In hindsight Wiggins would have been a better fit but I don't think LeBron is a 4. He a 3. CLEs problem is that no one moves without the ball. The offensive chemistry is forced. Love is a confused dog out there . He needs to stay in the post, set screens and pop out. with that said they won a title so it wasn't that horrible of a move.
LeBron absolutely flops and the drama is ridiculous. The TOR series is an example of this.
The difference between Kobe and LeBron is that Kobe was a pure ******* on the court, off the court and in the locker room and LeBron is not and Kobe didn't give a ****.
LeBron is trying to balance being a good team guy on the court which makes him not the decisive leader in the crunch and killer Kobe was but still feed his narracistic side off the court and he is awkward and goofy at balancing the two.
No hindsight required. I called it at the time, as did a sizable minority of media guys (most prominently Bill Simmons). LeBron is 6'8 250. That's prototypical 4 size even when 4s were expected to live in the paint. He's almost identical in height/weight to Karl Malone in his playing days, for example, and Malone is pretty much the prototypical 4. The one thing setting LeBron apart from a guy like Malone is that he's
way more versatile. He has more range, handles the ball better, passes better, and can defend out to the 3 point line. Which is great, because in today's NBA you're expected to be a stretch 4. That's exactly what LeBron is: he's what you'd get if you designed the perfect stretch 4 in a laboratory. Which is why I just shrug at anyone who complains about his defense because he can no longer keep up with 2s. Of course he can't, he's carrying more weight than half the centers in the league. And given that 3s are expected to hit a high percentage of threes and be able to seamlessly switch onto 2s on high screens, he isn't really a 3 anymore anyway. Kawhi Leonard and Kevin Durant are the ideal 3s in the league right now, and LeBron isn't that. He's too big, and no longer quite athletic enough to compensate. Luckily, he's big enough that he doesn't have to be. Much like KG was able to move from the 3 to the 4 and then the 5 over the course of his career, LeBron has the size to move to a position where he's a strength in terms of perimeter defense and floor spacing rather than a liability. Unfortunately, that position where he belongs happens to be the only position that Love--a guy who's too slow to play the 3 and doesn't protect the rim well enough to be a 5--can play. The presence of Love means that LeBron cannot play the 4 as his main position, which is the biggest reason why the team is frequently better when Love's on the bench. Because LeBron at the 4 is much, much better than Love at the 4. Cleveland would've been much better off with LeBron at the 4 and an athletic wing at the 2/3 than LeBron at the 2/3 and Love at the 4.
As for Love, you can't play two guys in the paint regularly anymore. The 2008 Celtics defense ended that. Teams are too disciplined in their rotations now, to the point that no amount of ball movement will yield open shots unless you space the floor. This ties in to the previous point: that every title contender uses stretch 4s who can guard multiple positions now. 4s are expected to be as versatile as 3s used to be. The Warriors use Harrison Barnes, and have Draymond Green as a stretch 4/5. The Spurs have Aldridge, and even then have lineups where Kawhi is a 4. OKC has Serge Ibaka, who has spent the past few years adding range to his game, and even then they played Durant a bunch at the 4. Atlanta had Paul Millsap and Al Horford, who both had range *and* could protect the rim. Toronto had Demarre Carroll, and needed another guy, the lack of which is the main thing Cleveland exploited to beat them. Cleveland has LeBron. The Celtics had Jae Crowder, and needed one more guy as well. Instead, they had Sullinger, who has all the same weaknesses as Love, and forced the Celtics to put out a bunch of lineups with almost zero rim protection, which in turn was their single biggest weakness as a team and what's holding them back from legitimately contending. This is the biggest reason why I want Brown or Bender in the draft, or I want them to find some way to trade for Paul George.
The stark reality here is that a dedicated 4 who's too slow to defend the 3 and too small to protect the rim is a tweener in the modern NBA who doesn't really fit in an efficiency oriented lineup. Much like Draymond--a 6'7 power forward with a lot of range who isn't a great rebounder--would have struggled to find a role in the '90s but thrives now, Kevin Love would've been a damn near perfect 4 in the 80s-mid aughts, but now he's struggling. Kevin Love is the NBA version of Brandon Spikes--he's made for the game as it was played 20 years ago, but as it's become smaller and more spacing oriented, his lack of athleticism becomes more and more of a liability. To really get the most out of him, you have to pair him with a rim-protecting stretch 5 (which is one of the rarest assets in the NBA, think Anthony Davis, Chris Bosh, Kevin Garnett 5 years ago, etc.). And what you most certainly
can't pair him with is an elite scorer without a dependable three pointer, who depends on slashing and posting up, and operating out of the elbows to get his shot. Because the only way for Love
not to interfere with that in a big way is to shoot a lot of threes. Love is a very good player--great passer, great rebounder, good shooter, hugely valuable on transition-oriented teams because of his outlets--but if you put him and LeBron on the same team one of them isn't going to be able to do what he does best. And since LeBron is much, much better, he's not going to be the one making the sacrifices, assuming the team cares about playing to its potential.
As far as LeBron not being a good leader in the clutch... seriously? What do you want from him? The guy has won three titles. He just ripped off one of the best three-game stretches in finals history, while facing elimination in all 3 games. On what planet is 27/11/11 with 3 blocks (including one of the most clutch in NBA history) in game 7 'not decisive in the crunch'? After dropping 41 in back to back elimination games leading up to said game 7. Seriously, if you're still banging on the same old "he isn't the man in crunch time" drum after what we saw over those last 3 games, then you just need to recognize that you're going to hate on him no matter what he does and there's nothing rational about it. He could've dropped 60 on his way to a game 7 finals win and you would have found something to complain about.
And I say this as someone who doesn't even particularly like LeBron, I just have the grudging respect for him that opposing fans should have for all-time greats. But for whatever reason, a lot of people just can't seem to acknowledge that their hatred of all-time greats stems entirely from the fact that these guys are obstacles for their own teams, and that we'd love them if they played for our team. LeBron and Brady are both the victims of this, and just like other fans should get over themselves and accept that their criticisms of Brady are a bunch of jealous, childish crap, we should do the same re: LeBron. He's one of the 5-10 best players to ever play basketball, and we're lucky to have been able to watch his prime.
