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Did Lebron ruin his legacy?
Posted by: Adam Mason on July 15th, 2010
The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of the Utah Jazz.Ok with all that’s been said about the moves that the Jazz are making, I don’t think I really could add too much. It’s exciting and means the Jazz will still be competitive, which is exciting.
So I thought I would go with a little bit different of a subject. We all know that Lebron had his “Decision” show (which Steve Carrell and Paul Rudd’s spoof was hilarious by the way) and indicated he was joining Wade and Bosh. Can you really blame the guy?
Here he was in Cleveland for 7 seasons carrying the team into heights the franchise had not really ever seen. It was Lebron carrying them and there was no doubt about that. Check out this game in the 07 Eastern Conference Finals game against Detroit if you haven’t already checked it out.
Lebron has won the MVP the past two seasons and guided his team to the best record in the league those two years. He did so with Anthony Parker? Anderson Varejao? A broken down Shaq? J.J. Hickson? A decent point guard in Mo Williams, etc. He needed to be the man every single night and I’m sure it’s gotta be physically taxing on the guy. Without him his team just might struggle to even be .500 next year.
Having said that though, Lebron no doubt backed away from that challenge. He didn’t believe he could be THE centerpiece in a title team. He couldn’t, however, turn down the opportunity to play with D-Wade and Bosh and to be honest that would be a hard situation to walk away from. The way he did it was a little classless as he really just gave Cav fans a false sense of hope, but he had every right to leave. Also I do not believe that Lebron is everything that the sad owner in Dan Gilbert said he was.
This is my only complaint about Lebron: If he wins a championship, even multiple ones, with his buddies, he’ll no doubt go down as a great player, possibly even one of the greats. ESPN analysts said he would be a Magic Johnson or Larry Bird type player and leader with the Heat and I would even tend to agree with that. However, he destroyed all possibilities of chasing Michael.
Kobe is chasing Michael and everyone says Kobe has Pau Gasol, but there’s no doubt that Gasol wasn’t one of the greatest PF’s in today’s game until he teamed up with Kobe. Just as Scottie Pippen was good and solid, but MJ made him great. Kobe has/had players in Fisher, Lamar Odom, Ron Artest or Trevor Ariza, and Bynum. He has/had Shannon Brown coming off the bench, Jordan Farmar, and Sasha Vujacic. None of those players will probably ever make the Hall of Fame.
Michael Jordan had his buddy in Scottie Pippen. He also had players in John Paxson, Ron Harper, Steve Kerr, Horace Grant, Toni Kukoc, Luc Longely, Bill Wennington, Will Perdue, a good fit player in Dennis Rodman, etc. He elevated those guys’ games and they were nothing without him. Just teams filled with great role players and MJ helped lift their game. Jordan, most of the time, had to be the man and he took on that challenge. In the 93 Finals against Phoenix he averaged 41.0 ppg. Jordan never had someone as great as himself. Lebron possibly has that in Wade and teamed up with two already great players and quite possible future hall of famers in Wade and Bosh. Heck, even Wade (even if he doesn’t believe it), has taken on the challenge of doing it himself when he put the Heat on his back and won a championship in 2006.
Lebron didn’t tarnish his legacy and my personal belief is he will end up being one of the greatest NBA players to have ever played. I just believe he walked away from being the GREATEST NBA player to ever play the game. As you watch that game against the Pistons, you know he has it in himself to do such things. While I don’t think anyone could really ever surpass MJ (not even Kobe), I thought Lebron had the best shot. Cheer and boo against him because he is the enemy when he plays us, but don’t boo his decision. Be honest with yourself, if you had the opportunity to play with players like D-Wade and Bosh, you would always wonder what it would have been like if you did walk away from that, especially if you never won a championship.
Lebron did what was best for himself and probably did set himself up to build a dynasty in Miami with Wade and Bosh. He’ll be great, no doubt, but could he have ever surpassed Michael? Well now we’ll never know.
Replies: 15
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15 Responses
I almost agree. I think it’s a little early to determine what kind of impact this will have on LeBron’s “legacy”. Maybe the Heat win a few championships and LeBron averages a triple double for an entire season. Likely? Probably not. But you never know. And if that happened he may go down as the greatest ever; it’s just to early to tell. On a side note, Pau Gasol was absolutely one of the most dominant big men in the league BEFORE he joined the Lakers. So I would say Kobe had more talent around him when he won those ’ships than LeBron ever had.
He’s a great talent, but has turned into an egotistical twit and hurt his image.
He’s had terrible guidance.
Jazzaholic
Nine paragraphs on that idiot are you serious? He’s a good player I’ll give you that but do we really need to hype him up on a blog about the jazz?
Pretty much going with Michael R. on this one. Why?
Lebron was never going to win in Cleveland because their front office was too busy counting all the money they were making off LeBron too make a conscious effort to get the team a good point guard, another big name/ superstar and a coach with a good system like we, the lakers, boston, and the jordan era bulls had. people need to wake up and see that Miami was among the only moves LeBron could have made to win a Championship. Hes still the best player in the NBA, that is, behind DERON WILLIAMS!
This is a very interesting subject, while the Jazz are the focus of this site, they do not play in a vacuum and discussing other players in the NBA is relevent. Like most NBA fans I think the Lebron signing show was a fiasco and I do think he has tarnished his reputation by it. I can’t help wondering if everyone in South Florida (including D Wade) refers to the HeaT as LeBron’s team? I am sure everyone thinks of Scottie Pippen as playing on Michael’s team or Gasol playing on Kobe’s team or even James Worthy playing on Magic’s team but is D. Wade playing on Lebron’s team? WHo has won a championship allready in the twosome?
I am OK with the post … and everything related with the NBA concerns the Jazz, of course ! To tell you the truth, I am getting a little bit bored with this page full of different posts discussing exactly the same subject (example: the Wes case). It’s fine to chat … but there is a “chat” page in this site in which this discussion should better be redirected. In my opinion, the “read” page should only contains Jazzbots blogs, all the others (like myself) being able to reply, express their opinions, etc.
Sorry guys I was just trying to go for something different from what Henri just said. Everyone keeps adding the same post over and over again. So lighten up because whether you believe it or not, Lebron James’ decision just might impact the Jazz since one day we could be facing a team of that caliber in the Finals (if we can ever knock off the flippin’ Lake Show). Also Deb I would say that the Heat are D-Wade’s team, especially since D-Wade recruited LBJ. It seems like LBJ needed D-Wade more than the other way around.
I’m pretty sick of the whole James saga. He’s a great player on a team with a great player, Wade, & an overrated but still good player, Bosh. Big Deal! A few years ago Detroit had 5 all-stars, Billups, Hamilton, Wallace, Wallace & Prince, all good role-players with great chemistry between them & all in their primes, & they only won 1 championship. Sure Miami is going to put a lot of butts in seats & have a lot of TVs broadcasting their games, but that doesn’t make them the best team in the NBA, or the Eastern Conference or even in FL. Orlando has been really good for a couple of years now & they have added Duhon & Richardson, & retained Reddick this off-season, so I’d say that they are the team to beat in the East. As a sidenote, Boston should probably end up with the best record in the East, because they are in the weakest division in the whole NBA, but their guys, except Rondo & Davis, are slowly detereorating, so they will fall in the playoffs to one of the younger teams.
I hate hearing about Lebron. He will never win a championship playing as a ball-hog as he did in Cleveland, and that goes the same for Miami. Wade and Bosh are not going to like how he doesn’t pass the ball much. If you want to talk about Lebron go to the Miami web site because this is the the site of the Utah Jazz…a team that will defeat the heat. Yeah, you can quote me on that.
Relax people. I hate hearing about him too but that doesn’t mean you can escape it. You know who I hate hearing about more? KOBE! But everyone talks about him. If you like and follow the NBA, then get used to hearing about the Heat.
It was a good post. I’m a die hard Utah Jazz fan, but more than that I’m a die hard fan of the sport. I love hearing opinions on anything basketball related. It’s the off-season and I wanna hear some discussions about the league as a whole.
Adam I wouldn’t worry about it. Anyone that followed this blog when it was still Jazzbots (Boondock Saint was my name then) knows that we discuss everything Jazz and discuss other important things going on in the league from refs and superstar treatment to who is the best looking (see Mal’s previous posts). Come on this is a blog for people who love not only the Jazz but everything basketball and in the same breath hate certain things (mine being Kobe and referees). I think its an interesting question to say the least and think the Lebron has ruined his shot at being the greatest but I think Kobe has well. He has a couple rings with Shaq with Shaq was the man…Jordan never had ANYONE of his caliber.
Who cares if he writes about lebron on a jazz blog site? There is only so much you can say about the Utah jazz and their moves this offseason, and I’m pretty sure everything that can be said about the jazz already has been said in the last couple days. Good post and good change of topic.
Did you hear about the new lebron James version of the iPhone? it’s pretty cool, you have to put it on vibrate because it doesn’t have any rings.