What a dumb fukking thread. It starts from the very top with the idiotic assumption him making the Finals will somehow be a bigger hit on his legacy than if he just lost earlier to a weaker team.
Yup, there are.
Take my advice from earlier today.
Yes, yes he is.
Notice that the Kobestans have no problem with promoting both of these narratives simultaneously.
The East is historically weak and sucks so bad that winning it isn't even an accomplishment.
But if you win the East, your team is clearly good enough to beat the West and it must be Lebron's fault if you lose.
The fact that they can even think this is logic is astounding.
2007, not counting Lebron
- rookie Boobie Gibson was 1st on the Cavs in minutes, 2nd in scoring, and 1st in assists in the NBA Finals.
- Sasha Pavlovic was 2nd in minutes and 3rd in scoring
- Drew Gooden was 3rd in minutes, 1st in scoring, and 2nd in rebounds
....and that team, according to Kobes Middle Finger, was good enough to beat the Spurs.
2015, JR Smith and Delly took the most shots of anyone not named Lebron, nailing 31% and 28%, respectively. Shump came in not far behind at. 26%. The corpse of James Jones was playing 20 minutes/game to the tune of 32% shooting too.
But because Lebron helped lift those guys through Chicago and Atlanta, that automatically means that it's all on him if they can't beat a Warriors team with 6-8 players better than their 2nd-best guy?
Just completely nonsensical.
Really?
2015: 36-13-9 on 40% shooting....no, "throttled", "chooses to shut down and disappear" really don't apply.
2014: 28-8-4-2 on 57% shooting. Those are better than Kobe's career playoff numbers against the Spurs, when he supposedly "destroys" them every year. But since it's Lebron, 28-8-4 on sick shooting is "throttled, shut down and disappear". Guarantee he's the only player in history who has been accused of underperforming with a stat line like that.
2013: 25-11-7-2-1 on 45% shooting. Pretty sure this wasn't the one you were talking about.
2012: 29-10-7-2 on 47% shooting. Nah, prolly not this one either.
2011: 18-7-7 on 48% shooting. The closest to your narrative because of what happened in Game 4. But then you have to forget that he played well in the first 3 games (even with Dallas working to keep him off balance as much as possible), and that he had a triple-double in Game 5 and led the Heat in scoring (and equaled Dirk) in Game 6. The idea that he "shut down and disappeared" is greatly exaggerated.
2007: 22-7-7 on 36% shooting. He didn't "shut down and disappear", he was still the best player on the court in Game 3 (24-8-7) and Game 4 (25-6-10), and the Cavs came close to winning both those games with Lebron scoring 24 points in the two combined 4ths. But the Spurs were completely focused on shutting down a 22-year-old Lebron when the next 3 most played guys on the court were named Boobie, Sasha, and Drew. He did his best under the circumstances.
You seriously put Dirk, Oscar Robertson, Shaq, Hakeem, and Kobe all in there and acted like it would be hard to find someone for Wilt to replace.
Wilt's in the 2nd tier there in the mix with Bird and Lebron and Duncan and Magic, just ahead of Shaq and Hakeem. Russell the wild card.
Name a serious basketball expert putting Wilt outside the top 10.
Russell > Wilt
Shaq > Wilt
Magic > Wilt
Duncan > Wilt
