LABron James Discussion: The Final Year?

I'm still glad Lebron is here, but i'm starting to get a little frustrated with his play. I don't know if it's age, health, or attitude or a combination of all 3 but I'm not seeing the passionate play we saw in last year's playoffs. Like someone else pointed out, he does need to take ownership. The young guys are doing what they can. It's time for Lebron to lead.

 

Now you're bawl'n about my hashtags. Wow.
#SmashBawl

Defensive smashball works, particularly in the playoffs. They ain't playing that way anymore. Noah showed us why last night you go for gutter type players. Lance getting 15mins per this year is weird when you consider RonZo have been out for so many games. Lance has his flaws, but I'm sure he could help out cause...but instead you got Luke not playing him and even hatin his guitar...



Damn Luke... really. Bron and Rondo don't run back on D either many times either.

Anyways, Bron + shooters worked in the East cause of less competition...let's be honest. So with even more mileage on him, it's better to reinvent the wheel and have him play more off ball so he's not gassed by the playoffs. That was a decent enough plan.. but our guys never really figured it out...then the injuries...then s*** hittin the fan.

Bringing in gully players instead of finesse'n the dubs to death will work...which is why dudes like Kieff, Kanter and Noah wouldve been good gets. Now, let's focus on moving off Mus for DJ and yep, Melo with that last roster spot. 7 points off the bench...you gotta believe Melo woulda helped at least a little with that last night.

Also in terms of Bron coastin on D...this isn't anything new you guys. Kob did it later in his career and scorers that normally have the onus of high usage commonly do this around the league. If and when he does it frequent enough in the playoffs tho...that's when it's a problem.

 

Our problem is not offense...it's defense. And that starts with LeBron actually caring about defense. That play where Rabb hit that 3 was pathetic. LeBron was all the way in the key and nowhere near Rabb.

 

27% shooter tho...you want him taking that shot.

 

Are you trying to justify that defensive sequence?

 

that was Calbucolo or whatever his name was....he is a bad % shooter from 3's (28%) but if you're that wide open and youre in the nba there's a good chance it'll splash like that regardless of his shooting %.

 

Absolutely!

Good defenses like the Bucks, cbags and dubs do the same exact thing.

 

LOL!!! Oh, boy...

 

@Doc Brown "Reinventing the wheel" is exactly right... and this part falls on Rob and Magic. Don't sign off on LeBron & Klutch trying to reinvent the wheel. The ****storm that follows is exactly what we got. When we "courted" Bron we all were in hope of signing LeBron the player. Not LeBron the GM, not the agent, not the barbershop owner. Unfortunately I think Magic and Rob gave more of "the keys" to LeKlutch that I had hoped.

I'm not opposed to bringing in physical defenders, but we can't ignore shooting to the extent that we did. Even Cousins on a bum Achilles in July was probably a better 3 pt shooter compared the guys we signed. Sure, you can look up my history and find that I didn't want Cousins on this squad. But I never wanted Mike Muscala either yet here we are

 

except none of these vets were known as good defenders, except maybe Mcgee but that was only shot blocking not actual solid D or anything.

 

We all want to make the playoffs and have legit title contention every year...but some of y'all just way too eager to scrap any type of foundation that's being built.

It's wild to me to have such sweeping judgement of a FO that's been on the job together for 1 complete season...but hey, #BawlOut

I'll just leave this here...

https://deadspin.com/ben-simmons-could-upend-the-nbas-power-structure-with-o-1832715259

 

its pretty obvious lebron is still suffering the effects of the injury

i'm hearing a lot of takes regarding how he messed up the team's chemistry over the AD stuff but kuzma and BI have been playing better since then so i'm not buying that. the crappy play lately is a mixture of lebron not being 100%, bad defense, and luke being luke

i'm not going to crap on lebron like some of you. without him this team would be in the running for the #1 pick

 

Just bring me Davis...

#trademygrandson
#klutch
#ADfutureLaker

 

Plus beyond terrible bench production. Our bigs are being outplayed every single game... if only we had a young, fundamentally sound big man, hmm...

 

I always had this theory that the 2015-2018 Cleveland Cavaliers record was always inflated from playing the East and they would have been a 6-8th seed in the West.

Think about it.... every season the Cleveland Cavaliers get to play each of the following Eastern Conference teams 4 times a year:
- Atlanta
- Brooklyn
- New York
- Detroit
- Chicago
- Charlotte
- Orlando
- Philly (They won 10 games in 2015-16; 28 games in 2016-17; and to be fair....52 games in 2017-18).

My point is that's literally 32 games a season against teams that would have had top 10 lottery picks because they were so bad. A younger Lebron with Kyrie and Kevin Love should be able to win 75% of those games (24 out of 32).

It's that sort of stuff that inflates their record. Other teams like the Raptors benefited from this too, which is why Toronto had the best record in the league last year.

Maybe this season is a combination of injuries derailing any positive hopes....but also exposing LeBron that when playing a Western Conference season schedule, if he had done it his entire career, he definitely would not have made the finals 8 seasons in a row....

 

it was so obvious going into the season there was a huge void at the C position, even with the addition of chandler

good thing randle is here to attack the boards and make up for that. oh wait

 

do they generally leave whomever is near them open all the time? because that's what lebron was doing last night. he flat got out of the way on a couple drives, and not just early in the game. late, too. hard for teammates to take the barking when that stuff is there on film.

even on the play in question, had that been a better shooter there was no way lebron gets to him to bother, and his position on the floor wasn't really useful.

 

foundation? what foundation? Magic was about to trade off everyone on the team for AD