Tell em again.
Should Golden State Trade for LeBron James this Summer?
- Thread starter GoldenGlove
- Start date
Being a top 5 player in the league. The top 3 oat were that for a quindecennial (15 years).
How can # of touches be the relevant stat if he was accused of ball-pounding? If he's only dribbling 3 times per touch and then passing the ball, then he's not ball-pounding, even if he gets the ball back later in the possession. Lots of touches with few dribbles/touch is literally ball-movement.
And even if you count all of LeBron's touches, he still dribbles less than Curry even though he's on the court more.
LeBron: 87 touches/game x 3.07 dribbles/touch = 268 dribbles/game in 37 minutes/game
Curry: 77 touches/game x 4.06 dribbles/touch = 312 dribbles/game in 34 minutes/game
Poole: 64 touches/game x 3.51 dribbles/touch = 223 dribbles/game in 30 minutes/game
LeBron: 7.2 dribbles/minute
Curry: 9.2 dribbles/minute
Poole: 7.4 dribbles/minute
Accusing LeBron of ball-pounding in 2022 is objectively dumb. Fewer dribbles per touch than Curry or Poole, far fewer dribbles/game than Curry even while playing more minutes, and only has more dribbles than Poole because he played way more minutes.
Both Curry and Poole dribble more in the minutes they're on the court than LeBron does.
How little basketball have you watched to really be insinuating the Lakers had better offensive movement and fluidity this year than the Warriors
No one insinuated that. But the Lakers' ball-movement issues had nothing to do with Bron - he's not ball-stopping or ball-pounding. Westbrook (the Lakers' actual leader in time of possession, time per touch, and dribbles per touch), THT (just a straight bad decision maker who had almost as much time per touch as Bron but with half the effectiveness), and Carmelo (a ball-stopper who took over 10 shots for every assist) were far more responsible for ball-movement issues than Bron was.
I wasn't responding to that, I was just responding to the false claim that LeBron can't move the ball. We haven't even gotten to discussing the Heat, which proved that LeBron excels in a ball-movement offense so long as he has teammates who actually move the ball.
In terms of whether the Warriors should do it...it really depends on how they feel about the players they have. If they view Wiggins as a star who can carry the team, then they shouldn't give him up. If they see him as just another guy who looks good in their system but who isn't gonna bring the Warriors jack shyt after Steph/Klay/Draymond age, then even 2 good years of Bron is worth far more than he is. And do they see Wiseman/Kuminga as 2/3/4 guys on a future title team, or just NBA role players? Because they'll have no problem getting role players to replace them with in the future.
LeBron was dominating since he was a teenager (27-7-7, sixth in MVP voting and 2nd-team All-NBA in his 2nd season at 19/20 years old). Basketball is a team sport, you can't win rings with just one dominant player unless you have a title squad. Wilt, Kareem, MJ were all dominant players from their early years in the league too even though they struggled to reach the Finals in those years just as much as LBJ did. Magic/Bird matched their early dominance with rings because they had stacked teams, not because they were any better than MJ, KAJ, Wilt or LBJ.
Curry is not in that same category. Steph didn't even make an all-star team until he was 25.
Here's the clincher:
LeBron top-3 MVP voting: 11 times
Steph top-3 MVP voting: 3 times
LeBron top-5 MVP voting: 14 times
Steph top-5 MVP voting: 4 times
That isn't even the same stratosphere.
Last edited:
@Rhakim IN HERE TYPING
ESSAYS WHILE IGNORING THE FACT
BRON WANTS TO PLAY
WITH STEPH AND NOT
THE OTHER WAY AROUND
TELL YA MANS TO
STOP TEAM HOPPING FOR RINGS
SINCE HES AS GREAT AS YOU CLAIM.
I'll just assume you're functionally illiterate and thus didn't even read what I wrote, rather than purposely lied about it.
It's gotta be rough to be the mod of a sports forum yet have literally no one take your sports opinions seriously.
You're still leaving out details. 99 was a 8th seed Knicks team in a lockout year without Pat Ewing
'99, '03, and '05 were all dominant playoff runs. You're probably distracted on the box score by Duncan's runs coming in that brief window where NBA ball was the absolute slowest its ever been, and because most of Duncan's defensive contribution doesn't show up on the stat sheet. But in those three years Duncan was absolutely carrying the team all the way through the playoffs on both sides of the ball in a manner that Curry has never done, and overcoming some big-time opponents who should have had the advantage (like the Shaq-Kobe Lakers or the defending champ Pistons) in the process.
'99 in the WCSF he tore apart the Shaq-Kobe Lakers to the tune of 29-11-3 and 2 blocks a game in a series where Sean Elliott was his #2 scorer and some of their wins were in the 70s or 80s. Then he dismantled the Knicks in the Finals with 27-14-2 and 2 blocks/game. In the last two games of that series he put up 28-18-3 and 3 blocks, then a 31-9-2 elimination game that they won just 78-77.
'03 he had the 28-12-5 series in upsetting the defending champ Shaq-Kobe Lakers, then 28-17-6 and 3 blocks a game taking down Dirk's Mavs, then a ridiculous 24-17-5 and FIVE blocks a game in the Finals. In the Game 6 close-out game he put up 21-20-10 with 8 blocks in an 88-77 win, leading all players on the court in all of those categories.
Steph has never had a single playoff run that measures up to the 2-way dominance that Duncan showed in '99 and '03. Not to mention Duncan's numerous other dominant series like 27-17-4 and 2 blocks/game against the '01 mavs, 26-11-6 and 6 blocks/game against the '02 Sonics, 29-17-5 and 3 blocks/game against the '02 Lakers, 32-12-4 and 3 blocks/game against the '06 Mavs (the series that ended with Duncan's 41-15-6 and 3 blocks Game 7 failed to win the series only due to Manu's unfortunate foul), 27-14-1 and 4 blocks/game against the '07 Suns.
If Steph wins two more titles with dominant performances in the process and finally gets his Finals MVPs, then he'll be in Duncan territory. He's not there yet.
I'm not distracted by box score. And you're downplaying Currys impact on the pre-KD warriors. Those teams were NOT championship teams on paper. Curry's playstyle elevated them. No other superstar is getting 73 wins out of those teams.
mbewane
Knicks: 93 til infinity
Curry happens to be the PG, so one would think it kind of makes sense that he dribbles more than Bron, who isn't, like when he brings the ball up. Poole ok. Anyway, if you think Lebron can seamlessly integrate a system in which everyone is in constant movement all the time (including Steph and Poole), something I haven't really seen in Bron's tenure with Lakers, we'll agree to disagree. Heat was a long time ago and Bron isn't in his physical peak anymore, I think we can at least agree that he hasn't been running around as much these past years.
LeBron would have zero difficulty integrating into the system. Bron's physical stamina would be great for that role - he'd have less work to do in the GS system than he ever has - not to mention that GS's frontcourt doesn't have to exert themselves physically a ton on offense anyway. Did you think Iggy and KD were running all over the place on offense?
Speaking of KD, he broke GS's motion and passing attack far more than Bron ever would. Bron has natural vision and passing ability on offense that fits much better into GS's offense than KD did.
mbewane
Knicks: 93 til infinity
If you say so breh
When Anthony Davis and Lebron James play for the Lakers, they are a solid team. They aren't an elite championship contender, but Lebron and AD are good enough to hide a lot of the shortcomings of the overall roster.
Anthony Davis is a problem for the Lakers only insofar as his ability to remain on the court.
If the Lakers want to trade Lebron James and Anthony Davis to start a rebuild, they should absolutely do it. But people should understand that trading them away does not mean they are not good players.
It means that they are the only players on the roster that would bring anything of value back to help the rebuild. They aren't going to get anything for Talen Horton-Tucker or Malik Monk.
@Gil Scott-Heroin correctly predicted last summer that the Lakers season would turn out the way it did, including highlighting how the roster was the oldest in the league.
Your hypocrisy is incredible. In '99 you completely ignored Duncan leading his team to a #1 seed and sweeping the Lakers and Blazers immediately before their classic '00 WCF matchup. And you bytch about the Knicks missing Ewing, while at the same time you're ignoring the Warriors benefited in '15 from KD hurt on the Warriors, CP3 and Blake hurt on the Clippers, Conley and Tony Allen hurt on the Grizzlies, and Kyrie/Love hurt on the Cavs.
Claiming "those teams were not championship teams on paper" - but the '99-'03 Spurs were title teams on paper? 2015-16 Warriors were good enough to beat the Rockets and Blazers and reach the WCF without Curry even available. 1999-2003 Spurs wouldn't have made the fukking playoffs without Duncan. 2015-16 Warriors even leaving Curry out still had multiple all-stars, multiple all-NBA, multiple All-Defensive...while the 1999 Spurs only had an aging Robinson and the 2003 Spurs had NOTHING but role players outside of TD.
2003 Spurs won 60 games and the title with a 20yo Tony Parker and Stephen Jackson as their #2 and #3.....but you think a Curry-Klay-Draymond-Iggy-Barnes-Livingston-Bogut squad "wasn't a title team on paper".
Come on now.
Not only would '16 Bron-Klay-Draymond-Iggy-Barnes-Livingston-Bogut burn down stadiums and salt the land they lay on, they would have fukking swept the Steph-Kyrie-Love Cavs without even sweating the games.
Yeah, but his injury issues aren't to be overlooked IMO.
I think they should keep them both, but if they do a trade I don't think they should start completely from scratch. Trade Bron, keep AD and see if you can build a team around him better than NO did first before you give up completely