and it is. Kevin's role is still reduced though.

Look at Lamar Odom.. third option for the Lakers, his role was never reduced. Throw stats out the window. Odom was allowed to dribble the ball around, create, play make, and work himself into grooves. He was given complete freedoms to play his game.. as third option. The main argument that should be had isnt box scores but changing roles.

Lamar Odom's role was never reduced because he was always a role player. He didn't have to take less shots because he never was the type to take 19 shots per game. Fit perfectly.

Love doesn't have a "deadly" post up game in a vacuum. It depends on matchups. In the Detroit series he had multiple 20 point games and had a bigger role because he could body up the Morris twin. He had a matchup advantage. Against the Warriors? He was too slow and wasn't effective enough against Draymond for the Cavs to use his post up game. Even then, remember in the last 2 minutes in game 7 where out of a time out they posted him up and he missed?

Love's role changed a bit because to be effective along two stars in Kyrie and LeBron, he had to do stuff to command attention without the ball in his hands. It's not just "LeBron's fault". It's any situation in NBA history. A team cannot have 3 stars averaging high amount of points and being a contender.

Even the Wilt/West/Goodrich Lakers: Wilt only averaged about 14 points when they won the title, because you can't have 3 stars demanding lots of shots. And that was a time with much more possessions than now.

I do se what you mean about LeBron with shooters. That was the comeback in Game 6 2013. Once the starters came back in the run fizzled.

[warriorfan]

Lamar Odom's role was never reduced because he was always a role player. He didn't have to take less shots because he never was the type to take 19 shots per game. Fit perfectly.

Love doesn't have a "deadly" post up game in a vacuum. It depends on matchups. In the Detroit series he had multiple 20 point games and had a bigger role because he could body up the Morris twin. He had a matchup advantage. Against the Warriors? He was too slow and wasn't effective enough against Draymond for the Cavs to use his post up game. Even then, remember in the last 2 minutes in game 7 where out of a time out they posted him up and he missed?

Love's role changed a bit because to be effective along two stars in Kyrie and LeBron, he had to do stuff to command attention without the ball in his hands. It's not just "LeBron's fault". It's any situation in NBA history. A team cannot have 3 stars averaging high amount of points and being a contender.

Even the Wilt/West/Goodrich Lakers: Wilt only averaged about 14 points when they won the title, because you can't have 3 stars demanding lots of shots. And that was a time with much more possessions than now.

I do se what you mean about LeBron with shooters. That was the comeback in Game 6 2013. Once the starters came back in the run fizzled.

Wilt's drop in production was not necessarily only because of a change of role, he was 32 years old by the time he joined the Lakers and his production was gradually dropping during the prior 4 years, beginning even before he left the 76ers. Wilt suffered a knee injury in his 2nd year with the Lakers which obviously caused his scoring to dip again.

Wilt's decrease in scoring was more due to advanced age and injury rather than change of role in a "too many shots not enough balls" type of scenario that you are depicting.