2014 NBA Playoffs thread

Obviously. Tim Duncan beat James so Leonard is better.

 

Durant did have the better season. He had the best season of anyone in the NBA. This wasn't a case of voters just trying to find anyone else to give it to. But when you're determining the best player on the planet, you look beyond one season. If you held a draft for next season with all of the players in the NBA, every single GM would take LeBron number 1. There's zero question about that.

 

Durant's assists and rebound numbers -- the areas that really elevated him to MVP status -- were actually better with Westbrook in the lineup than without. So your theory doesn't hold up: http://newsok.com/oklahoma-city-thunder-was-russell-westbrook-taking-away-shots-from-kevin-durant/article/3926876

 

But if NBA GMs had preknowledge of the 2013-2014 season and could have either for that season, who would they have picked? You see what I mean about this argument descending into madness?

 

They still would have picked James, because even with Durant having a better regular season, they would have expected James to be the best player when it really matters. And he was.

 

It's madness the lengths some people will go to in order to not acknowledge that LeBron is the best basketball player on the planet.

That in no way denigrates what Durant has accomplished in his career. He is without a shadow of a doubt the second-best basketball player on the planet.

 

It's a fine line. Be interesting to see how people would compare
James and Larry Bird if they played in the same era.

 

No comparison, Larry Bird was just another good guy

 

It holds up fine when you don't ignore the most obvious number:

Scoring: 34.5 without Westbrook, 28.6 with Westbrook.

And I guess it's only natural that Durant's assists may be down without Westbrook . . . since a portion of those were passes to, you know, Westbrook.

Durant's "clutch" numbers were --- as of the same period you are looking at --- .338 FG% and .320 3PT%. I had to find that somewhere else.

And finally, the article was written with Westbrook having missed only 18 games. He missed a whole lot more than that. Let's see those numbers.

 

Larry Bird would be regarded as one of the best players in the game today as he was in the 1980s. He'd win an MVP award or several, too. It'd be the same for James if he was transported back in time to the '80s. But in the '80s, James would face one hell of a lot more competition for the Best Player by Acclamation of ESPN and the Internet than he has now. Bird, Magic, Isiah, Kareem, Dr. J., Moses Malone, etc.

 

Bird would undoubtedly be known as the smartest and hardest-working of those players. The others could fight it out for best athlete.

 

You're asking if GMs could predict Durant's improvement? What are you asking?