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Originally Posted by Robert Fischer
Among NBA All-Time Superstars, LeBron was very very good, even great depending on your perspective.
Hi Robert,
I think being surpassed by Curry, as the best player in the game, as Valuist has said, along with the ascent of the Warriors are the factors that provoked this recent outburst. But LBJ is hardly unique in acting out - let's remember MJ is notorious for having physically and verbally abusing players who he felt weren't peforming to his satisfaction - Steve Kerr was famously one of his victims. And Bird also habitually ragged on the scrubs - in one well-known story, the Celt team bus was passed a billboard for a portable outdoor furniture company called Rent-a-Bench, and he yelled out, "Let's call this place and get a new bench." Players who are in a powerful position are prone to act out in this way - doesn't excuse it.
Re the game changing - I don't think (except for the rules changes of a decade back) that it as changed that much. What I think has happened is that Curry and Draymond Green are 'next level' players - those with a combination of talents such as we've never seen in the NBA before. Your key insight, that GSW has stretched the area of the floor that the defense needs to cover to ca. 165 ft. is exactly what is new, and why they are so difficult to beat. But the ability to control that percentage of the floor is mostly a function of Curry's superhuman level of 3-pt. shooting - .45 accuracy up to ca. 30 ft. with a lightning release - and partly a due to Green's extraordinary passing from a very high post - he can thread the needle past a defender to a cutter 25 ft. away like Joe Montana. It's not rocket science to figure this stuff out - there are other intelligent teams in the league - Memphis and Atlanta come to mind - but they don't have the players to do this.
Re the Spurs - their play is completely traditional, nothing new there, especially this year. Throw it in to the post, pass, cut, hit the open man - this current team plays like the '64 Celts or '69 Knicks, with some 3-pt. shooting added. Yes, that takes intelligence, but high-level hoops always has. But again, intelligence is not enough - the Spurs also have more talented players.
LBJ has to accept that, even for the greatest players, championships are largely the luck of the draw - they can't create them by themselves. cj mentioned Olajuwon, who was certainly a great player, but it's unlikely that he would have won anything if MJ's father wasn't murdered, resulting in his two-year hiatus. Does that make Akeem less great. Not in my book.
Cheers,
lansdale
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