That was a no call on bosh. In fact there was no foul unless I missed it. Great shot by Duncan, dude s still amazing, but no foul.
Tough turnovers for Manu, but we're singing a different tune if Danny Green makes that three to tie; that sequence where he got the three and the steal was absolutely huge. Everybody on the Spurs is replaying shots in their head. Kawhi and his free throw. Danny and those last two games. Manu and...manu and a lot. Tim and that little hook.
So none of you want to weigh in on what this means for Lebron's "legacy?" Or are you all just waiting for Simmons' recap column to come out this afternoon?
To me, not much. He was already likely to end up as a top 10 of all time kind of guy, and have 2 titles rather than 1 doesn't change that. Three or four, then maybe it starts changing things. An interesting question: let's say LeBron wins six titles, in eight or more Finals appearances. Is that more or less impressive than Jordan (6 for 6)? I'm inclined to say more, since it's so hard to make a Finals at all, but I wouldn't be surprised if the general public feels otherwise.
So much foolishness in this video but where in the hell is Bosh? The turn up is real as fuck. I would love to see the bar tab.
Bosh has 1 little kid and his wife is pregnant. Im sure he's on a short leash. The tab was over $100k and the owner of the bar picked it up.
You have to look at the team Jordan carried the first few times they won. He had nobody, including Scottie Pippen who is the most overrated player ever. In the first win, he beat Kareem, Magic, Worthy, Green, all the legendary Lakers with a team of ham-and-Eggers. Had LeBron won with the Cavs it would have been something. Not with this stacked team so much.
That's a really hard argument to make in any sense that isn't "no fuck u scottie pippen." For example, there is a statistical argument that in 1992, both Scottie and Horace Grant had better seasons that Dwayne Wade did this year. And that ignoring that Wade did his best corpse impression through much of the playoffs. Seriously, look at that Horace Grant season. The Portland team they beat was good and all (Drexler is an underrated player) but is it noticeably better than Duncan-Parker-Manu? Years later, does Kevin Duckworth strike fear into your heart? Clifford Robinson? MAYBE Terry Porter? Moreover, the supporting cast on the Heat are often bums beyond Wade and Bosh. Mike Miller is about to collapse every possession, Mario Chalmers is kind of an idiot, Ray Allen is one-dimensional and on his last legs, and Norris Cole is Norris Cole. They have really gotten the best out of some pretty marginal players. Were the Spurs and Thunder that much less "stacked"? Looking at your specific example, Kareem wasn't on that team, AC Green is hardly legendary, and Magic was getting older (just shy of 32 during the series). I'm not actually arguing for one or the other, I just don't think it is as clear cut as you make it sound.
And overall, isnt the NBA better top to bottom now that it was then? Not only the "elite" teams, but 1-15 on every team. Pippen might be overrated, but he sure as shit beats out guys like Michael Cooper and Jerome Kersey.
I'm not sure how one really evaluates that kind of claim, although I lean towards yes. I mean, look at the 1992-93 Bucks. Who are these people? This Dallas team is terrible. Who are these guys they surrounded Mitch Richmond with? Today, the bad teams have players like Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving. On the other hand, this year's Phoenix, Orlando, and Charlotte teams exist. It's just really hard to make any sort of definitive argument about this sort of thing.
This. Shouldn't people be making this argument more often? With a wider appeal to international stars, better exercise regiments, and diet plans, shouldn't it become more difficult to establish oneself as a tier above the rest of the competition? The difference between the league's best player and the median should shrink because so many of the small edges someone could take advantage of are being filed away by equalizing access to them. Also, the difference between the best player and the worst player who might legitimately be tasked with guarding them should also shrink, so the real opportunities to get over on inferior competition and inflate stats are minimized. Also, no better place to put this. I found this fascinating and most of the real basketball junkies in here have probably already seen this, but <a class="postlink" href="http://skepticalsports.com/?page_id=1222" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://skepticalsports.com/?page_id=1222</a> . So I guess Dennis Rodman was not only the best rebounder ever (it's not close), we can expect another Rodman in about 400 years.
People also fail to mention the legitimate rule changes that separate the eras. Its easy to say "Jordan got roughed up on every play, Lebron gets to travel, etc." Jordan did have to deal with a rougher game than Lebron due to the outlawing of hand checking. People never mention that everyone in Jordan's time had to stay within an arms length of their man regardless if it was Mutumbo out at the 3 point line or Mugsy in the lane (which also changes the supporting cast argument, a lot easier to hide crappy players when people are forced to "guard" them). I'd love to see Jordan be able to run more freely, but have to contend with a defense designed to stop him that would allow true double teams. I'd also like to see if Lebron could put up with the physicality.
It's hard to say. On one hand continuous finals appearances indicates sustained excellence, but on the other once you actually get to the finals the series stands on its own. I will say that part of the reverence with Jordan is the fact that he won three straight twice, with the common narrative dismissing the two seasons in between the threepeats - the first was when Jordan was playing baseball, while the second he came back in the middle of the season. There was a real belief in the mid-nineties that the Jorden led Bulls were invincible, and had Jordan not retired after '93 the Bulls would've won eight straight. So how does this relate to Lebron? If like you said he wins 4 more titles, if they're consecutive titles, then he has a real shot of displacing Jordan's feat in the collective conscious. However lets say Lebron plays for 10 more years and those hypothetical titles are spread over that timeframe. In that case public perception will still hold Jordan's feat higher due to the aforementioned invincibility belief.
You know, if he'd gone against Houston twice... I'm not sure I like his odds of winning both. The disadvantage that LeBron has is that the players around Jordan were mostly younger than he was, whereas Wade is noticeably older than LBJ. Pippen grew into his own while Jordan was winning titles, whereas Wade is quickly fading. It's also interesting that this is widely being talked about as LBJ's second title, with relatively little focus on the fact that it's Wade's third. Were they to repeat, that puts him in pretty hallowed territory as a four-title star in the modern era (Jordan, Pippen, Duncan, Shaq, Kobe, Kareem, Magic). Even Bird only had 3.