Any game that involves the Houston Rockets has the potential to be an offensive bonanza of historic proportions. But pair them with another top-10 offense—on Monday night it was the Pelicans—and you’ll get a performance destitute of any defense with enough shot-making to leave you as full as a holiday meal.
Here are some of the most eye-popping notes from the Rockets’ 130-123 victory over the Pelicans:
At the half, the two teams had combined for 154 points.
The Pelicans reached 100 points with 2:49 left … in the third quarter.
The Beard had 14 assists, 12 points, and zero turnovers at the half. He finished with 26 points, 17 assists, and only three turnovers while adding six steals.
Rajon Rondo had his 30th career triple-double and made three 3s, the most he’s made in a game all season.
The two teams combined for 199 points through three quarters.
E’Twaun Moore needed only three quarters to reach a career-high 28 points. He finished with 36 points and it wasn’t even a team high. Jrue Holiday had 37.
The Pelicans made a franchise-record 18 3s on 33 attempts.
On December 13 2017 13:19 Twinkle Toes wrote: JimmiC and BlackJack, yes we agree on Pippen, as you see I did not put a (?) on his name. Rodman is tricky though because I read somewhere a long time ago that he and his stats benefitted greatly from the Bulls triangle, and his post Bulls career at LA and Mavs was a disaster to the team as he was intent on nothing but stat chasing and padding his rebound numbers, destroying the defensive scheme of the teams. If you insist on it, I will try to look for the source, but I think it was an internet article too, early 2000s (ancient by internet age), or a magazine article or book. I can't remember, but I'll try.
On the others, Longley etc., I think there is no disagreement, right?
Yeah, of course. Longley, Harper, Kerr, etc. were never superstars. Not even all-stars. The point is, as Shaq would say, you need a 1-2 punch to win championships. Shaq had Kobe, Duncan had Robinson and then Manu/Parker, Kobe had Gasol/Bynum, and LeBron had Wade/Bosh and Love/Kyrie.
Let's look at what Jordan had:
Phil Jackson - arguably the best head coach of all time and certainly of that era Scottie Pippen - legit superstar, one of the best defenders and consistently finished in top 5 for DPOY Dennis Rodman - won the rebounding title every year of the 2nd 3-peat, also top 5 in DPOY Toni Kukoc - '96 6th man of the year; one of the best back-up players in the league Steve Kerr - most accurate 3 point shooter of all time
Pretty great supporting cast if you ask me. Of course Kobe/Jordan didn't need to leave and artificially create a great team. They were already on great teams. So your argument for Kobe/Jordan is that they were able to win championships in Chicago/LA with other HOFers and LeBron couldn't do the same in Cleveland playing with literally nobody?
You can't knock LeBron for not winning a ring without a great team around him when Jordan and Kobe never did either.
The discussion got long and winded and had a few derails, so let me restate and refocus my main points.
All the superstars were in a team that formed "organically" through draft, talent development, trade and trade hustles, and like.
Jordan, Pippen, and later plus Kukoc, Rodman, Kerr, Harper, Bulls did this. Shaq Kobe LA did this. Robinson Duncan Spurs did this. Kidd superteam Nets did this. The Warriors did this, even when you count in KD. You can blame KD for joining an already complete championship team, but you cannot blame the Warriors for not picking up the best talent in the league who happened to be in the market.
Prime superstars used to love competing with other prime superstars
Complementary role players and supporting casts are a given, basketball is a 5v5 game, that was never the issue.
The issue was, if one is a superstar, it lessens his status if he recruits other superstars to form a superteam to ensure championship ring. Jordan would never team up with Hakeem or Drexler, Nor Mourning and Ewing or Mutombo, nor AI and TMac.
There is a team owner vs. player conflict dimension here, and I wrote about that elsewhere here, but that is another topic...
because the main topic here is that being a superstar, and a wannabe goat, you need to have a killer competitive mentality. This was true with all prime superstars in the 90s and until Lebron formed the Heatles.
And, and this is not the entire context of this discussion, if Lebron once again forms or joins another superteam next season, then the previous stint with the 2010 Heat and 2014 Cavs were not accidents, but a core pattern in Lebron's non-alpha superstar leader mentality in his quest to "strive for greatness/rings/goat". All his championship wins will have an asterisk. And you cannot say this with Jordan, Hakeem, Curry, Tim, and all the other champions.
He puts out a lot of beautiful passes on a nightly basis but he's also tying his career high in TOs that he set last season
At the risk of sounding like a mad hater, although I am not, and I used to be the biggest Lebron fan 2010+ and who believes he still has a legit shot at being top 2 goat, I will say this because the truth wants to be free.
Lebron is not a great passer the traditional sense of great passer who get their assists through court vision and manipulating the defense. He is a strong passer who can make difficult passes possible. The first one you linked was not even a good pass. He just made it more difficult for himself when a simple chest pass would more than suffice.
Contrast his assists to these and you will understand my point:
On December 13 2017 13:19 Twinkle Toes wrote: JimmiC and BlackJack, yes we agree on Pippen, as you see I did not put a (?) on his name. Rodman is tricky though because I read somewhere a long time ago that he and his stats benefitted greatly from the Bulls triangle, and his post Bulls career at LA and Mavs was a disaster to the team as he was intent on nothing but stat chasing and padding his rebound numbers, destroying the defensive scheme of the teams. If you insist on it, I will try to look for the source, but I think it was an internet article too, early 2000s (ancient by internet age), or a magazine article or book. I can't remember, but I'll try.
On the others, Longley etc., I think there is no disagreement, right?
Yeah, of course. Longley, Harper, Kerr, etc. were never superstars. Not even all-stars. The point is, as Shaq would say, you need a 1-2 punch to win championships. Shaq had Kobe, Duncan had Robinson and then Manu/Parker, Kobe had Gasol/Bynum, and LeBron had Wade/Bosh and Love/Kyrie.
Let's look at what Jordan had:
Phil Jackson - arguably the best head coach of all time and certainly of that era Scottie Pippen - legit superstar, one of the best defenders and consistently finished in top 5 for DPOY Dennis Rodman - won the rebounding title every year of the 2nd 3-peat, also top 5 in DPOY Toni Kukoc - '96 6th man of the year; one of the best back-up players in the league Steve Kerr - most accurate 3 point shooter of all time
Pretty great supporting cast if you ask me. Of course Kobe/Jordan didn't need to leave and artificially create a great team. They were already on great teams. So your argument for Kobe/Jordan is that they were able to win championships in Chicago/LA with other HOFers and LeBron couldn't do the same in Cleveland playing with literally nobody?
You can't knock LeBron for not winning a ring without a great team around him when Jordan and Kobe never did either.
The discussion got long and winded and had a few derails, so let me restate and refocus my main points.
All the superstars were in a team that formed "organically" through draft, talent development, trade and trade hustles, and like.
Jordan, Pippen, and later plus Kukoc, Rodman, Kerr, Harper, Bulls did this. Shaq Kobe LA did this. Robinson Duncan Spurs did this. Kidd superteam Nets did this. The Warriors did this, even when you count in KD. You can blame KD for joining an already complete championship team, but you cannot blame the Warriors for not picking up the best talent in the league who happened to be in the market.
Prime superstars used to love competing with other prime superstars
Complementary role players and supporting casts are a given, basketball is a 5v5 game, that was never the issue.
The issue was, if one is a superstar, it lessens his status if he recruits other superstars to form a superteam to ensure championship ring. Jordan would never team up with Hakeem or Drexler, Nor Mourning and Ewing or Mutombo, nor AI and TMac.
There is a team owner vs. player conflict dimension here, and I wrote about that elsewhere here, but that is another topic...
because the main topic here is that being a superstar, and a wannabe goat, you need to have a killer competitive mentality. This was true with all prime superstars in the 90s and until Lebron formed the Heatles.
And, and this is not the entire context of this discussion, if Lebron once again forms or joins another superteam next season, then the previous stint with the 2010 Heat and 2014 Cavs were not accidents, but a core pattern in Lebron's non-alpha superstar leader mentality in his quest to "strive for greatness/rings/goat". All his championship wins will have an asterisk. And you cannot say this with Jordan, Hakeem, Curry, Tim, and all the other champions.
The whole Kobe/MJ/Duncan were able to do it with organically built teams argument is meaningless. Yeah, they were able to do it with organically built good teams, but could they do it with an organically built shit team like LeBron's first stint with the Cavs? Secondly, why should they get any kind of kudos that their team was organically built? They didn't build the teams. They weren't the talent scouts for those teams. Their circumstances for being on those teams are from no credit of their own, and are thanks to some combination of owner/GM competence and luck of draft picks. Which is back to my main point really - almost none of your parameters for defining basketball greatness have to do with anything that happen on the basketball court and in some cases are completely out of the control of the players themselves.
He puts out a lot of beautiful passes on a nightly basis but he's also tying his career high in TOs that he set last season
At the risk of sounding like a mad hater, although I am not, and I used to be the biggest Lebron fan 2010+ and who believes he still has a legit shot at being top 2 goat, I will say this because the truth wants to be free.
Lebron is not a great passer the traditional sense of great passer who get their assists through court vision and manipulating the defense. He is a strong passer who can make difficult passes possible. The first one you linked was not even a good pass. He just made it more difficult for himself when a simple chest pass would more than suffice.
Nah a chest pass is not the same there. A chest pass is more telegraphed, which means it's easier for his defender, who is between him and his target, to deflect the pass. It's also easier for the defender in the paint to close out on Korver because they can read the pass earlier. It's obviously a safer play though.
Also very strongly disagree about LeBron's lack of court vision, ability to manipulate the defense.
Here's a great example of how LeBron manipulates a defense from last years finals which I'm sure is overlooked by everyone watching as just LeBron making a strong pass to an open guy:
On December 13 2017 17:46 BlackJack wrote: The whole Kobe/MJ/Duncan were able to do it with organically built teams argument is meaningless. Yeah, they were able to do it with organically built good teams, but could they do it with an organically built shit team like LeBron's first stint with the Cavs?
The first cavs stint is never the issue. The issue was him forming the superteams in Heat and Cavs 2.0
Secondly, why should they get any kind of kudos that their team was organically built? They didn't build the teams. They weren't the talent scouts for those teams. Their circumstances for being on those teams are from no credit of their own, and are thanks to some combination of owner/GM competence and luck of draft picks.
There's a continuation to that that you miss - they never asked for 2 more superstars on their team. If Cavs pre-Heatles has acquired Wade and any other superstar, they could win 10 or 0 and it will never be the issue.
Which is back to my main point really - almost none of your parameters for defining basketball greatness have to do with anything that happen on the basketball court and in some cases are completely out of the control of the players themselves.
I hope I can express my core point in a sentence: Prime superstars are and should alpha killers who want to compete with prime contemporaries, and if you continuously form or jump from one superteam to the next to secure a championship, abandoning your previous superteam in the process, then your championship wins are diminished.
He puts out a lot of beautiful passes on a nightly basis but he's also tying his career high in TOs that he set last season
At the risk of sounding like a mad hater, although I am not, and I used to be the biggest Lebron fan 2010+ and who believes he still has a legit shot at being top 2 goat, I will say this because the truth wants to be free.
Lebron is not a great passer the traditional sense of great passer who get their assists through court vision and manipulating the defense. He is a strong passer who can make difficult passes possible. The first one you linked was not even a good pass. He just made it more difficult for himself when a simple chest pass would more than suffice.
Nah a chest pass is not the same there. A chest pass is more telegraphed, which means it's easier for his defender, who is between him and his target, to deflect the pass. It's also easier for the defender in the paint to close out on Korver because they can read the pass earlier. It's obviously a safer play though.
Also very strongly disagree about LeBron's lack of court vision, ability to manipulate the defense.
Here's a great example of how LeBron manipulates a defense from last years finals which I'm sure is overlooked by everyone watching as just LeBron making a strong pass to an open guy:
And I just watched that video. Are you serious it's a notable basketball IQ? It is simple = PASS TO THE OPEN GUY. C'mon now. I am in awe of Lebron but let's be objective here. Anyone who plays even the lowest level of basketball knows how to do that. Watch for shifts in defense and pass to the open guy. It's a good pass, but not something to sing songs about, and definitely not a sign of high BBIQ. It's commonsense basketball.
It doesn't really matter if Lebron doesn't have the same "vision" or "BBIQ" as Nash or Kidd. Lebron manipulates the defense because he's both the best scorer and the best passer on every team he's a part of. It's that simple. Even if he was a step below those HoF PGs in term of passing and vision or whatever, his impact as a main ball handler is still greater.
And I like how you compared some random passes from the same one game to fucking top 20 passes highlight videos of HoF point guards. "Hurr durr these are less impressive". No kidding.
Edit: Btw until IT comes back I wouldn't call the current Cavs a superteam. It's a good team but talent wise it's similar or inferior to a lot of teams in the league.
On December 13 2017 19:44 ZenithM wrote: It doesn't really matter if Lebron doesn't have the same "vision" or "BBIQ" as Nash or Kidd. Lebron manipulates the defense because he's both the best scorer and the best passer on every team he's a part of. It's that simple. Even if he was a step below those HoF PGs in term of passing and vision or whatever, his impact as a main ball handler is still greater.
And I like how you compared some random passes from the same one game to fucking top 20 passes highlight videos of HoF point guards. "Hurr durr these are less impressive". No kidding.
Edit: Btw until IT comes back I wouldn't call the current Cavs a superteam. It's a good team but talent wise it's similar or inferior to a lot of teams in the league.
I qualified that statement from the beginning precisely to avoid blind Lebron worship that he is great at everything (see BlackJack's posted video about Lebron's basketball IQ). This is why I had to point out that Lebron being a great passer is not similar to how we normally mean when we say a player is a great passer, like Nash and Kidd being great passers. It was not my but BlackJack who said they were "beautiful" passes, so it was only right to compare them to what we would universally consider as beautiful passes. Any Kidd or Nash #10 - 20 assists of all time would show much better passing skill, anticipation of player movement, and courtvision as any top 10 Lebron assists.
Lebron probably has less of those flashy close range passes than Nash or Kidd, but he makes up for it with these crosscourt bullets he regularly sends with one hand. He leverages his power advantage really well in his passing.
And if you actually look at Lebron's own top 20 passes highlight reel (instead of comparing his 17 pass game from yesterday with the best 20 passes from other dudes), I'd say he's in the same category:
On December 13 2017 22:10 ZenithM wrote: Lebron probably has less of those flashy close range passes than Nash or Kidd, but he makes up for it with these crosscourt bullets he regularly sends with one hand. He leverages his power advantage really well in his passing.
And if you actually look at Lebron's own top 20 passes highlight reel (instead of comparing his 17 pass game from yesterday with the best 20 passes from other dudes), I'd say he's in the same category: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EedKXdMzm5o
On December 13 2017 22:18 JimmiC wrote: He's also making these passes in a PF's body, compared to a traditional PG. Back to the Organic, why does that matter? As I mentioned Pre max contracts what the Heat did wouldn't couldn't happen. And the show time lakers, Or Kobes lakers were not organic, they were big market teams buying the small market teams talent.
Like I said, strong passer, [elaboration who can cover longer ranges, faster, which is impossible for most who are not as strong and athletic as he is. He is a great passer, but a different great passer like Nash or Kidd.
On December 13 2017 22:18 JimmiC wrote: Back to the Organic, why does that matter? As I mentioned Pre max contracts what the Heat did wouldn't couldn't happen. And the show time lakers, Or Kobes lakers were not organic, they were big market teams buying the small market teams talent.
Organic means (I self quote my reply earlier): Prime superstars are and should alpha killers who want to compete with prime contemporaries, and if you continuously form or jump from one superteam to the next to secure a championship, abandoning your previous superteam in the process, then your championship wins are diminished. Prime superstars calling each other and teaming up to form a superteam to astronommically tilt the odds in their favor to win the championshis is not organic.
EPT![[image loading]](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/3Omn1LoIBKGSWvKJYMXr0Rv_Nzc=/0x0:3906x2604/920x613/filters:focal(766x207:1390x831)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/57946489/usa_today_10474112.0.jpg)
who can cover longer ranges, faster, which is impossible for most who are not as strong and athletic as he is. He is a great passer, but a different great passer like Nash or Kidd.
