• Changing RCF's index page, please click on "Forums" to access the forums.

LeBron James

Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Lebron screwed up here. I never considered the Lakers a real contender. It was always between the Clippers and Raptors. I always saw those meetings as kawhi doing his family as solid and meeting with their old favorite. But it was a 3rd man way down the list. He didn't want to be Lebron's lackey and he wanted his own show(and he should).

He should have known that and gone after other players. He exposed himself as a bigger fraud than ever. If Davis ends up being less than expected(and a larger reason than people want to admit why NO lost most of his tenure there), I could see Lebron just quitting and maybe retiring. His plain pandering for a man who was not going to cow tow with, Lebron really comes off looking weak. He should have looked for other pieces to build around and didn't. He wanted Kawhi to do the work while he rested. In my mind for AD, that looks weak............very very weak. He is basically putting you down as well.
 
Lakers roster beyond their Big Two:

Kyle Kuzma
Quinn Cook
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope
Jared Dudley
Danny Green
DeMarcus Cousins
Rajon Rondo
Alex Caruso
Talen Horton-Tucker
JaVale McGee

I think one other guy but I can't remember who.

Not really a lot of guys there I see coming up big in a clutch game in the WCF. Maybe Old Rajon Rondo has still got it in him.

Cousins got less than McGee and less than he got with GS last year -- pretty insulting. Feel like Cousins ceiling is still higher than just about anyone else on the team, at least based on his regular season performance. Or maybe that quad injury really spelled doom to his career because he didn't look good in the Finals.

They should try for Andre Iguodala, he can still be a difference maker, but maybe he goes to the Clippers now too :).
 
Btw, if it was someone else doing what Kawhi did, he would be getting a lot of shit in here right now.

He delayed his decision because he was tampering with a player on contract with another team convincing him to join the team he wanted to sign with and making his future team deal for said player.

just sayin'
 
Lebron screwed up here. I never considered the Lakers a real contender. It was always between the Clippers and Raptors. I always saw those meetings as kawhi doing his family as solid and meeting with their old favorite. But it was a 3rd man way down the list. He didn't want to be Lebron's lackey and he wanted his own show(and he should).

He should have known that and gone after other players. He exposed himself as a bigger fraud than ever. If Davis ends up being less than expected(and a larger reason than people want to admit why NO lost most of his tenure there), I could see Lebron just quitting and maybe retiring. His plain pandering for a man who was not going to cow tow with, Lebron really comes off looking weak. He should have looked for other pieces to build around and didn't. He wanted Kawhi to do the work while he rested. In my mind for AD, that looks weak............very very weak. He is basically putting you down as well.

I do agree with most of that, except Lebron isn't going to quit/retire. He's going to wait for his son to enter the league in 4 years, maybe 5, depending on when the 1 year in college rule is removed.
 
Lakers roster beyond their Big Two:

Kyle Kuzma
Quinn Cook
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope
Jared Dudley
Danny Green
DeMarcus Cousins
Rajon Rondo
Alex Caruso
Talen Horton-Tucker
JaVale McGee

I think one other guy but I can't remember who.

Not really a lot of guys there I see coming up big in a clutch game in the WCF. Maybe Old Rajon Rondo has still got it in him.

Cousins got less than McGee and less than he got with GS last year -- pretty insulting. Feel like Cousins ceiling is still higher than just about anyone else on the team, at least based on his regular season performance. Or maybe that quad injury really spelled doom to his career because he didn't look good in the Finals.

They should try for Andre Iguodala, he can still be a difference maker, but maybe he goes to the Clippers now too :).
I hope iggy goes to the clippers. Go clippers!! I am so happy about Kawhi and PG choosing their own destiny. I mean two players who play elite offense and defense consistently!? I can’t say the same for LeBron and AD. The Laker’s might have something else up their sleeve (trade later in the season for a KLove maybe?) Anyways, I am seeing an injury for either Cousins/AD/Rondo/LeBron this season coming. I certainly don’t think the Lakers will have the luxury of letting LeBron take as many games off (“manage his minutes”) as he needs to. Something about LeBron thinking he can just leave CLE in the dust again and create another superteam makes me sick. Side note: I always thought Kobe was always kind of a D-bag too. Magic is the face of the franchise for a reason, because they are all assholes and at least he can fake a genuine smile. I hope it goes down in flames, again :)

There’s my somewhat incoherent rant. Go clippers!
 
Btw, if it was someone else doing what Kawhi did, he would be getting a lot of shit in here right now.

He delayed his decision because he was tampering with a player on contract with another team convincing him to join the team he wanted to sign with and making his future team deal for said player.

just sayin'
I won't disagree with that, but this is not a superteam kind of thing though. Historically, it is very NBA.
 
I won't disagree with that, but this is not a superteam kind of thing though. Historically, it is very NBA.
Oh i'm not even saying it's wrong. The tampering rules in the NBA are dumb. If you can't enforce a rule, there's no reason for it to exist, just saying that there is clearly a double standard in here.
 
I hope iggy goes to the clippers. Go clippers!! I am so happy about Kawhi and PG choosing their own destiny. I mean two players who play elite offense and defense consistently!? I can’t say the same for LeBron and AD. The Laker’s might have something else up their sleeve (trade later in the season for a KLove maybe?) Anyways, I am seeing an injury for either Cousins/AD/Rondo/LeBron this season coming. I certainly don’t think the Lakers will have the luxury of letting LeBron take as many games off (“manage his minutes”) as he needs to. Something about LeBron thinking he can just leave CLE in the dust again and create another superteam makes me sick. Side note: I always thought Kobe was always kind of a D-bag too. Magic is the face of the franchise for a reason, because they are all assholes and at least he can fake a genuine smile. I hope it goes down in flames, again :)

There’s my somewhat incoherent rant. Go clippers!
Lebron is 35 and starting to slip. Plays defense very little
AD is injury prone and never played in a pressure game. Kuzma is ok but plays no defense. Rest of roster is garbage
Leonard played lbj and the lakers. Him dragging it out made the lakers miss opportunities with reddick and others
Truth be told no one really wants to play with drama queen
Still a longshot for bronny to be in the nba. He will skip college and take 2-3 years to develop. Frankly i dont even care
 
Lebron is 35 and starting to slip. Plays defense very little
AD is injury prone and never played in a pressure game. Kuzma is ok but plays no defense. Rest of roster is garbage
Leonard played lbj and the lakers. Him dragging it out made the lakers miss opportunities with reddick and others
Truth be told no one really wants to play with drama queen
Still a longshot for bronny to be in the nba. He will skip college and take 2-3 years to develop. Frankly i dont even care
Lebron was literally better on defense than Kawhi last regular season. The people who say he doesn't play defense didn't watch the Lakers last year.

*in before the Twitter videos*
 
Kawhi PG and Patrick Beverley will be an all time great perimeter defense

Only two guys who are good perimeter defenders on the Lakers are Danny Green and Lebron. Lebron can only do it in bursts and Green isn’t in the same universe as PG/Kawhi/Beverley

Lakers entire guard rotation is Green Rondo KCP Cook Daniels Caruso...pretty damn ugly.
 
Lebron was literally better on defense than Kawhi last regular season. The people who say he doesn't play defense didn't watch the Lakers last year.

*in before the Twitter videos*
I watched tons of Lakers games last year and i would purposely watch Lebron just on the defensive end for large portions of the games and his defense was absolutely putrid. As for comparing him to Kawhi, i honestly didnt see many Raptors games until the Playoffs so i cant comment on the comparison. I do know that watching old Bron on D last year was pure comedy. Guys blowing by him and then him him yelling at a teammate or pointing to a teammate. Lots and lots of standing around in spaces where there was nobody even to defend. Lebron is the same old Bron on offense, but his defense or whatever you call that is trash.
 
Lebron screwed up here. I never considered the Lakers a real contender. It was always between the Clippers and Raptors. I always saw those meetings as kawhi doing his family as solid and meeting with their old favorite. But it was a 3rd man way down the list. He didn't want to be Lebron's lackey and he wanted his own show(and he should).

He should have known that and gone after other players. He exposed himself as a bigger fraud than ever. If Davis ends up being less than expected(and a larger reason than people want to admit why NO lost most of his tenure there), I could see Lebron just quitting and maybe retiring. His plain pandering for a man who was not going to cow tow with, Lebron really comes off looking weak. He should have looked for other pieces to build around and didn't. He wanted Kawhi to do the work while he rested. In my mind for AD, that looks weak............very very weak. He is basically putting you down as well.

I had a sense Kawhi wasnt going to the Lakers when I saw LeBron show up to summer league in a damn hat that said Lebronland on the side. All of LBJ's promises to Kawhi about stepping back and letting it be his team were complete nonsense. Everyone knows that when you are on Lebron's team, it's his show and he runs everything. He cant have it any other way.
 
I watched tons of Lakers games last year and i would purposely watch Lebron just on the defensive end for large portions of the games and his defense was absolutely putrid. As for comparing him to Kawhi, i honestly didnt see many Raptors games until the Playoffs so i cant comment on the comparison. I do know that watching old Bron on D last year was pure comedy. Guys blowing by him and then him him yelling at a teammate or pointing to a teammate. Lots and lots of standing around in spaces where there was nobody even to defend. Lebron is the same old Bron on offense, but his defense or whatever you call that is trash.
This just shows that you didn't actually watch the games. The "eye test" is not accurate in even the slightest.

LeBron was 51st of 514 players in DRPM (top 10%) and 9th of 96 small forwards.

His team is 3.1 points per 100 possessions BETTER defensively with him on court (equal to the 10th best defense with him, 23rd without him).

Players whom James has defended overall season FG%: 46.5%.
FG% when defended by James: 42.7% (-3.8%, 10.1 FGAs defended per game)

Players whom George has defended overall season FG%: 45.7%
FG% when defended by George: 43.7% (-2.0%, 11.9 FGAs defended per game)

Players whom Kawhi has defended overall season FG%: 46.0%
FG% when defended by Kawhi: 45.1% (-.9%, 10.3 FGAs defended per game)

Players whom Butler has defended overall season FG%: 46.1%
FG% when defended by Butler: 47.0% (+.9%, 12.7 FGAs defended per game)


You're entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts. The facts are that LeBron was top 10% in the league in DRPM, the Lakers were better defensively with him on the court than off, and players shot worse when guarded by LeBron than when they weren't.
 

Rubber Rim Job Podcast Video

Episode 3-13: "Backup Bash Brothers"

Rubber Rim Job Podcast Spotify

Episode 3:11: "Clipping Bucks."
Top