Not buying it. Thought Cuban made himself look like a moron. Trying to tell me Lebron didn't wilt and actually made the right decisions, because they were just so smart and nobody else was?
Skip was supposed to have personal access to OKC's playbook? Lebron wasn't under excruciating pressure? We didn't give the Mavs any credit? Teams never want it more?
Cuban is a confident speaker. Don't go for the revisionism. Skip as a sportswriter puts things in context. Cuban doesn't have to like or agree with it.
Bayless had nothing intelligent to say. I don't know what you saw but you saw something different then most people saw I guess.
I kinda thought Skip just did what I did which was sit there in shock. It was tough to keep up with cause he just kept talking about how great a job they did (which just happened to come in the 4th quarter of course) while I was still processing "Did he just say Lebron didn't wilt?"
I guess Cuban thinks if you're just smart enough or something and you run a good enough defensive set (in the 4th quarter of course) then you can easily succeed. So therefore nobody was smart enough to stop Jordan (the player that Bron is always compared to) or Jordan was just smarter than that. Six times. Maybe Cuban sees chess or suduku where I see basketball.
Can't say a team wanted it more? So one guy is practicing while the other makes commercials and I can't say the first guy wants it more.
Yep. Not buying it.
right, i agree with most of that, particularity that mark Cuban thinks far to much of himself, but none of that changes his overall point, that everything is about lebron and how he "competed" and ESPN has no idea what it's talking about when it comes to analyzing a basketball game ont he whole.
Dallas DID defend lebron much better, fact not opinion.
OCK was late on switches, often got beat off the dribble, and failed to adjust to slow lebron down off picks. They got murdered off the dribble all series long and the bigs were painfully slow to rotate.
Dallas did that very well all series. and because of that Lebron had a much tougher time on offense. He was forced to pull back to avoid being trapped in the zone, and it made him into a jump shooter. lebron, while he can get hot, is not a confident shooter on the whole.
But, Skip is incapable of seeing the difference between the two ways lebron was defended. Instead in the dallas series lebron "was wilting" was the problem but in this series lebron was "imposing his will, despite the amazing defense OKC played!"
no, what actually happened is lebron is a streaky shooter, and dallas played very nice zone defense to frustrate him and make him take jump shots, which is a weakness. it worked, and lebron chocked on his jumpshots and dallas won.
and this year, OKC played average to below average defense and showed lebron a lane to the basket at will, which is pure death since that's the strength of his game. lebron dunked all over them, got confidence since he could do whatever he wanted, and destroyed them.
that was Cuban's point, that no matter what ACTUALLY happened in the game, ESPN spins it to a lebron centric theme to push the hype machine instead of doing objective analysis (ya know, like a real group of analysts would do)
He's also 100% right that skip's overall "analysis" consisted of "well the last 9 years he's listened to me, this year he tuned me out"
in other words, Skip Bayless just said he is PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE for the troubles in lebron james life the last 9 years. Think how amazingly arrogant that is. it makes King james look humble. and only this year did lebron overcome the mind games master that is skip bayless thanks to the strength of a young adult novel which took him a month to read.
p.s anyone who thinks he actually was reading that book any other time than when TNT/ESPN said "ok lebron, live in 3...2...1..." is an idiot. the book is 300 pages long in large print. it was an endorsement plug, plain and simple.
Topic: Mark Cuban pwns Skip Bayless and ESPN (Read 27006 times)