Not One, Not Two, Not Th.....Whoops!

[SparzWizard]

LeBron's first NBA Finals loss on the road. Guess he finally got a taste of that in a different environment!

[celticsclay]

Basically, a lot of people do not like Lebron so are looking for an excuse to dump on him even more.

Which is odder...

The folks who don't like LeBron and want to dump on him or the folks who feel the need to jump in and defend the delicate reputation of a multi-millionaire celebrity when it's impugned on a sports message board?

Mike

Defend or point out actual facts?

Why do you even care?  Are you from Cleveland?  Are you from Miami?  Did LeBron loan you money?

The dynamic of why folks on a website devoted to one team would love to hoot and jeer at someone on another team is well understood.  Why you're doing what you're doing is more mysterious.

LeBron going out with 6 minutes left of an elimination game that was still technically up for grabs and never coming back in is weird.  It would be weird if it happened to any great player in that situation.  If people want to take advantage of that oddity to take a few shots at a world famous multi-millionaire...why do you care?

Mike

We talk NBA here.  Why wouldn't I enter my opinion on an NBA subject?

So you comment on every single thread here multiple times?  Like you've got OCD and can't control yourself?

Mike

Compared to the one and only one comment you have made on this thread?


That is how most discussions work right?  Everyone make one and only one comment.

I don't really get all the people that defend LeBron all over the place either. If someone insulted pierce or garnett when they were with the Celtics I would definitely engage. However, if someone says steph curry or Russell westbrook are not team first players, or Howard has no heart, I wouldn't be all over espn message boards or Celtics blog arguing for hours why they are. Those guys don't play on my team (the Celtics) so why bother ?

Then what is the point?  We discuss more then just the Celtics.  Heck, we discuss more then just the NBA.

It has just always seemed strange to me that Celtics fans, or fans of other teams defend LeBron so much. He has been a really big rival of the Celtics and probably played a very personal role in ending our own big 3 era (not just eliminating us, but recruiting ray allen). I understand why people would hate him for some of the things he has said or just from a rivalry perspective. I have a harder time understanding how Celtics fans would want to take time to defend him.

[knuckleballer]

It's a bit of a ludicrous standard to hold a player to - I mean, Jordan failed to win a ring in 9 of his 15 seasons.  What's his excuse?  Duncan failed to get a ring 12 out of 17 years - what's his excuse?  Larry Bird failed 10 out of 13 years, he must be full of excuses.  Heck, even Russell's gotta have 2 excuses.  It's a bit silly to play the "what's the excuse now?" card when other greats aren't held to the same standard.

Those other greats never left a playoff team in a conspiracy to join two other greats to, they hoped, put together a super-team that destroys everyone else in the league.

Let's be clear about something.  LeBron is not KG.  Cleveland was not a completely hopeless franchise that had a long record of barely being able to even make the playoffs while making one horrible decision after another.  They were a regular playoff contender who put decent but not great rosters around LeBron, until his last year there where they might have been able to win a title and LeBron's performance was one of the main reasons they didn't.

LeBron left a good situation for one where he thought the fix was going to be in and he could take a shortcut to winning that no previous great ever did.

Let's turn it around.  What if they Heat had just won their 4th straight title?  Would anybody be taken seriously if they argued it wasn't that impressive because the Heat were just so much better than everyone else?  Hell, no.  LeBron would have been elevated to the same level as Jordan or Russell and anyone who disputed it would have been dismissed as a "hater".

I mean, here's LeBron's legacy over the last 5 years.

2010 - Quit in the playoffs against Boston.
2011 - Lost in the Finals to a Dallas team the Heat had no business losing to.
2012 - Beat a young OKC team in the Finals.
2013 - Won another title after the Spurs made one of the all-time chokes in league history.
2014 - Get absolutely destroyed by the Spurs in the Finals.

Is that a legacy most NBA players wish they could have?  Sure.  Is that the legacy of the best of all time?  No.

Mike

What about Shaq?  He left Orlando.  Is he not an all-time great?

Shaq left a crappy organization in a terrible sports town to a great organization (which I hate to admit) located in Hollywood.  He didn't collude with other elite players to form a super team so that winning would be easy.  It's an entirely different scenario.

[wdleehi]

It's a bit of a ludicrous standard to hold a player to - I mean, Jordan failed to win a ring in 9 of his 15 seasons.  What's his excuse?  Duncan failed to get a ring 12 out of 17 years - what's his excuse?  Larry Bird failed 10 out of 13 years, he must be full of excuses.  Heck, even Russell's gotta have 2 excuses.  It's a bit silly to play the "what's the excuse now?" card when other greats aren't held to the same standard.

Those other greats never left a playoff team in a conspiracy to join two other greats to, they hoped, put together a super-team that destroys everyone else in the league.

Let's be clear about something.  LeBron is not KG.  Cleveland was not a completely hopeless franchise that had a long record of barely being able to even make the playoffs while making one horrible decision after another.  They were a regular playoff contender who put decent but not great rosters around LeBron, until his last year there where they might have been able to win a title and LeBron's performance was one of the main reasons they didn't.

LeBron left a good situation for one where he thought the fix was going to be in and he could take a shortcut to winning that no previous great ever did.

Let's turn it around.  What if they Heat had just won their 4th straight title?  Would anybody be taken seriously if they argued it wasn't that impressive because the Heat were just so much better than everyone else?  Hell, no.  LeBron would have been elevated to the same level as Jordan or Russell and anyone who disputed it would have been dismissed as a "hater".

I mean, here's LeBron's legacy over the last 5 years.

2010 - Quit in the playoffs against Boston.
2011 - Lost in the Finals to a Dallas team the Heat had no business losing to.
2012 - Beat a young OKC team in the Finals.
2013 - Won another title after the Spurs made one of the all-time chokes in league history.
2014 - Get absolutely destroyed by the Spurs in the Finals.

Is that a legacy most NBA players wish they could have?  Sure.  Is that the legacy of the best of all time?  No.

Mike

What about Shaq?  He left Orlando.  Is he not an all-time great?

Shaq left a crappy organization in a terrible sports town to a great organization (which I hate to admit) located in Hollywood.  He didn't collude with other elite players to form a super team so that winning would be easy.  It's an entirely different scenario.

Unlike the great run team in Cleveland?   

Except the Magic actually put talent with Shaq in the form of Penny. 

[knuckleballer]

It's a bit of a ludicrous standard to hold a player to - I mean, Jordan failed to win a ring in 9 of his 15 seasons.  What's his excuse?  Duncan failed to get a ring 12 out of 17 years - what's his excuse?  Larry Bird failed 10 out of 13 years, he must be full of excuses.  Heck, even Russell's gotta have 2 excuses.  It's a bit silly to play the "what's the excuse now?" card when other greats aren't held to the same standard.

Those other greats never left a playoff team in a conspiracy to join two other greats to, they hoped, put together a super-team that destroys everyone else in the league.

Let's be clear about something.  LeBron is not KG.  Cleveland was not a completely hopeless franchise that had a long record of barely being able to even make the playoffs while making one horrible decision after another.  They were a regular playoff contender who put decent but not great rosters around LeBron, until his last year there where they might have been able to win a title and LeBron's performance was one of the main reasons they didn't.

LeBron left a good situation for one where he thought the fix was going to be in and he could take a shortcut to winning that no previous great ever did.

Let's turn it around.  What if they Heat had just won their 4th straight title?  Would anybody be taken seriously if they argued it wasn't that impressive because the Heat were just so much better than everyone else?  Hell, no.  LeBron would have been elevated to the same level as Jordan or Russell and anyone who disputed it would have been dismissed as a "hater".

I mean, here's LeBron's legacy over the last 5 years.

2010 - Quit in the playoffs against Boston.
2011 - Lost in the Finals to a Dallas team the Heat had no business losing to.
2012 - Beat a young OKC team in the Finals.
2013 - Won another title after the Spurs made one of the all-time chokes in league history.
2014 - Get absolutely destroyed by the Spurs in the Finals.

Is that a legacy most NBA players wish they could have?  Sure.  Is that the legacy of the best of all time?  No.

Mike

What about Shaq?  He left Orlando.  Is he not an all-time great?

Shaq left a crappy organization in a terrible sports town to a great organization (which I hate to admit) located in Hollywood.  He didn't collude with other elite players to form a super team so that winning would be easy.  It's an entirely different scenario.

Unlike the great run team in Cleveland?   

Except the Magic actually put talent with Shaq in the form of Penny.

Florida cities are never great sports towns because most of the people don't have deep roots.  Shaq wanted to go to a better sports town and to Hollywood.  The best two players on that Lakers team were Eddie Jones and Nick Van Exel.  It wasn't about having cake walks to rings.

Cleveland has a devout fan base and the team did its best to surround him with talent.  Lebron left so that he could coast to championships.  That is and should be held against his legacy.

[Moranis]

Shaq left Orlando because he wanted to be in L.A.

Kareem forced his way out of Milwaukee because it didn't fit him culturally and specifically requested trades to only LA and NY.

Magic only left MSU after his junior year because the Lakers had the first pick and he wanted to play with Kareem (direct quote from Magic)

Wilt and Moses forced trades.

Kobe forced his way out of Charlotte to go to L.A.

Robertson bounced around a bit (including leaving his home city of Cincinnati).


Because Jordan, Bird, Russell, Duncan, etc. happened to be drafted to competent organizations that could surround them with great talent, we are supposed to look at them differently than Lebron James all while ignoring the people from the list above. 


Anyone that thinks Lebron James truly wanted to leave Cleveland is just a crazy person.  James gave 7 years of his life to the Cavs who did him grave injustice after grave injustice his entire time their, beginning with the Carlos Boozer debacle and just going downhill from there (James couldn't even convince Bosh to even consider Cleveland, even after Cleveland and Toronto had worked out a sign and trade - not at all).

[D.o.s.]

It has just always seemed strange to me that Celtics fans, or fans of other teams defend LeBron so much. He has been a really big rival of the Celtics and probably played a very personal role in ending our own big 3 era (not just eliminating us, but recruiting ray allen). I understand why people would hate him for some of the things he has said or just from a rivalry perspective. I have a harder time understanding how Celtics fans would want to take time to defend him.

I don't think of LeBron as a Celtics Rival because he was never really a threat to the Celtics Big 3 until 2012, and our team was more or less cooked by then. I still don't see the Heat as a rival team ala the Lakers, just a good team that overlapped with our good team.

I consider myself a fan of basketball, as well as a Celtics fan, and I'm not going to denigrate players who aren't Celtics, or stop appreciating great play because the Celtics aren't doing well. LeBron is a great player. To say otherwise is silly.

Yes, the media hype is annoying, but to try and actively talk down his game in response is childish. There is a very interesting book waiting to be written about the Madonna/Edited.  Profanity and masked profanity are against forum rules and may result in discipline. complex that the collective NBA fandom has concerning LeBron James.

[knuckleballer]

Shaq left Orlando because he wanted to be in L.A.

Kareem forced his way out of Milwaukee because it didn't fit him culturally and specifically requested trades to only LA and NY.

Magic only left MSU after his junior year because the Lakers had the first pick and he wanted to play with Kareem (direct quote from Magic)

Wilt and Moses forced trades.

Kobe forced his way out of Charlotte to go to L.A. to play with Shaq.

Robertson bounced around a bit (including leaving his home city of Cincinnati).


Because Jordan, Bird, Russell, Duncan, etc. happened to be drafted to competent organizations that could surround them with great talent, we are supposed to look at them differently than Lebron James all while ignoring the people from the list above. 


Anyone that thinks Lebron James truly wanted to leave Cleveland is just a crazy person.  James gave 7 years of his life to the Cavs who did him grave injustice after grave injustice his entire time their, beginning with the Carlos Boozer debacle and just going downhill from there (James couldn't even convince Bosh to even consider Cleveland, even after Cleveland and Toronto had worked out a sign and trade - not at all).

Lebron was an established, elite player and left Cleveland for what he thought would be an easy path to championships.  There's no way around that.  All the backlash he has received has been well earned. 

[Donoghus]

It has just always seemed strange to me that Celtics fans, or fans of other teams defend LeBron so much. He has been a really big rival of the Celtics and probably played a very personal role in ending our own big 3 era (not just eliminating us, but recruiting ray allen). I understand why people would hate him for some of the things he has said or just from a rivalry perspective. I have a harder time understanding how Celtics fans would want to take time to defend him.

I don't think of LeBron as a Celtics Rival because he was never really a threat to the Celtics Big 3 until 2012, and our team was more or less cooked by then. I still don't see the Heat as a rival team ala the Lakers, just a good team that overlapped with our good team.

I consider myself a fan of basketball, as well as a Celtics fan, and I'm not going to denigrate players who aren't Celtics, or stop appreciating great play because the Celtics aren't doing well. LeBron is a great player. To say otherwise is silly.

Yes, the media hype is annoying, but to try and actively talk down his game in response is childish.

I've considered him a Celtics rival since '08.  Seemed like he was almost always there during the new 3 era ('08, '10, '11, '12).  Him & Pierce was definitely a rivalry.

He can [dang] close to knocking off the best Celtics team of the past 25 years playing with a junk Cavs team.

[Moranis]

It's a bit of a ludicrous standard to hold a player to - I mean, Jordan failed to win a ring in 9 of his 15 seasons.  What's his excuse?  Duncan failed to get a ring 12 out of 17 years - what's his excuse?  Larry Bird failed 10 out of 13 years, he must be full of excuses.  Heck, even Russell's gotta have 2 excuses.  It's a bit silly to play the "what's the excuse now?" card when other greats aren't held to the same standard.

Those other greats never left a playoff team in a conspiracy to join two other greats to, they hoped, put together a super-team that destroys everyone else in the league.

Let's be clear about something.  LeBron is not KG.  Cleveland was not a completely hopeless franchise that had a long record of barely being able to even make the playoffs while making one horrible decision after another.  They were a regular playoff contender who put decent but not great rosters around LeBron, until his last year there where they might have been able to win a title and LeBron's performance was one of the main reasons they didn't.

LeBron left a good situation for one where he thought the fix was going to be in and he could take a shortcut to winning that no previous great ever did.

Let's turn it around.  What if they Heat had just won their 4th straight title?  Would anybody be taken seriously if they argued it wasn't that impressive because the Heat were just so much better than everyone else?  Hell, no.  LeBron would have been elevated to the same level as Jordan or Russell and anyone who disputed it would have been dismissed as a "hater".

I mean, here's LeBron's legacy over the last 5 years.

2010 - Quit in the playoffs against Boston.
2011 - Lost in the Finals to a Dallas team the Heat had no business losing to.
2012 - Beat a young OKC team in the Finals.
2013 - Won another title after the Spurs made one of the all-time chokes in league history.
2014 - Get absolutely destroyed by the Spurs in the Finals.

Is that a legacy most NBA players wish they could have?  Sure.  Is that the legacy of the best of all time?  No.

Mike

What about Shaq?  He left Orlando.  Is he not an all-time great?

Shaq left a crappy organization in a terrible sports town to a great organization (which I hate to admit) located in Hollywood.  He didn't collude with other elite players to form a super team so that winning would be easy.  It's an entirely different scenario.

Unlike the great run team in Cleveland?   

Except the Magic actually put talent with Shaq in the form of Penny.

Florida cities are never great sports towns because most of the people don't have deep roots.  Shaq wanted to go to a better sports town and to Hollywood.  The best two players on that Lakers team were Eddie Jones and Nick Van Exel.  It wasn't about having cake walks to rings.

Cleveland has a devout fan base and the team did its best to surround him with talent.  Lebron left so that he could coast to championships.  That is and should be held against his legacy.

The Lakers won 53 games the year before Shaq arrived.  Led by Vlade, Jones, and Van Exel.  Before Shaq signed, the Lakers had traded Divac for Kobe Bryant.  So let's not act like Shaq went to some downtrodden organization that didn't have talent.  The Lakers had their 1, 2, and 3 (they also had a still pretty solid Elden Campbell at the PF spot), all they needed was Shaq and he knew it.

[D.o.s.]

It has just always seemed strange to me that Celtics fans, or fans of other teams defend LeBron so much. He has been a really big rival of the Celtics and probably played a very personal role in ending our own big 3 era (not just eliminating us, but recruiting ray allen). I understand why people would hate him for some of the things he has said or just from a rivalry perspective. I have a harder time understanding how Celtics fans would want to take time to defend him.

I don't think of LeBron as a Celtics Rival because he was never really a threat to the Celtics Big 3 until 2012, and our team was more or less cooked by then. I still don't see the Heat as a rival team ala the Lakers, just a good team that overlapped with our good team.

I consider myself a fan of basketball, as well as a Celtics fan, and I'm not going to denigrate players who aren't Celtics, or stop appreciating great play because the Celtics aren't doing well. LeBron is a great player. To say otherwise is silly.

Yes, the media hype is annoying, but to try and actively talk down his game in response is childish.

I've considered him a Celtics rival since '08.  Seemed like he was almost always there during the new 3 era ('08, '10, '11, '12).  Him & Pierce was definitely a rivalry.

He can [dang] close to knocking off the best Celtics team of the past 25 years playing with a junk Cavs team.

This may be overly simplified, but I compare it to Jordan + the Bulls against the 80's Celtics, that is to say, largely a one-way rivalry.

[Moranis]

Shaq left Orlando because he wanted to be in L.A.

Kareem forced his way out of Milwaukee because it didn't fit him culturally and specifically requested trades to only LA and NY.

Magic only left MSU after his junior year because the Lakers had the first pick and he wanted to play with Kareem (direct quote from Magic)

Wilt and Moses forced trades.

Kobe forced his way out of Charlotte to go to L.A. to play with Shaq.

Robertson bounced around a bit (including leaving his home city of Cincinnati).


Because Jordan, Bird, Russell, Duncan, etc. happened to be drafted to competent organizations that could surround them with great talent, we are supposed to look at them differently than Lebron James all while ignoring the people from the list above. 


Anyone that thinks Lebron James truly wanted to leave Cleveland is just a crazy person.  James gave 7 years of his life to the Cavs who did him grave injustice after grave injustice his entire time their, beginning with the Carlos Boozer debacle and just going downhill from there (James couldn't even convince Bosh to even consider Cleveland, even after Cleveland and Toronto had worked out a sign and trade - not at all).

Lebron was an established, elite player and left Cleveland for what he thought would be an easy path to championships.  There's no way around that.  All the backlash he has received has been well earned.

He thought it woudl be easy, really?  Maybe he just wanted to play with his friends.  He tried very hard to get Bosh to agree to come to Cleveland, Bosh wouldn't do it.  Had Bosh done it, the NBA the last 4 years would have been very different. 

Big Z is the best player James had as a teammate his entire time in Cleveland.  No team is winning a title with Ilgauskus as its second best player.  That is just reality.

[fairweatherfan]

It has just always seemed strange to me that Celtics fans, or fans of other teams defend LeBron so much. He has been a really big rival of the Celtics and probably played a very personal role in ending our own big 3 era (not just eliminating us, but recruiting ray allen). I understand why people would hate him for some of the things he has said or just from a rivalry perspective. I have a harder time understanding how Celtics fans would want to take time to defend him.

Part of the reason is that a lot of Celtics fans are also fans of basketball, and try to appreciate great players for what they are.  I've tried not to hate LeBron (when we're not playing him) because as a kid I failed to appreciate how great Jordan was, because I despised Jordan.  LeBron's not the competitor or winner Jordan was, but has comparable talent and genuinely seems like a better person.  The older I get the more I realize I'm only going to get to see so many players of that caliber.

For a Celtics-centered answer, though - diminishing LeBron as a player diminishes us beating him in 08 and 10, AND losing to him in 11 and 12.  Would you rather we beat an all-time great in his prime, twice, and put up a hell of a fight in our last hurrah, or went .500 against a front-running, overrated, mentally soft quitter?

[knuckleballer]

It's a bit of a ludicrous standard to hold a player to - I mean, Jordan failed to win a ring in 9 of his 15 seasons.  What's his excuse?  Duncan failed to get a ring 12 out of 17 years - what's his excuse?  Larry Bird failed 10 out of 13 years, he must be full of excuses.  Heck, even Russell's gotta have 2 excuses.  It's a bit silly to play the "what's the excuse now?" card when other greats aren't held to the same standard.

Those other greats never left a playoff team in a conspiracy to join two other greats to, they hoped, put together a super-team that destroys everyone else in the league.

Let's be clear about something.  LeBron is not KG.  Cleveland was not a completely hopeless franchise that had a long record of barely being able to even make the playoffs while making one horrible decision after another.  They were a regular playoff contender who put decent but not great rosters around LeBron, until his last year there where they might have been able to win a title and LeBron's performance was one of the main reasons they didn't.

LeBron left a good situation for one where he thought the fix was going to be in and he could take a shortcut to winning that no previous great ever did.

Let's turn it around.  What if they Heat had just won their 4th straight title?  Would anybody be taken seriously if they argued it wasn't that impressive because the Heat were just so much better than everyone else?  Hell, no.  LeBron would have been elevated to the same level as Jordan or Russell and anyone who disputed it would have been dismissed as a "hater".

I mean, here's LeBron's legacy over the last 5 years.

2010 - Quit in the playoffs against Boston.
2011 - Lost in the Finals to a Dallas team the Heat had no business losing to.
2012 - Beat a young OKC team in the Finals.
2013 - Won another title after the Spurs made one of the all-time chokes in league history.
2014 - Get absolutely destroyed by the Spurs in the Finals.

Is that a legacy most NBA players wish they could have?  Sure.  Is that the legacy of the best of all time?  No.

Mike

What about Shaq?  He left Orlando.  Is he not an all-time great?

Shaq left a crappy organization in a terrible sports town to a great organization (which I hate to admit) located in Hollywood.  He didn't collude with other elite players to form a super team so that winning would be easy.  It's an entirely different scenario.

Unlike the great run team in Cleveland?   

Except the Magic actually put talent with Shaq in the form of Penny.

Florida cities are never great sports towns because most of the people don't have deep roots.  Shaq wanted to go to a better sports town and to Hollywood.  The best two players on that Lakers team were Eddie Jones and Nick Van Exel.  It wasn't about having cake walks to rings.

Cleveland has a devout fan base and the team did its best to surround him with talent.  Lebron left so that he could coast to championships.  That is and should be held against his legacy.

The Lakers won 53 games the year before Shaq arrived.  Led by Vlade, Jones, and Van Exel.  Before Shaq signed, the Lakers had traded Divac for Kobe Bryant.  So let's not act like Shaq went to some downtrodden organization that didn't have talent.  The Lakers had their 1, 2, and 3 (they also had a still pretty solid Elden Campbell at the PF spot), all they needed was Shaq and he knew it.

Kobe was an 18 year old kid out of high school who was the 13 th pick in the draft and averaged 15 minutes and 7 points as a rookie.  Let's not revise history and pretend that anybody knew what he would become or that it was any factor in Shaq's decision.
Shaq wanted Hollywood.  LeBron wanted an easy path to greatness.  These were entirely different situations.

[angryguy77]

Can we please stop giving him excuses? Take over the game and beat them like he did the celts in that game 6.

Further, Leroid chose to go to Miami. If his teammates are not helping him, then he dug his own grave.

It's sickening to see this guy get all the praise when he wins, and nothing but excuses when he loses. Maybe he's really good, but not great....