2014 NBA Playoffs thread

I think it begins before that. Magic winning the 90 MVP was a farce, in fact he should've finished third behind both Jordan and Barkley that year. That was one of the those grand ole man popularity votes where Magic got the Award because he was the one with all the rings and the writers loved him.

Jordan won the MVP in 88, and probably should've won it in 89 and 90 as well (at least if you were basing it purely on "best overall player" criteria). I think you can legitimately make the claim that Jordan's run atop that mountain ran a full decade from 88-98 (minus the baseball years).

 

Not to mention:

Steals: Lebron 1.8 Kobe 1.5
Blocks: Lebron 1.1 Kobe 0.5

Plus, Lebron was clearly the far better shutdown defender by that point in their careers. Nobody who truly understood the game still thought Kobe was better than Lebron by 08/09. Lebron plainly had him beat in every single area of the game except for outside shooting.

 

If you're going with LeBron 'left a team close to winning a championship for a built-to-win team,' I'll argue that's a point in his favor. When Jordan left for baseball a championship team still was a very good team. When LeBron left Cleveland a team close to winning a championship quickly became a shit team, winning about 40 less games.

 

It's close, but consider Duncan the best all-around player out of the two. Duncan is a guy who had virtually no flaws to his game from the big man position. He could be (and has often been) whatever the team needed him to be, whether that be the #1 go-to scorer from wherever on the floor (to the extent it's reasonable to expect from a big man), passer, screener, rebounder, defender (inside/out), shotblocker, fast break finisher. You are really nit picking if you can point out his flaws...maybe knock him for not being a freak athlete, or for not being a better FT shooter I guess.

Though he was not remotely a liability in either of those areas. To convey the point further you can put him literally on any team regardless of the team's make up and it's easy to fit him in b/c he can play so many roles so well. Kobe has a great all around game too, but I'm not sure I can make that same claim. Kobe was always best as a ball dominant guard, which is fine, but say you team him up with other ball dominant guards and I think that argument falls apart. (Heck you saw the friction with Shaq.)

 

As the last (and maybe that's in all senses of that word) in the series of great NBA big men, Duncan has a special place in its history. Rainman, your post made me feel old. What would Wilt or Kareem say to your proposition that a center can't be the team's number one scoring option? In this century that's true, sure, but it didn't used to be.

 

To be exact . . .

Bulls 55-27 the first year without Jordan (a two-game drop from the year before).

Cavaliers 19-63 the first year without LeBron (a 42-game drop from the year before).

 

I fail to see the relevance of the records of the superstarless Bulls and Cavs to any assessment of the individual merits of Jordan and James. Of course the Bulls had a better record. The Cavs were a one-man show. That's why James left, remember? The Bulls were a one-man show for the first part of Jordan's career, too. If he'd missed, oh, the 1987-1988 season, I don't think Chicago's record would've been very good.

 

Because "he made his teammates better" is one of the many bullshit arguments being made here.

 

The next time anyone wonders why ESPN overcovers the Heat instead of, oh, the NBA championship Spurs, just remember what happened to this thread after San Antonio won the title.

 

Really? So it says nothing about LeBron's greatness that they finished 42 games worse when he left? There were a few people here saying that he had a pretty solid supporting cast in Cleveland also. I remember reading about how Anderson Varejao does so many things the average fan is not aware of. It may be a little simplistic, but in any sport a team's record without certain players in the lineup gets played up a lot.

 

Sideshow Bob was a nice player, but no Hall of Famer, which Pippin was. Minus Jordan Bulls beat minus James Cavs in four straight, none close.

 

One might say it's almost as if San Antonio wants it that way.