LeBron James

kookoo said:

I don't give a shit as long as he can bring us a chip.

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Don't blame you.

Cayman13 said:

Don't blame you.

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I was talking about this earlier with a few of my friends. They keep asking me how I can like LeBron now, even though I've hated on him while he was in Miami. I personally could care less about his character and what he does behind the scenes (other than abuse ect ect). If he's making a positive impact on my team and is able to help in giving the Cavs a trophy, I can sit through all his bs. LeBron knows how to win. He knows what pieces he needs around him to get that. If Gilbert can afford it, I am fine with all the GM duties going to LeBron. I just hope he's able to do it while he still can.

crabbyshark said:

The sample size of the Cavs being better or worse with Lebron on the floor is too small to say whether they are better or not with him on the floor.

The sample size remains small in light of him "stealing minutes."

When Lebron is playing in "chill mode" evidence suggests they play better with him off the floor.

It seems like some people are in denial about this.

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I can't........so the 30 game sample size is too small, but you're fine using highlights from a single game to prove your point? You did this earlier when you suggested that the Cavs, losing a close game in OKC w/o LeBron, was evidence that they are better without him on the court. No one is in denial about anything. Despite LeBron not giving maximum effort, the majority of the evidence suggests exactly the opposite of what you wished it did. LeBron playing half-speed makes the team better than LeBron not playing at all.

Never mind, btw, that half of the players wouldn't even be here were it not for James in the first place.

Here's what I've noticed going on in this thread today. We've started to embellish some of the other players value on this roster and their effort in order to contrast them with James. Somehow, we've got all of these other guys playing hard and with effort (I've seen Waiters, Irving and Thompson mentioned the most) and yet our defense still can't guard a single position effectively. If you watched Waiters come in against Orlando in the first half and just flat lose sight of his man over and over (mainly Fournier) and you thought he was giving maximum effort, then I'm not sure what to tell you.

If all of the players that people are praising today were giving maximum effort we wouldn't have one of the worst defenses in the league. Irving, Waiters and Thompson aren't naturally great defenders, but they're talented enough to be better than what they have been. So is James. Effort on that end of the floor is bad by a lot of people on this team right now. No need to inflate some guys in order to tear another one down. Not one player on this team can say they've been playing all NBA defense this year or anything close to it.

And this is going on now when comparing him to other players. I keep seeing the Kobe stuff. Why can't LeBron just play like Kobe and have a killer instinct like Kobe and not bitch like Kobe. How soon we forget Kobe Bryant ran off one of the five greatest basketball coaches of all time. Never mind that he was one of, if not the single greatest distraction of all time for one full season. Never mind Kobe's ego couldn't allow him to continue sharing the team with Shaq, so he had him traded.

LeBron James has seen all of two coaches fired. One after his rookie season and one in the last season of his deal with Cleveland when he didn't even come back to the team. Kobe Bryant has seen two coaches fired/not retained in the last two seasons. Yet LeBron is the diva who wants to control things and Kobe is the model to follow.

I don't even feel right defending James. He isn't playing hard on defense, that much is obvious and he probably doesn't like Blatt. But man, I thought this team could win a title this season and this just seems like a sideshow today. LeBron just trusting Blatt and playing within the system fixing everything is just an easy lie to tell ourselves. "If only James bought in, it would all be fine." We've got so many more problems that have nothing to do with LeBron not liking Blatt right now and that won't be fixed by those two suddenly becoming the best of friends. We have zero lock down perimeter defenders, save LeBron James when he wants to be. We have zero good help defenders in the post. We aren't very athletic and right now, we aren't shooting the three all that well.

And this is all w/o even mentioning Kevin Love, who seemingly can't hit an open shot to save his life now. He was brought here to be the ultimate floor spacer for LBJ and Irving at the 4 position. He's been anything but when the ball is kicked out to him for an open 3. That doesn't get fixed by LeBron and Blatt getting along. That's all on Kevin Love to stop choking on it when he's wide fucking open.

Rich said:

Never mind, btw, that half of the players wouldn't even be here were it not for James in the first place.

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I can't tell if that's a good or bad thing at the moment. The roster seems pretty poorly constructed and LeBron's buds don't seem to be the contributions to the team they were touted to be.

King Stannis said:

I should have rephrased, from Love and Irving to "Everybody but LeBron's system."

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How about "lebron and everbodys elses system" instead of "lebrons system".

Honestly, what the hell are you trying to say?

Rich said:

I really do hate having LBJ on the team. I wish we could watch Kyrie and Dion make another strong run at 35 wins again. That would be more fun!

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It actually would if you add wiggins and Bennett for entertainment value.

Look, LeBron once said great things about Sasha Pavlovic, and petitioned the team to keep Jawad Williams.

He's got no eye for talent, and is not cut out for coaching. He just needs to stop.

I need Blatt to tell him to sit down and stfu just once. ONCE. He needs to yell at LeBron and put him in his place. Hell, send him to locker room and suspend him for conduct detrimental to the team. Give Blatt the power he deserves as coach.

Man Called X said:

Look, LeBron once said great things about Sasha Pavlovic, and petitioned the team to keep Jawad Williams.

He's got no eye for talent, and is not cut out for coaching. He just needs to stop.

I need Blatt to tell him to sit down and stfu just once. ONCE. He needs to yell at LeBron and put him in his place. Hell, send him to locker room and suspend him for conduct detrimental to the team. Give Blatt the power he deserves as coach.

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Holy shit, I forgot about the Hotwad. Hah.

Rich said:

Despite LeBron not giving maximum effort, the majority of the evidence suggests exactly the opposite of what you wished it did. LeBron playing half-speed makes the team better than LeBron not playing at all.

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Lots of factors affect +/-. Stats like +/- develop over time. The sample sizes using stats like +/- are often too small to look at because those teams don't get enough time to play together. Lebron unbelievably playing so many minutes may make it so we can never reliably compare the +/- with him on vs off the floor. Any time the second unit starts to roll he immediately checks himself back into the game. Examples of times he's done this recently are in the ATL loss, vs the Hornets, vs the Pelicans, and vs the Heat. So what we are left to analyze is tape of how the team is playing in the limited instances he happens to be off the floor for more than 3 minutes at a time.

(FWIW: the Cavs were +6 in the 3Q after Lebron went off for knee "tightness." Lebron was -9 for the game.)

I would love for Lebron to take a few games off like he said he was going to at the beginning of the season. I can't believe that I'd ever be typing that. And I'm disappointed to be typing that.

The defense sucks in large part because lately Lebron leaks out early part the time, fails to come back part of the time, or straight up gives up his man part of the time. All it takes is one guy to blow a rotation to ruin the stand. His play from earlier in the season may be buoying his stats, but right now he ain't trying. If the other guys on the floor know Lebron isn't trying on defense or knows he's going to give up his man, what confidence do they have in the defense? If they see Lebron at the other end of the floor dogging it back knowing his guy is uncovered, is that an incentive to play hard? Could this be what Kevin Love keeps referring to when he's talking about trust being the core of what's wrong with the defense?

With regards to the players Lebron brought, I'd much rather see Wiggins, Bennett, Karasev, Zeller, Sims, Dion, Kyrie, Tristan grow together and give a sh*t and play together as a cohesive unit under Blatt than the current BS we are seeing. That team would probably be 18-11 too. It might even better than that. Kyrie's PER would definitely be higher than it is right now. Other guys' values would rise as well. Very often a team playing together is better than the sum of it's parts.

Lebron pulled the same coach BS when he went down to Miami. It went nowhere cuz the coach had mgmt support. Kevin Love will put it together. The Cavs running consistent plays or moving the ball more would benefit him. It would benefit the whole team. At this point it's up to Lebron to make it happen.

Mr. Blonde said:

How about "lebron and everbodys elses system" instead of "lebrons system".

Honestly, what the hell are you trying to say?

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Man Called X said:

Look, LeBron once said great things about Sasha Pavlovic, and petitioned the team to keep Jawad Williams.

He's got no eye for talent, and is not cut out for coaching. He just needs to stop.

I need Blatt to tell him to sit down and stfu just once. ONCE. He needs to yell at LeBron and put him in his place. Hell, send him to locker room and suspend him for conduct detrimental to the team. Give Blatt the power he deserves as coach.

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What person in their right mind would give more leverage to some rookie head coach over Lebron?

I don't think some of you understand the mentality of someone like Lebron James. He's literally THE NBA. He's the most polarizing player since you know who. He breathes basketball in every sense of the word. He's got the game of basketball wrapped around his finger. He's not going to bow down to anyone underneath his realm of basketball, on any level. He's mastered the game while Blatt has barely scratched the surface of legitimate professional basketball.

Lebron has been the most dominating force of basketball since the age of 16. You really think having some rookie coach is going to steer Lebron into the direction he wants to go?

What don't some of you understand? This isn't fucking middle school. No one gets an ounce of respect in this league without earning it in the worst way.

Giving a rookie head coach more leverage than the greatest basketball player on this planet?

Stop dreaming.

crabbyshark said:

Stats like +/- develop over time. The sample sizes using stats like +/- are often too small to look at because true +/- develops over time. Lots of factors affect +/-. Lebron unbelievably playing so many minutes may make it so we can never reliably compare the +/- with him on vs off the floor. Any time the second unit starts to roll he immediately checks himself back into the game. Examples of times he's done this recently are in the ATL loss, vs the Hornets, vs the Pelicans, and vs the Heat. So what we are left to analyze is tape of how the team is playing in the limited instances he happens to be off the floor for more than 3 minutes at a time.

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Okay, I can understand this and there is a question mark about how things would work out if he stayed on the bench a few more minutes without checking back in. The point still remains that we are worse when he's not in there so the point UP TO where he brings himself back in, we are worse. The claim here is that MAYBE we would be better if he stayed on the bench longer before checking himself in and we don't know because he does check back in. Looking at the sample size over 30 games and hundreds of minutes, the team being better and MAKING UP THE NEGATIVE differential in the time James is off the court in one or two extra minutes without James in there before he comes back seems unlikely.

James also plays the entire first quarter, the quarter in which we score the most points. What accounts for that? Is it that he runs the sets perfectly in the first quarter and never at any other time? Do we score all of those points off of the sets and nothing else (offensive rebounding, run outs after stops, off of improvisation kick outs, off of ISO drives that result in FTs which we draw a LOT of [4th most in the league])? What % of those points are the result of sets run compared with other factors mentioned above? Is the claim that after the first he stops running everything and that's why the offense isn't as good? Does Love not making any open shots other than in the first (except against Detroit) have something to do with things? I don't know--somebody should break it all down, play by play, but we don't exactly know 100% what the sets are and when they are running them and when Blatt gives the option of breaking them off if X, Y, or Z scenario occurs, etc.

crabbyshark said:

The defense sucks in large part because lately Lebron leaks out early part the time, fails to come back part of the time, or straight up gives up his man part of the time. All it takes is one guy to blow a rotation to ruin the stand. His play from earlier in the season may be buoying his stats, but right now he ain't trying. If the other guys on the floor know Lebron isn't trying on defense or knows he's going to give up his man, what confidence do they have in the defense? If they see Lebron at the other end of the floor dogging it back knowing his guy is uncovered, is that an incentive to play hard? Could this be what Kevin Love keeps referring to when he's talking about trust being the core of what's wrong with the defense?

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No. That is not why the defense sucks. Right now, we have two plus defenders on the team: Marion and James. That's it. You might be able to marginally add Delly in there. Think about that. James is not making much effort on defense (whether it's because he doesn't really want to, because he's physically hurting and can't, because he's saving himself, who knows) and I don't know what will change that and you are right that others take lead from him, but our problems run deeper than that. Even with James not giving full effort, he's still a plus defender (and you're right--he's getting worse). The defense is terrible because

a) our rotations are terrible and result in poor contesting of shots. Even when they do, Kyrie and Dion and Miller don't close on shooters very well just as they didn't last year. James hasn't been very good at it either.

b) our perimeter defense is awful and our guards cannot keep anyone in front of them. For all of the talk about Dion being a lockdown defender the last three games and Kyrie being a better defender this year, neither has been a plus defender overall this season. Dion has been terrible in most games BUT does show promise. I hope he can defend like this in every game and become a plus defender. Kyrie has regressed since the beginning of the year. He's not as bad as he was last year, but he's not very good either

c) once our guards are beaten off the dribble and they are every game, there's no resistance at the rim at all. Maybe TT here and there. That's it. We get as few stops at the rim as any team which demoralizes and hurts the defense and prevents us from getting out in transition. It's almost a hopeless case other than hoping the other team misses. There's nobody to provide weakside help in the post.

d) other than James and Dion, we really have no length of athleticism to play defense, lock people down, get deflections, block shots, alter shots, anything.

Would a, b, c, and d be cured if James went out full force every game? They would be ameliorated for sure and we would look better for sure, but him doing so wouldn't SOLVE our problems because the goal of all of this is to win a title and without different personnel and/or massive growth from Kyrie and Dion, we don't have the defensive personnel to win a title. Simple as that. We don't. IN the last 35 years, every team save two has had a top 10 defense and one of those teams was top 12. The other played the best defense in the playoffs. So James going out full force every game doesn't solve the problem (might make things better), and what does it leave for the playoffs?

crabbyshark said:

With regards to the players Lebron brought, I'd much rather see Wiggins, Bennett, Karasev, Zeller, Sims, Dion, Kyrie, Tristan grow together and give a sh*t and play together as a cohesive unit under Blatt than the current BS we are seeing. That team would probably be 18-11 too. It might even better than that. Kyrie's PER would definitely be higher than it is right now. Other guys' values would rise as well. Very often a team playing together is better than the sum of it's parts.

Lebron pulled the same coach BS when he went down to Miami. It went nowhere cuz the coach had mgmt support. Kevin Love will put it together. The Cavs running consistent plays or moving the ball more would benefit him. It would benefit the whole team. At this point it's up to Lebron to make it happen.

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Do you honestly think we would be better without Love and James? We have 18 wins right now primarily due to the offense, an offense led by an under-performing James and under-performing Love. Our offense is 4th best in the league with a Lebron playing more inefficiently than he has since his first few years in the league and a Love who cannot make open shots. If James and Love play with even close to the efficiency they showed last year, we'll have the best offense in the league. Nobody knows about the defense.

What kind of offense would we have with the players you mentioned? Would it be fourth in the league? Wiggins isn't a plus defender yet (he almost surely will be in a year or two, but not right now) and is poor on offense. In fact, as of today, the Timberwolves are BETTER with Wiggins off of the court (same on defense, worse on offense). In his last 400 minutes played, they're worse on both offense and defense. Bennett? Sims? The defense would be just as bad if not worse and the offense would be worse. NOw, there would be hope that Wiggins would grow into something, but as for this year, we would be worse and I'm sure people here would be up in arms about why we didn't trade for Love when we had the chance to do so.

Yes, Lebron needs to sort things out and calm everyone the fuck down, but Rich is correct when he says it's much easier to parrot the "Lebron's not buying in and that's why we aren't playing well" meme rather than looking at the structural problems of this team that, I believe, are the root cause of our problems.

We're going to see the difference between the Heat front office and the Cavs front office if they go ahead and fires Blatt(which i don't think they should do even though he's not a good defensive head coach). If the Cavs let LeBron have complete power again, then I'm sorry to say, the Cavs will never win a title. One of the main reasons why LeBron left Miami was because there was an obvious power struggle with him and Riley. Riley is old school. He's not the type to kiss anyone's ass. He has won titles with G.O.A.T level players like Magic Johnson, Kareem, Shaq etc. He was never going to be LeBron's lapdog and you can tell that LeBron is still a bit pissed off about some of the decisions that the Heat made. Gilbert is still LeBron's lapdog, but i hope he proves me wrong and actually learn something from the Heat front office. It's okay to give access to LeBron's entourage, etc, but when it comes to doing what's best for the team, you have do what your gut tells you to do. Gilbert wanted Blatt, he should let him keep his job for rest of the year even if the egotistical, pampered, spoiled brat self-proclaim King is against the "decision".


Riley didn't even allowed LeBron's entourage access to run shit the way LeBron did in his first stint with the Cavs. He knew LeBron was as immature then and is still immature now. He never bow down and let LeBron pushed him around even when there was serious pressure of wanting Spo fired from the team in the first year of the big 3, Riley stuck by Spo and backed him up 100%. LeBron thought he had it all figured out, but he is his own enemy. He underestimated how good he had it in Miami. He thought if he could just go back home and have the power to run shit, he'd get the same results, but maybe someone should tell him that he can't be a player, head coach, and GM at the same time.

Rich said:

I don't understand the point of this. You can post anecdotal data all you want, but all one has to do is look at the differential with LBJ on the floor vs. him off. The team is better with him on the court.

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And Jackson should know this. He should also know that it's the opposite of the Kobe and Lakers situation (stats say Lakers better without Kobe on the floor).

Another example of Jackson's brilliant intellect and why he should not be anywhere near the head coaching chair of the Cavs.

The only reason I want Jackson to coach again is so I don't have to listen to him calling games any longer.

crabbyshark said:

With regards to the players Lebron brought, I'd much rather see Wiggins, Bennett, Karasev, Zeller, Sims, Dion, Kyrie, Tristan grow together and give a sh*t and play together as a cohesive unit under Blatt than the current BS we are seeing. That team would probably be 18-11 too. It might even better than that. Kyrie's PER would definitely be higher than it is right now. Other guys' values would rise as well. Very often a team playing together is better than the sum of it's parts.

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This is an amazing grass is always greener mentality. You just saw this last damn season. And how good was it? Bennett cared so much that he came into the season nearly 20 pounds overweight. Kyrie hated his coach and sandbagged games in order to get him fired. Waiters was getting kicked out of practice and feuding with players. Have you forgotten?

This is what I'm talking about with the revisionist stuff and embellishing about the other players on this team in order to take swipes at LeBron. We saw those guys very much NOT give a shit last year. I'm not going to forget. I'm not going to suddenly pine for the good ol' days of Kyrie doing everything he could to get Mike Brown canned, giving no effort. I'm not gonna miss the great times of Bennett getting winded within five minutes of being on the court or the stories about Waiters talking back to coaches and getting sent home. Those guys did not give a shit last year for the most part and I'm not going to just assume that, if weren't for LBJ being here, they'd all the sudden start caring and play hard this season.