2014 NBA Playoffs thread

Well, that's just because Russell Westbrook is such a horrible player who does nothing but drag Durant down. Brian Griffin says so. Oh, and Serge Ibaka sucks too. Poor Durant, he gets no help like Lebron does.

 

Anyway, not sure if this got posted elsewhere, but it came to me an in e-mail last week. What happens over the career of an NBA2K14 "The Association" run when you replace retiring NBA players with "doomsday players." Entertaining read.

http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2014/6/3/5772796/nba-y2k-series-finale-the-death-of-basketball

 

His era spanned quite a long time.

Had Jordan left for good after the third title, I think the argument could have easily been made for Magic. Magic was the gold standard for an era that spanned a good portion of Jordan's career. By the mid-90s Magic had 5 titles and 9 Finals appearances. Jordan had 3 and 3 and was off swinging at curveballs. The "Magic-Bird-Jordan Era" clearly favored Magic at this point.

It was only after Jordan's return and three more titles that the tide shifted overwhelmingly in his favor. When Jordan was LeBron's age, most people likely still considered Magic the "best player of this era."

That's the problem when trying to compare legacies between a player who is finished vs. one who still has many chapters still to write.

 

You're running two different arguments together. I never argued that one needs to win a title to be considered the best player in the league at the moment.

Earlier in the thread I did argue that LeBron's legacy, relative to Jordan's, would be hurt because he left a team close to winning a championship for a built-to-win team, defined what success would be ("4, 5, or 6...") then failed to live up to the bar he set. This was in contrast to Jordan, whose dominance was so complete during his peak years -- 91-98 -- that you could not set a bar too high for what was achieved. He should have won MVP every year he played an entire season. And he was the dominant player on the team that won the NBA championship every entire season he played during that stretch.

Later in the thread, somebody (Stony?) brought up an argument that LeBron has been clearly the best player for the longest time of anybody since Jordan (if I recall it correctly). To that point, I brought up that he's not clearly the best player at the moment, nor was he at the beginning of his run when Bryant was leading an otherwise decent, but hardly great, Lakers team to the 2009 championship in the first year James won MVP.

My point is that LeBron isn't now nor wasn't at the beginning of this stretch (2009) the undisputed best player in the league that Jordan was during the stretch from 1991-98 when Jordan (and his team) could not be denied -- unless Jordan wanted to hit baseballs instead.

 

To clarify, his "era" was the prime in which he ascended to be the best player in the league. During a stretch from 1991-98, he was the best player in basketball and never played a full season in which his team was denied a championship. And during that time, he routinely outperformed other elites, like Malone, Barkley (the other two MVPs during that stretch in years where Jordan also played, leaving out Hakeem and Robinson's MVP seasons while Jordan was "retired").

 

The reason the Jordan comparison comes up so often is because any comparison to a current player is laughable.

If Kobe and Duncan were still in their prime, maybe there would be a discussion, but they're not, so there really isn't.

There's really no debate who is No. 1 and probably no debate about who is No. 2.

 

Notice your choice of words.

" . . . then failed . . . "

Past tense. Why are you talking about a 29-year-old athlete in the past tense?

It is every bit as stupid as deciding Jordan's legacy after he turned 29, when he had . . . 2 titles and 2 Finals appearances.

"Well. OK, he proved he could win a title. But you know, Magic is still No. 1 as far as I'm concerned."

 

Then by your argument, Durant did not deserve MVP in the same way Barkley and Malone did not deserve theirs. Am I reading you right?

I think Durant was a better player this season. James had better playoff statistics, but let Durant play his first eight playoff games against Charlotte and New Jersey while James has to play Memphis (which Miami might not beat) and the Clippers (which I think would be a solid favorite against Miami) and we'll see how that goes.

 

obviously the west is tougher, but you assuming memphis and the clippers would beat miami doesn't make it true

 

Lebron has been the best player in the game going back further than 09 but for Grifiin here are there 08/09 splits.

Lebron in 08/09
Pts: 28.4 Assts: 7.2 Reb: 7.6 Fg%: .503

Kobe
Pts: 26.8 Assts: 4.9 Reb: 5.2 FG%: .467

 

Duncan > Kobe?

 

That, to me, is a way more interesting debate than LeBron vs. Durant.

I say Kobe, by a hair.