NBA
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Wow! The Cavs just traded half their roster. The Kyrie trade keeps looking worse and worse; all the Cavs have left from it are a couple of draft picks and now Hood and Hill.
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Strange days in Cleveland.
Lebron needs a center BAD!
Call it the EMBIID EFFECT!
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@jaybate-1.0 A friend of mine is a huge LBJ/Cleveland fan he really wanted them to get Boogie before he got hurt or Davis, but they would be crazy to let Davis go.
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Maybe Lebron will join GS?
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@jaybate-1.0 They could make it happen, but it would be weak sauce on LeBron’s behalf. I think LeBron is most likely to be in Cleveland, LA or Houston next year, but that is pure speculation.
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I would prefer Lebron in Golden State to give Joel Embiid and his 76ers some drama on their way to 3-5 rings.
Besides, Lebron deserves some good East Bay weather and decent Sierra Cement skiing that he just can’t get in Cleveland.
The only persuasive reason to stay in Cleveland is maybe to cash in on some oil deals down stream, when the Rockefellers finally start pumping some of the crude out from under the Great Lakes. But they don’t usually cut many small fry in on their big deals and what with abiotic recharging going on around the world’s major oil fields, the Great Lakes may stay untapped quite awhile unless America’s first strike nuclear policy can finally get a limited nuclear war untracked in the Middle East and central Asia and so put up a radioactive no mans land that divides Eurasia for a half life of 10,000 years, so that the New One Path/One Road Russia-Chinese Transeurasian Super Corridors don’t matter.
What world!
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I hope LeBron rots in the “shithole” (sorry if that is too graphic…just seemed a relevant term) of his making…
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I’ve never disliked Lebron, although sometimes I got a little tired of the NBA cow-towing to him the way they did to Michael Jordan. I just like Joel more.
I figure Lebron won two rings with Mario Chalmers and so that makes him okay.
What makes you dislike the player that Bill Self memorably called “the biggest athletic freak on the planet” before Embiid came along?
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@jaybate-1.0 LBJ has never won a ring without a Jayhawk on his roster. Mario and Sasha.
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Cleveland has never had a particularly good GM. They were terrible putting guys around Lebron in his first stint in Cleveland. Part of that was that Lebron is so good, Cleveland drafted in the lottery only once. After that, they did not miss the playoffs. They used that pick to select Luke Jackson in 2004 (a fairly weak draft).
Seriously, here are the draft picks Cleveland selected after they drafted Lebron:
image url)They never put Lebron with any other young talent. Here’s a list of All Stars Lebron played with in his first stint in Cleveland:
- Zydrunas Ilgauskas, 2004-05
- Mo Williams, 2008-09
That’s pretty bad. They didn’t draft him any help. No JR Smith. No Josh Smith. No Al Jefferson. And yet they won 50 games every year but one from 2005-2010.
Lebron’s team has played until at least the conference finals every year since 2007 except 2008 and 2010. That’s a decade, and Lebron has played until late May at least all but two years. Lebron’s team has been to the Finals every year since 2011.
No player has been able to raise his team that much, for that long in basketball history. Jordan didn’t do it. His Bulls only won 50 games twice in his first six seasons. Lebron’s matched that total by his fourth year in the league.
Lebron did not play with a single Hall of Fame worthy player until he went to Miami. Jordan played with Pippen from 1989 through the end of his title run. West played with Baylor and Chamberlain. Russell played with Cousy, Sam Jones, Havlicek, and Jo Jo White.
Shaq and Kobe.
Dr. J and Moses.
Cleveland never put that second guy with Lebron. Lebron had to do it himself with Wade and Bosh.
Lebron has had to be both the best player in the world, and his own GM. That’s a feat not many could accomplish.
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@justanotherfan Yep. You’re right
. Still don’t like him.
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You seem to ignore the fact that after he left Cleveland the first time he basically has dictated not only the players with whom he will play but also the coaching staff, more so in Cleveland than Miami where Pat Riley kept some control; in Cleveland he runs the show. Remember he sent former Jayhawk Wigging to the Wolves so he could get Love and he chased away Kyrie as well, a trade that really hurt Cleveland but boosted his ego. Do you think that the current trades were done without his approval? If you do, I have some waterfront property in a Florida I can sell you. He has had the teams he assembled and has no one to blame for their failure. He might be the gratest freak athlete, I personally think that would be Wilt, but it does not make him a nice person…or a good manager.
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You make a solid case for Lebron’s accomplishments. Wilt struggled whenever he lacked great players, coaching and management, too.
I wish things would converge for Lebron. Maybe he needs to join Joel!
Lebron has suffered from playing in this transitional era, where the petroshoecos and big gaming became old variables at huge new scales that made it difficult for great coaches and GMs to adapt.
Kerr with GS has been great precisely because he brought NO baggage from coaching in the old era. No old contractual baggage either.
We basically lost a generation of GMs and HCs that knew their stuff to the politics of new ownership and politics of shoes.
It’s taken a decade or more—basically Lebron’s career span—to restructure ownership to new big gaming interests and to shoe wars.
Nike finally won.
And NBA ownership appears increasingly adapted to the new convergences of big gaming.
Lebron IMHO is largely a cog in a big regional gaming and finance enterprise leveraging with basketball. There have been more important things in Cleveland than hiring the best players, coaches and GMs. They were marketing Lebron, not championships.
And Lebron had to fit same as Wilt had to fit in his time.
Few great athletes have ever worn so many hats so early.
He reminds me a little of Charlie Chaplin in film. Chaplin was the only one good enough to get the best from Chaplin given the complications of the film business, but you make sooooo many enemies wearing so many hats!!!
But hopefully Lebron will get his Laker years eventually. The still has never had a truly great coach and it’s sad. Riley was as close as he came.
He is a great one.
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You’re absolutely right. Lebron has dictated many of the Cleveland moves since his return. I would too if I returned to a franchise that squandered most of my early years with pathetic rosters. All he’s done since then is put together rosters good enough to get to three straight Finals and win a title. There are literally 28 other GMs that don’t have a resume that good, and only one that can say they have done better.
Not bad if you ask me.
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How is this year’s roster working out for King James? With all the money Cleveland spent it should have more than on title, instead he has become the least favorite athlete in all sports and fellow players don’t like him either; ask former Jayhawk Chalmers how he liked being openly treated like crap by King James. He might be one of the more gifted athletes ever but he is also one of the bigger jerks of all time.
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@jaybate-1.0 I often root against the grain (actually because a friend was such a Kobe fan, I used to argue that LeBron was greater when that was a discussion…) but mostly him playing GM and being a whiner.
I thought he often put Mario down in general and then he dissed Wiggins. So those played a role too.
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Sometimes I feel as you do.
But I have after awhile come to respect him without really caring much about him.
Lebron grew up in the NBA. Never went to college. Pioneered the new NBA.
The new NBA is not easy to like.
He isn’t easy to like in some ways but he is the leper with the most fingers and it’s miraculous he survived what he lived through.
I thought he played hard for Riley.
He wasn’t very nice to Mario sometimes, but the two of them and some others won two rings together. Business is rough.
He made a business move back home to Cleveland. He went home to build a business. He liked Cleveland. It was an incredible business deal. He has done a lot in a long career.
I grew disillusioned with the NBA long ago.
I am happy he got rich, but I wish he could have played in a different time and gone to college.
Wigs and Lebron?
Most sad.
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@jaybate-1.0 completely understand your sentiments.
Unrelated - I love how people often qualify their support of someone saying such to the effect - “I don’t agree with you 100% of the time”. - heck, I don’t agree with myself 100% of the time!
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The NBA is about players. College is about systems. Whichever you prefer depends largely on your preference for that style.
If you prefer college, its probably because you prefer the set systems in the game. The top coaches can often be identified by scheme, either offensive or defensive. Because the players change every year, the coaches (and systems) are what make the game what it is.
If you prefer the NBA, its probably because you prefer the system breaking talent of the individual players. There aren’t plays so much as there are sets and actions - things designed to get the ball to a certain player in a certain place, where that guy can make a decision/play. Because the players are so skilled, that’s what makes the game what it is.
This means that college basketball and NBA basketball are two entirely different things. College puts players into a mold. The NBA demands that the best players break from that mold. I think that’s why many college fans don’t like the best NBA players (they exist outside the system), while many NBA fans don’t like the best college teams (they constrain the best players).
Even a guy like Kevin Durant was constrained at Texas in a system that gave him quite a bit of freedom. Steph Curry was constrained at Davidson. You couldn’t have really imagined them taking the NBA to this place when they were in college because you couldn’t see the most creative parts of their game within the college game.
On the other hand, certain guys really excel within a system in college. Perry Ellis was a great player within the system at Kansas. He learned how the system worked and saw his offensive numbers go up each year as he matured within the system. Grayson Allen at Duke is another good example of a guy learning a system and how he fits into it.
Because of these differences, though, college systems aren’t a good place to develop NBA stars. It’s a good way to develop NBA role players - look at guys like Danny Green in San Antonio, Frank Mason (will be a very good backup PG for a long time), Draymond Green (he’s a star role player, but if he were the Warriors second best player, they would be merely a solid playoff team) and others. They all played four years at strong programs (UNC, KU, Mich St.). None will ever be a star you can build a team around, but all are good players that can help championship level teams during their careers.
That’s a flaw in the development system. Stars need to be developed on a different track than role players from a professional standpoint, but they are often developed side by side throughout their careers.
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I used to love the NBA.
I used to love D1.
The problem is not the differing systems. Variety is good.
It is the apparently virulent cancer of entertainment value-driven management apparently afflicting both that has ended my respect and affection for both.
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The love of money is the root of all evil. Sadly, that is what Big Sports have become - money making engines.
