You know LeBron James reminds me somewhat of KG

[QUOTE=Simple Jack]:roll: :roll:

In what way is a team starting Pavlovic, Gooden, Gibson, and Hughes not utterly disgusting? Oh man, I forgot Zydrunas, with his whopping 12 ppg and 8 reb on <50% FG.

Revisionist history at it's finest.[/QUOTE]
They were a top 5 defensive team and were 3-1 without Lebron. Those players were okay Hughes averaged 15/4/4 Zydrunas averaged 12/8 Gooden averaged 11/9 Marshall Varejao and Snow were okay players too. There is a reason the Cavs kept winning despite Lebron playing so bad during the playoffs.

[QUOTE=RRR3]Fixed.[/QUOTE]
10 points 33% fg Cavs lose by 3
19 points 37% fg Cavs lose by 3
25 points 42% fg Cavs win by 4
20 points 27% fg Cavs win by 16

So Lebron plays horrible 4 out of 6 games and the Cavs win two of those games and keep the other two games very close.

[QUOTE=Simple Jack]Spreewell AND Cassell that year were better than anyone the Cavaliers had.

How many games did Cassell take over down the stretch that year? His injury was a huge part of why they lost as well in the playoffs iirc.

Jamison and Shaq weren't on the 66 win team...[/QUOTE]
You said "KG is not taking Cleveland level supporting cast the past 2 years to 60+ wins", [B]I proved its wrong.[/B] KG took worse team than Lebron's 61 win Cavs, to 58 wins and WCF, while facing harder competition.

Would KG get Cavs to 66 wins? We'll never know, however:

24.2/13.9/5.0/1.5/2.2 + DPOY level defense is more impressive than:
28.4/7.6/7.2/1.7/1.1

And another thing, while I could see the argument of Lebron carrying better scoring load than KG on a crap team, but on a good team KG is more valuable than Lebron. KG can make [B][I]any [/I][/B]team much better, Lebron cant, it should suit his strengths.

[QUOTE=Simple Jack]
LeBron's next leading scorer on the Cavaliers in the playoffs was Mo at 16ppg on 40.8% FG (Think Orlando Series). Spreewell was dropping 20 on higher efficiency, and Cassell 17 at 46.5%. KG actually had two guys that, without him, were still good players. It's not as if they were irrelevant and became relevant by playing with KG and on the Wolves. Mo Williams went from obscurity and being a 2nd/3rd option on a team that was failing to make the playoffs in the East, to winning 66 games alongside LeBron, back to being a nobody after he left...

You were saying?[/QUOTE]
Thats because KG makes teammates better, while Lebron makes his better only in the regular season, not in the Playoffs. Thats when he went to "Lebron mode" and froze out his teammates. What you also miss, is that team doesnt end with 3 players, and Cavs were deeper in both '09 and '10 seasons. Oh, and Cassell was injured too, that makes 2.5 players in Minny vs better team with a better coaching in Cavs.

"back to being a nobody after he left"

Thats because Lebron sabotaged Cavs. Team would have done just fine if they had replaced him with lets say Melo, etc. But if you remove core player team is build around, without replacement, of course it falls apart, common sense. And no, it says nothing about team "being a nobody" without Lebron, thats illogical.

[QUOTE=Harison]You said "KG is not taking Cleveland level supporting cast the past 2 years to 60+ wins", [B]I proved its wrong.[/B] [/QUOTE]
:wtf:
you proved you're a donkey

[QUOTE=Ikill]They were a top 5 defensive team and were 3-1 without Lebron. Those players were okay Hughes averaged 15/4/4 Zydrunas averaged 12/8 Gooden averaged 11/9 Marshall Varejao and Snow were okay players too. There is a reason the Cavs kept winning despite Lebron playing so bad during the playoffs.[/QUOTE]

LeBron didn't play "so bad". This was beaten to death in another thread.

Naming players like Varejao, Snow, Marshall, Gooden, Zydrunas, and Hughes doesn't help your case.

I just had a whole post typed out for Harison but it got deleted. I won't even bother rewriting it at this point but I found a post that should put this into perspective from Kblaze a while back.
:roll: @ disregarding 66 wins simply because "they were in the East".

Also, LeBron's playoff run in 09 >>> any playoff run KG has had...by far.


[QUOTE]I think this is a flawed question to begin with because Lebron isnt said to have no help literally...just none in comparison to others doing what they do. Nobody is calling them the same as the 03 Nuggets or anything. But they are on pace to win what? 60-64 games? consider the teams to EVER win at the rate Lebrons team is doing. This is just off the top of my head....


60s Celtics
Late 60s early 70s Knicks
Wilt 76ers and Lakers
The Celtics briefly with Hondo and Cowens
Kareem and Oscar robertsons bucks. Kareem may have done it before Oscar too.

I dont think anyone else did it in the 70s. 80s? Showtime, Birds Celtics, Docs 76ers maybe the Bucks one or two times, Isiahs Pistons towards the end and one of Drexlers teams won 63 I think. 90s you have Jordans Bulls, Barkleys suns, Ewings knicks one or two times. The Jazz. Zos Heat, the Sonics with Payton, Kemp, detlef, and so on and....The Spurs with Drob. I think the Magic hit 60 with Shaq and Penny once. Shaq won 60s one of those years in La. Maybe...98 I think?

2000s its shaqs lakers, Dirk Mavs, KGs Celtics, the 04 Pistons, Duncans Spurs, and the 03 Pacers. Oh and the Kings. Maybe the Blazers in 99 or 2000 too.

That it?

Im gonna assume the average ISH poster known enough of history that I dont need to run down those teams lineups to show how they blow the Cavs out of the water. Entire list...all history of the NBA? The only teams I see with a similar level of talent(defensive or otherwise) after its #1 that the Cavs have to work with after Bron?

Drobs Spurs unless the year they hit 60 was with Rodman, Elliot, and Avery as I think it was. Id take Rodman over anyone on the cavs period...as a defensive talent? Its a blowout.

Duncans 03 Spurs. Manu and Parker were far from stars. They had better defensive players though so if we are falling back on that to make up for offense....they are also more talented than the cavs. Peak Bowen and even an old Drob were bigger defensive talents than Lebron has to work with. Ben Wallace is still a force on his good nights but hes hardly still big Ben. Hes more....Medium Ben. Smedium eve. I watched him for 2 years on the Bulls. Hes not an every night star anymore.

If you want to call Stockton, Hornacek, and company untalented....fine. But you cant defend it. Hornacek in his prime was better than anyone but Bron on the cavs is. HE was an all star the year before he got to the Jazz. He just let a lot go to play his role. Besides...anyone gonna take anyone on the cavs over the best "pure" point of all time backed by Jerry Sloan on the bench?

What else we got? I cant think of any more of those teams even begin to compare talent wise to Lebrons. The worst may well be the 2003 Mavs who had 2MVPs and Finley and Vanexel. Them or Ewings Kniocks...with Starks, Oakley, Smith, Mason and company. Cant talk about defense being a talent and rank these Cavs as equals of those teams.

Lebron has to me easily the worst or among the worst supporting casts offensive or overall to even win the way he is now. some of them dont play the same D as the Cavs but if you tell me you want to build a team with Mo, Z, Anderson, 09 Ben Wallace, west, Wally, and Gibson as your supporting players....and not say....Tim Hardaway, Mashburn, Majerle, Pj Brown, Bowen, and Lenard? Or Shawn Kemp,/Payton whoever you put #2 Detlef, Nate,and those ballhawks?

Then youre a liar. The Cavs arent talented compared to teams that win like them. They arent even that talented compared to teams that dont win.

Will someone tell me how Wade, Marion, Haslem, Beasley and so on are miles less talented than Lebron, Z, West, Andy, and Wally? The Cavs arent that deep either. Take the first 5 players off that team and you could easily have the depthchart equal to the bottom 10 roster spots of most bad teams. They are neither deep nor top heavy Lebron aside. What they are is consistient, hard working, and led by one of the best players to ever step on a basketball court.

But they are not exceptional talents even if we consider defense as a talent. The Bulls have more talented indidivual defensive players than the Cavs for gods sake. Kirk, Deng, Tyrus, Noah, Hunter, and Hughes? as defensive talents they murder the Cavs role players. Just slaughter. And yet....they dont win.

But they would if they had Lebron. And then they would be talented I guess.

Lebrons Cavs are no more talented than the average NBA team. Winning doesnt always mean the team is talented. Just means they play well together. If chemistry is an individual talent? fine. One of the better teams in the league. But it isnt. Its very idea is based on togetherness. Cant be individually talented at chemistry I dont think, And if you could few of those players proved they were elsewhere.

Lebron isnt the entire reason they play well.....but hes enough of it that we dont need to be looking hard and redefining talent to find why they are winning.
With Lebron on that team you could replace anyone they lost by randomly selecting names from a hat and win 52-65 wins depending on who you get. Nobody but him even deserves a mention far as what they lost. They lost Lebron and 100% totally interchangeable parts. Guy took a team as bad as or worse than they have now to the finals when he was a good bit worse than he is now.

Lebron is one of the few people you can honestly say is the difference between worst team in the league...and a contender. He just is. The rest of those guys they lost...were he still there? Nobody would give a damn. Anderson is the only major loss going forward and they are on an 18-20 win pace with him so...not like he was doing anything that mattered.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Simple Jack]LeBron didn't play "so bad". This was beaten to death in another thread.

Naming players like Varejao, Snow, Marshall, Gooden, Zydrunas, and Hughes doesn't help your case.[/QUOTE]
They were a top 5 defensive team and the Cavs were 3-1 without Lebron. Lebron had some pretty bad games during the 07 playoffs he averaged 25 points on 41% overall and the Cavs still made the finals.

[QUOTE=Ikill]They were a top 5 defensive team and the Cavs were 3-1 without Lebron. Lebron had some pretty bad games during the 07 playoffs he averaged 25 points on 41% overall and the Cavs still made the finals.[/QUOTE]

Being a good defensive team doesn't mean his supporting cast was talented. Not sure why you keep pointing that out.

The 06 Griz were ranked #2; who here was commenting on Gasol's supporting cast being great and finals worthy?

[QUOTE=Simple Jack]Being a good defensive team doesn't mean his supporting cast was talented. Not sure why you keep pointing that out.

The 06 Griz were ranked #2; who here was commenting on Gasol's supporting cast being great and finals worthy?[/QUOTE]
defense is half the game. The 06 Grizzlies played in the west they would have no problem beating the 07 Wizards Nets and Pistons. The 07 Cavs were a decent team that got to play in a very weak east Lebron did nothing impressive other than that one game.

[QUOTE=Simple Jack]I just had a whole post typed out for Harison but it got deleted. I won't even bother rewriting it at this point but I found a post that should put this into perspective from Kblaze a while back.
:roll: @ disregarding 66 wins simply because "they were in the East".[/QUOTE]

I addressed two points in this thread:

1. "Not a chance in hell that cavs team had a better supporting cast than that wolves team."

Wrong claim, proven here:
[URL="http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showpost.php?p=6323546&postcount=37"]http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showpost.php?p=6323546&postcount=37[/URL]

2. "KG is not taking Cleveland level supporting cast the past 2 years to 60+ wins".

In '10 Cavs won 61 games with the better cast than KG [B]ever [/B]had in Wolves. Still Garnett had 58 wins in tougher conference and got team to WCF, and might even had won it all if not a string of injuries on the team. Hence your claim is wrong, at least talking about '10.

In '09 its debatable, I dont know (neither do you) if KG could get those Cavs to 66 wins, probably not, although argument can be made either way:

24.2/13.9/5.0/1.5/2.2 + DPOY level defense is more impressive than:
28.4/7.6/7.2/1.7/1.1

[QUOTE=Simple Jack]
Also, LeBron's playoff run in 09 >>> any playoff run KG has had...by far.[/QUOTE]

Two things wrong with this claim:

1. Cavs moved from the [B]team [/B]play which got them 66 wins, to [B]Lebron ball.[/B] He didnt got teammates properly involved, hence Lebron could stat pad all day while keeping the ball in his hands, this wouldnt win the rings. Case and point - young Jordan was tearing through Playoffs, but didnt trusted his teammates in the Playoffs as well, till Phil taught him better.

Jordan (and Wilt, and others) started winning when instead of stat pading they started playing team game. And dont get started about "but Lebron didnt had anyone to trust on the team", he did had enough for 66 wins, just he moved from the success formula to "hero" mode.

2. Playoffs best:

Lebron '09 : 35.3/9.1/7.3, 51% FG, Ball usage: 36.4%

Garnett '03: 27.0/15.7/5.2, 51% FG, Ball usage: 28.7%, plus DPOY level defender.

Lebrons stats slightly better, however ball usage is insane. So it depends how much you value defense. Even if you dont care about defense at all, still your claim "LeBron's playoff run in 09 >>> any playoff run KG has had...by far" is simply wrong, but if one does value defense, KG's best are as good as Lebron ever had.

[QUOTE=Harison]I addressed two points in this thread:

1. "Not a chance in hell that cavs team had a better supporting cast than that wolves team."

Wrong claim, proven here:
[URL="http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showpost.php?p=6323546&postcount=37"]http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showpost.php?p=6323546&postcount=37[/URL]

2. "KG is not taking Cleveland level supporting cast the past 2 years to 60+ wins".

In '10 Cavs won 61 games with the better cast than KG [B]ever [/B]had in Wolves. Still Garnett had 58 wins in tougher conference and got team to WCF, and might even had won it all if not a string of injuries on the team. Hence your claim is wrong, at least talking about '10.

In '09 its debatable, I dont know (neither do you) if KG could get those Cavs to 66 wins, probably not, although argument can be made either way:

24.2/13.9/5.0/1.5/2.2 + DPOY level defense is more impressive than:
28.4/7.6/7.2/1.7/1.1



Two things wrong with this claim:

[B]1. Cavs moved from the [B]team [/B]play which got them 66 wins, to [B]Lebron ball.[/B] He didnt got teammates properly involved, hence Lebron could stat pad all day while keeping the ball in his hands, this wouldnt win the rings. [/B]Case and point - young Jordan was tearing through Playoffs, but didnt trusted his teammates in the Playoffs as well, till Phil taught him better.

Jordan (and Wilt, and others) started winning when instead of stat pading they started playing team game. And dont get started about "but Lebron didnt had anyone to trust on the team", he did had enough for 66 wins, just he moved from the success formula to "hero" mode.

2. Playoffs best:

Lebron '09 : 35.3/9.1/7.3, 51% FG, Ball usage: 36.4%

Garnett '03: 27.0/15.7/5.2, 51% FG, Ball usage: 28.7%, plus DPOY level defender.

Lebrons stats slightly better, however ball usage is insane. So it depends how much you value defense. Even if you dont care about defense at all, still your claim "LeBron's playoff run in 09 >>> any playoff run KG has had...by far" is simply wrong, but if one does value defense, KG's best are as good as Lebron ever had.[/QUOTE]


To the bold. I disagree. You do know that the Cavs went 8-0 before playing the Magic. Lebron was forced to do all the things you claim because his teammates came crashing back to reality and started playing like the very average players that they were.

And no, there is no way in hell that KG could ever have taken that 09 Cavs to 66 wins. Sorry.

They both had breakout seasons and got to the Conference Finals but got eliminated because of a below average team. I guess that is the similarity

[QUOTE=DMAVS41]To the bold. I disagree. You do know that the Cavs went 8-0 before playing the Magic. Lebron was forced to do all the things you claim because his teammates came crashing back to reality and started playing like the very average players that they were.

And no, there is no way in hell that KG could ever have taken that 09 Cavs to 66 wins. Sorry.[/QUOTE]

Whatever magic Lebron did to take cavs to 66 wins is irrelevant because it obviously does not work in the post season. Gets him great stats yes but does not get his team wins when the other team is actually half decent.

In 2009 they only managed to beat detroit and atlanta for gods sake! 2 really awful teams. I believe all 8 teams in the West could have beaten Detroit, Atlanta and Orlando to get to the finals.

[QUOTE=knightfall88]Whatever magic Lebron did to take cavs to 66 wins is irrelevant because it obviously does not work in the post season. Gets him great stats yes but does not get his team wins when the other team is actually half decent.

In 2009 they only managed to beat detroit and atlanta for gods sake! 2 really awful teams. I believe all 8 teams in the West could have beaten Detroit, Atlanta and Orlando to get to the finals.[/QUOTE]

Its not magic...its called playing at a level that only a handful of players in the history of the game have reached.

It didn't work? They won 66 games and got the conference finals. They lost because the Cavs had an average coach at best and a bunch of very average players. Had nothing to do with Lebron in 09....the fact that people still try to blame him for the Cavs not reaching the finals that year is just laughable.

You should really go back and watch that series. Mo was awful...and Howard destroyed the Cavs. Still not sure how either of those things are on Lebron. It falls on him to guard centers now?

:roll: at linking to your own post that did nothing to contribute to the argument when you originally posted it and thinking it would do anything now. Not to mention you moved on to the 61 win team, not the 66 win team that didn't even have Jamison or Shaq.

Right, it's not the fact that his team was complete garbage and untalented relative to other teams anywhere NEAR their win%, it's the fact that it's LeBron's fault and that's all there is to it. That clears it all up.

Dude is getting hated on for how terrible his untalented team played, now? And how he "stat padded" despite doing nearly everything necessary for his team to win throughout that season? Give me a guy who "stat pads" all day if my team, with that level of talent, is going to win 66 games.

On a side note, it's funny that no one can point out exactly what LeBron "stat-pads". There was a thread on this that I made, and not an ounce of evidence was provided. He was sitting out plenty of 4th quarters that year too, and plenty if not all games that got out of reach. Producing efficiently with great numbers is now only attributed to stat-padding. Someone should remind us that every time anyone has a great game.

It's the same rehashed BS with no logic and reasoning whatsoever when it comes to LeBron. I'm not sure why I even bother with specific posters here.