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I believe Miami will win this series handily, despite being the underdog in Vegas. Here's how:
When playing well, Miami has 4 players who can score. Bosh, James, Wade, and Three Point Shooter. Wade, but more so James, elevate that shooter (whether it be Miller, Jones, or Chalmers) into a reliable option. James' ability to drive, and his strength and accuracy passing out of that drive to a shooter, are unparalleled.
On the other hand, I would argue that the Thunder have only two consistent scorers: Westbrook and Durant. Harden is a quality player, but it wouldn't shock anyone if scored between ten and sixteen points in game one. Additionally, despite the athleticism of both those players, both of them rely on their jump shot more than Wade or James who are superior at getting to the basket and drawing fouls.
Because the Thunder lacks the scoring options the Heat has, I believe the Heat will swarm to Durant and Westbrook. They may double, or they may threaten the double on those players. In doing that, the Heat will force Ibaka, Perkins, and Harden to beat them. But more than that, they will force Durant and Westbrook to beat them passing to those players. While Ibaka and Perkins did score in spots against the Spurs, they did not do so every game. What's more, the Heat are a better defensive team than the Spurs.
Finally, if the thunder tried a similar strategy against the Heat, I believe they would fail because of Bosh's ability to score and James' strong passing.
I'm very much looking forward to this series! Ultimately, everyone is guessing until we actually see the teams play. Thunder fans, don't take my post as an insult! Also, be kind to me, because I'm definitely a Lebron James worshiper who has lost a little perspective.
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On June 13 2012 06:03 IPlaySC wrote:
I don't see what Lebron did as sacrificing individual glory. Sure he took pay cuts or whatever, but with all his endorsements he'll be just fine. I see him more as "waa this team isn't good enough for me, I'm moving to Miami". The television special didn't help my opinion of him either.
All that being said, he's still a damn good player, but I'll be rooting against him
You really don't see how he sacrificed individual glory? He's killed 24/7 by the talking heads on ESPN that claim that he went to Miami to be Wade's sidekick, a role player, LeDefer, etc. If they win with him carrying them, as he logically will as the BEST BASKETBALL PLAYER ON THE PLANET (and I really hope he doesn't disappear like he did against Boston in 2010 and against the Mavs last year, those are really inexplicable and he played like a monster up until then...), his critics are still going to try to say that he wouldn't have done it without Wade and Bosh. And you know what? They're right -- nobody wins on their own. Why is he expected to? He shut the critics up with monstrous games in the Celtics and Pacers series this year with his back against the wall, learning to play power forward when Bosh got injured and doing it incredibly well on the fly. If Harden, Ibaka, or Russ get hurt, the Thunder aren't getting anywhere but people will love KD anyway, as it SHOULD be.
And regarding "waa this team isn't good enough," you can't look at those Cavs teams and tell me with a straight face that those teams were good enough. Yes, they were a 66 win team with him, but when he left they went from 61 to 19 wins. Sure, other things happened, but this gives you a very good idea of how monumentally important he was to the franchise and how incredibly good he is. His second best player in all his years in Cleveland wound up being the third string point guard on the Clippers until Billups got hurt. He put Flip Murray and Boobie Gibson on the map... I mean really, do you think there's any chance that he leaves if Cleveland's management wasn't so completely incompetent? Durant is so successful not only because he's a phenomenal basketball talent, but also because of the good work and insane luck that the Thunder front office has had.
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On June 13 2012 02:41 XaI)CyRiC wrote:Show nested quote +On June 12 2012 19:21 TieN.nS) wrote:On June 12 2012 17:12 RowdierBob wrote:
There's no honour code in how you build a team--wtf?
Celtics got their stars via trades (Ray and KG); Heat acquired theirs through FA (LBJ and Bosh). Thunder drafted well in KD, Westbrook, Harden, Green (who they flipped for Perkins) and Ibaka.
I don't see how the Thunder or Celtics worked any harder to create a team "worthy of nba finals appearances."
That just takes Heat bashing to a new level of absurdity. =/ For some reason people object to the idea of players determining their own destinies. If players get screwed by the front office, "it's just business." Personally I think that what Miami did in deciding to team up was great, for a variety of reasons: they decided to come together and sacrifice individual glory with the goal of winning; they all took less money in order to do so; the (potential) level of play with LeBron and Wade teaming together has to be appreciated by any real basketball fan -- there is NO prettier play in basketball than a LeBron/Wade fast break. When Tim Duncan and Peyton Manning took pay cuts to help their respective teams out, they're celebrated for being team players and model citizens; why should it be different for these guys? And yeah, "The Decision" was a terrible idea on LeBron's part, but he was a free agent and simply exercised his right to choose where he wanted to play. Peyton Manning got hurt and the Colts dumped him like he meant nothing to their franchise, and this is pretty much standard practice in sports. Why should a professional athlete ever feel beholden to his team when this is the case? As far as the idea that teaming up with a competitor is "anticompetitive," what do you call repeatedly tanking for draft picks for nearly half a decade, as the Thunder did? And should a team break up when they get too much talent, in the name of competition? After this season, win or lose, the Thunder will likely lose either Serge Ibaka or James Harden to free agency because they just won't be able to afford both while paying Durant and Westbrook max contracts. You can't be mad at them if they leave, because they're young players and it's perfectly within their rights to go out and get theirs while they can. But this exciting young team with so much potential will be broken up as a result, which no true basketball fan can truly be happy about. What great joy would it be to see Ibaka and Harden take less money in order to keep the team together! Yet, what is so different about that to make the media paint these guys as heroes and LeBron, Wade, and Bosh as pariahs? The Heat should be celebrated for their unselfishness in pursuit of what, ideally, should be every professional athlete's motivation: winning. These guys are the antithesis of every selfish salary cap hogging team-killing cancer that everyone rightfully should hate, yet instead of being appreciated they're getting killed for it. It's ridiculous. Completely agree. I'm all for the players taking the leverage and power from the owners. They're the talent that creates the business, and there's no reason they shouldn't have more control over their careers. The skewed perception where players are supposed to show "loyalty" to a franchise, while the franchises are expected to just run a business is utter bullshit. I don't see why more superstar players don't take less money to allow their teams to have more cap flexibility to build winners around them. When it comes to the top stars like Kobe, Lebron, Wade, etc., they make so much money from endorsements (which go up with more winning) that any pay cut would have little to no bottom-line impact on their wealth in the short or long term. In the end, I know that a lot of it comes down to pride and feeling like you're getting what you deserve, and I actually completely agree with the idea that most franchise players are actually underpaid when you consider how much value they actually bring to a team in a star-driven sport like the NBA (if anything, it's the middle and lower class of players who are overpaid). However, once you've made your mark and gotten the respect, why not take a little less to allow your team to sign better teammates? This is particularly true for guys like Kobe who have nothing left to chase except more rings and records, neither of which is dependent on the value of his contract.
First off, great posts, and I agree with everything you said. Particularly the part about players exercising their leverage from the owners. Non-sports fans or casual sports fans love to complain that pro athletes make too much money, without recognizing the fact that sports are a multi-billion dollar industry. As one of the top 500 in the world in their trade and an incredibly rare commodity, why shouldn't they get their fair share of this pie? They do all of the work and the 30 owners get more than half of the profits. Nobody is going to complain because, yes, they are still getting a ridiculous amount of money, but they deserve it. For superstar players, especially LeBron even if he was making max money (again, he took a pay cut to play in Miami), he would be UNDERPAID based on what he brings to the team and the community in which he plays. On-court contributions in the form of wins lead to more fans, more jersey sales, more ticket sales, bigger television revenue with both more local viewers and more national television appearances, more business in local restaurants and bars, and all of this blows up even more with playoff success and especially a chip with both more games to watch and more eyes watching as your team gets deeper. A player can only really play for 15-20 years barring injury, and are discarded in the event of an injury anyhow. They're the engines that make the whole thing go, and they should get theirs while they can.
I was going to type up what I think about NCAA sports as well, but decided it's not really relevant. The point is, the players are the rare commodity in the system and not the owners, and I'm glad that LeBron decided to break out of the expected mold and do things his way. The owners may not like it, but I think that history and future pro athletes will look favorably on it. As far as the idea that LeBron should have been "loyal" to his hometown team: LeBron is from Akron and still shows Akron love, and from what I understand there's no love lost between the two cities; yes, the Cavs drafted him -- guess what, they didn't take a chance on him, Cleveland didn't take him with the last pick in the draft, they just happened to have the good fortune to have the #1 pick and had the best basketball prospect maybe ever land in their laps, like all other 29 teams wish would have happened to them. Dan Gilbert showed his true colors anyway when LeBron left, and I'm glad he did. Why should any free agent want to play for an owner like that (Comic Sans, really)?
Please understand though, I do think that The Decision was a ridiculous gaffe and showed unbelievably poor judgement on LeBron's part as well as those around him (he's hired actual PR people this past offseason, I think). Same with the "not 2, not 3, not 4, not 5, not 6, not 7" premature celebration that Miami threw. Both were completely idiotic and the guys were rightfully killed for making those boneheaded decisions. But how long are people going to hold those over their heads?
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United States4471 Posts
Few things hurt as much as Dan Gilbert getting Irving as a result of an inexplicably stupid trade by the Clippers. This is the guy who wrote the infamous comic sans letter, and bitched to Stern about the Lakers-CP3 trade simply and then essentially gave them Sessions for Walton (Gasol and Odom for CP3 is unfair, but Sessions for Walton isn't?). Toss in the fact that Stern has now made him part of his hand-picked competitions committee that will be in charge of making decisions as to rules changes despite having no basketball knowledge/expertise to speak of, and I can say that I can't stand the guy. The SOB lucked into Lebron, failed to provide him with a championship-worthy roster (Mo Will as 2nd best player.. what?), and has done one shameful/reprehensible thing after another since. Screw that guy.
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No LeBron, trust us, you'd rather have Antawn Jamison than Amare. J.J. Hickson is too valuable to give up (and where was the "loyalty" there when they dumped Z?). :p
And while I'm a huge Chris Paul fan, there's no way I can really root for the Clips while Donald Sterling is still owner. So I'm not too mad at that non-protected first round pick that turned into the #1 overall even though it went to Dan Gilbert, lol.
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On June 13 2012 07:09 TieN.nS) wrote:
No LeBron, trust us, you'd rather have Antawn Jamison than Amare. J.J. Hickson is too valuable to give up (and where was the "loyalty" there when they dumped Z?). :p
And while I'm a huge Chris Paul fan, there's no way I can really root for the Clips while Donald Sterling is still owner. So I'm not too mad at that non-protected first round pick that turned into the #1 overall even though it went to Dan Gilbert, lol.
Can we stop talking about this Q_Q
Dreams of a Kyrie Irving, EJ, Harrison Barnes(maybe?), Blake Griffin, Deandre, Bled roster with Fat B-diddy and Chris Kaman coming off the books will haunt me forever.
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Thunder won't drop a game at home. 4-2 OKC
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LMAO:
![[image loading]](https://p.twimg.com/AvNu0yuCEAAVIyh.jpg)
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I have a hard time believing the heat can win the series, even though I'd personally prefer them to. They struggled and nearly lost against an aging boston team that also went to 7 games against phili. Against the pacers they dropped some games while thunder were out there demolishing the spurs in 6. Pretty much the only thing that irked the heat through to the finals was james miraculous performance and chris bosh's return timing and performance that was just as miraculous as lebron's.
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Holy shit is this real LOL?! Okay googled it and it wasn't (and you can tell from the pixels  ), but that was pretty good.
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An excellent way of looking at a behavior is asking what would happen if everyone acted like that. Players determining their own destiny? OK, how's that working out for D-Will, Carmelo, and Howard? The reason there are rules against collusion is to promote parity. Ok, NY and LA and Miami have their stars and the Clevelands of the world get screwed.
I don't think this is the big deal though. It happens every once in a while and there it is. The big deal is how clubs choose to construct their teams. If you follow the rubric that you need mega stars with a bunch of stiffs, then you get a bunch of really terrible teams. So you have to ask yourself if you want to watch 4-5 seeds filled with teams like the Pacers or teams like the Knicks and the Hawks.
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On June 13 2012 07:54 Jerubaal wrote:
An excellent way of looking at a behavior is asking what would happen if everyone acted like that. Players determining their own destiny? OK, how's that working out for D-Will, Carmelo, and Howard? The reason there are rules against collusion is to promote parity. Ok, NY and LA and Miami have their stars and the Clevelands of the world get screwed.
I don't think this is the big deal though. It happens every once in a while and there it is. The big deal is how clubs choose to construct their teams. If you follow the rubric that you need mega stars with a bunch of stiffs, then you get a bunch of really terrible teams. So you have to ask yourself if you want to watch 4-5 seeds filled with teams like the Pacers or teams like the Knicks and the Hawks.
So you're comparing people leaving during free agency to people who forced their way off a team while they were still under contract (or pussed out)? I mean, by what you said, this is a good thing. The teams they left got the better end of the deal in the form of unappreciated, hard-working talent and no longer have to deal with those prima donnas (well, except Howard...).
And yeah, teaming up big names doesn't always work when you wind up paying Joe Johnson $119M or mistake Melo for LeBron's equal. If your front office is that inept you deserve to get screwed.
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You can do whatever you want with your free agency as long as you follow the rules, e.g. collusion.
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Sure, if it was 100% set in stone that the big 3 were going to Miami and Pat Riley cleared all that cap room knowing that this was a sure thing, that would be a problem. I'd agree with that. If LeBron and Wade could've chosen NY together instead up until the Knicks signed Amare, then there is no problem. There's a lot of teams that cleared cap space that season, Miami went all-in and it paid off when they were the only ones that could sign all three. Mailing in one season for a chance at the biggest free agency market in recent memory isn't worse than tanking years on end for draft picks.
If LeBron forced a trade out of Cleveland, I'd be right there with the haters. If you can prove collusion, I'm right there with you. But baseless allegations? Not so much.
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Be it Durantula, Beard or a Ninja Turtle - there is only 1 king. I don't see this play out as Bron vs Durant series.
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In a movie, the good guys would actually be the Heat, whom the media have demonized for one hateful act. The masses have naturally followed. The villains are the Thunder, who acquired their riches by tanking and have now more natural talent than any other team in the league. The masses love them because they are portrayed as a cast of lovable characters.
That said, evil will win this time. Again, OKC in 4.
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+ Show Spoiler + I'm not sure what your point is, Tien- that other teams could equally have possibly been partners in collusion with James and Wade? They were obviously- even publicly- talking about it as late as 2008 and as early as 2006 by some reports. If you want to say it's water under the bridge I can agree with that, but you can't pretend that it doesn't exist and that everyone who dislikes them is just a hater.
Bayless is clearly a troll now. I'll take Lebron over Wade in a cutting situation or a 3 situation. Maybe Wade has the edge in a midrange 2.
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Other way around. Wade in a cutting situation, Lebron in a mid-range or 3 situation.
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On June 13 2012 07:36 Itsmedudeman wrote:
I have a hard time believing the heat can win the series, even though I'd personally prefer them to. They struggled and nearly lost against an aging boston team that also went to 7 games against phili. Against the pacers they dropped some games while thunder were out there demolishing the spurs in 6. Pretty much the only thing that irked the heat through to the finals was james miraculous performance and chris bosh's return timing and performance that was just as miraculous as lebron's.
If you knew basketball, then you would know that the Celtics are the #1 Defense in the NBA...........
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EPT
