Who hurt you young man? What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down, fakkit
Save this cliched response for the guys in TLR. You're in The Coliseum, my friend. If you can't make a sports-related rebuttal, don't bother replying to me.
lebron was the media's punching bag for 4 years when he went to miami. he caught more hate for the decision than kobe caught for his rape case.
LeBron was only under criticism in the 2011 season, and mainly because he brought it on himself with his many charades that year. He wanted to embrace the villain role, and ultimately cracked because he can't handle being disliked. When the Heat won the title in 2012, the media was back to slurping him and it has been that way ever since. In the midst of their slurping this past season, they flat-out disrespected Steph Curry by giving LeBron more Finals MVP votes than him which should have never happened. I guess their making up for that now.
Bron Bron has never been as hated as Kobe, by the media. Kobe professional and personal life were under attack for a good 2-3 years, and he was the most hated athlete in America. The media begrudgingly respected him in the ensuing years because they had to. His play forced them to. Durant and several other players know about the media's disrespect of Kobe and called it out.
i don't think the 09 cavs vs lakers would be the lakers domination people think. Lebron's teams have always done serious damage to kobe's lakers throughout his career, even if it was just the regular season.
The '09 Lakers would've destroyed The Cavs that year. LeBron struggled mightily in the two matchups that year: He shot 9-25FG for 23 points in the first matchup, and 5-20FG for 16 points in the second.
Cavaliers (88) at Lakers (105), Jan 19, 2009
Lakers (101) at Cavaliers (91), Feb 8, 2009
And this was precisely because the Lakers employed the same defensive strategy that the '07 Spurs and '08 Celtics, and later on the '10 Celtics, '11 Mavs, '13 Spurs, '15 Bulls, and to a lesser extent the '15 Warriors did on Lebron: Zone the floor, keep him out of the paint, and force him to take outside shots. He was intentionally left open from the perimeter, and the Lakers size clearly bothered him the few times he was able to get in the paint. Because Lebron has no jumpshot, he
always struggles shooting the ball whenever teams play him that way. I'm honestly shocked more teams haven't caught on to this yet.
I have no reason to think this strategy would've changed if the two teams met in the Finals. LeBron should be happy he failed to make the Finals that year, because he was in for a major embarrassment.