TP. I also agree 100%
He wasn't the cause of this team imploding - they were doing that long before he came back. He didn't ask to be traded. He's coming off injury and trying hard. And his teammates can't be bothered to give him a hand up? What kind of BS is that? If he's disliked, then the team has mismanaged him. If he's not, then they simply don't care. And since they're getting beat by 30, it appears they don't care.
I'm tired about hearing Cleveland and how they'll be better in the playoffs. They won't. They're simply too vulnerable and too old. Bron's still awesome but he's not *quite* at the level he once was. I wouldn't put it past him to get back to that level in the playoffs but I've said it repeatedly. The guy has played an incredible amount of minutes in his career and at some point Father Time beats everyone. Lebron has now played over 52,000 minutes in his career including playoffs. He's played more minutes than old man Robert Parish. He's up there with guys like Havlicek, Gary Payton and Reggie Miller. He's only about 1,000 minutes from John Stockton, who played until he was 40!. Think about those guys at the end of their careers and it's amazing that he's doing what he is on the court. But I don't think he's the same player anymore. No one is after that many minutes.
Then there's guys like Wade, Jeff Green, Kyle Korver, Rose, JR Smith and Calderon. That's a good team from 5 years ago. But now they're all very flawed players and absolute sieves on defense. Think about that - their entire bench (well, Smith doesn't come off the bench) is absolutely inept on defense. We all know even a healthy IT is a turnstile on defense as well. That's the majority of everyone who plays significant minutes for the team.
Thompson and Shumpert are liabilities on the other end. Love is hurt and doesn't look motivated. Crowder has yet to fit in.
This isn't like the Houston team of the 90s or the Celtics team that just treaded water until the playoffs and came on strong. Those teams had good SRS ratings even if they didn't perform well in the regular season. They were also proven teams and were largely intact from previous winning years. Cleveland actually has a slightly negative SRS this year and is actually overperforming their expected W-L. Is it impossible to think they'll turn it around? Of course not. Not so long as Lebron is there. But as far as them being the "team to beat" in the East, that ship has sailed. Boston and Toronto are the teams to beat.
