So i guess ESPN is trying to say that Lebron is having the greatest statistical year ever or something of that nature. I was taken back a little by this because i know d@mn well he can’t be. After going back and forth with a few people about it, i decided to look up Birds best season. He had so many I just took the middle chunk of his career.

from 84-88 Bird averaged 27ppg-10rpg-7apg-2spg-1bpg-shot 50% FG 40%3pt 90%FT -won 3 MVP awards, 2 Finals MVP awards, and 2 chips. oh and he only shot two 3pters per game and 6ft att per game. Basically the n!gg@ was not to be flucked with!!!!

These may be the 4 greatest years one individual has ever had as far as stats and winning. I don’t think Jordan, Wilt, Russell(Wilt, Russell, Kareem, Oscar, didn’t have blocks, steals, or 3pt line), Kareem, Oscar, or Magic can fluck with this. But I’ll check to see .

i’m not sure what’s the definition of ‘destroyed’ but looking at individual stats and the results of the game, yeah, i’d say that, empirically, steve nash had a much better game than rubio…

both of them are considered PG’s and rubio wasn’t even the best PG on his own team last night… (i’d say nash had a better night than ridnour as well, especially considering the outcome of the game… i’d say for last night, nash > ridnour > rubio) if your own coach don’t trust you enough to handle the opponent’s lead pg, you’re starting at a disadvantage…

yes, i’m saying that it’s partly the PG’s fault that his teammate can’t make a shot… part of what make good PG’s good is that when they have the ball, even if the opposing team is not playing double team, they focus on what the PG is doing and thus allowing the other offensive players to get to spots they are comfortable scoring… like how nash runs those crazy circles in the paint and get the opponents all confused and pass the ball out for wide open shots… the problem with rubio’s game is that i don’t think players respect his shot… seems like people would guard his drive and try to disrupt his passing, which makes it tougher for good passes to find teammates…

don’t get me wrong, i absolutely agree that rubio’s got some very very decent passing skills, and that’s why some of his passes are quite spectacular… but shooting 37% on the season is a liability… rondo, while he can’t make a freethrow, shoots more like 45%+

so yes, i’m saying nash had a much better game than rubio

@bieb…
umm… i don’t think people are randomly saying that melo is not a good defender… he’s played plenty of games in his career to establish a pattern…

consistently ‘caring about defense’ or ‘trying hard to play defense’ would be behaviors that people can observe… good defense is harder to quantify than good offense… thus battier has crappy stats, but people know he cares about defense…

by the way… trying hard in practice doesn’t count… real game starts with 0-0, you don’t get bonus points for your practices…

bieb said, “trying hard should not be looked at as, “well he can’t do this, so there’s no way he is trying hard””
the problem with melo is that we all believe that it is possible physically for him to play defense, he just doesn’t actually play defense… and that’s what i call not trying hard enough…

what about those freak athletes who doesn’t have to train harder? if they are actually holding their defensive assignments to 0 for shooting… don’t penalize the dude for being talented…

to sum it up… my point is the melo doesn’t try hard enough on defense.

Aaaand just like that hakasan said what I was trying to say, only he did it better. While I was posting mine. Dick.

Am I the only one who thinks the attention on Lebrons hairline is overblown? Sure it’s receding, but I’ve seen worse from dudes younger than him. I guess people want to undermine his accomplishments by talking about trivial things. If the Heat win the championship this year, Lebron should dedicate his title to Barkley and tell him that not only does he have more hair, he also has a ring.

I think Chicagorilla meant best all-around stats, so Bird and Oscar probably would be the historical champs in that regard. Lebron is the only contemporary one worth discussing in those comparisons, though Kevin Love may get there in time.

Tell me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the article about Lebron having potentially the best season ever based primarily on PER or something? I have to say, this is the most dominant I have EVER seen a player in the NBA since Jordan. Shaq couldn’t even affect games quite like Lebron is this season. His defensive intensity has been sustained and he’s about as efficient as you can be on offense. He attacks, hits players that are open, and knows well the tendencies of his teammates and opponents. The guy is a force to be reckoned with.

@Hakasaan

Why would you not count awards? That is the whole point. Who can put up crazy stats while also winning.
Take MJ for instance. during his 6 championship years MJ was always around 30ppg/5ast/5reb/2-3stls/1blk. 50%FG. Those are great stats. But His best statistical years came in the late 80′s. Bird and Magic put up crazier statistical seasons while winning MVPs (Reg and Finals) and championships. To me that is more impressive. That means every rebound, assist, block, steal, point all played a major part in your team winning the chip.

As opposed to Oscar Robertson who was triple dippin for a team that was terrible. I’m not blaming him because (as me and Austin B have gone back and forth on) its the the luck of the draw. Oscar just wasn’t lucky enough to get with a good team.

As far as Wilt is concerned, his 50ppg 25rpg season is clearly the greatest thing ever. I mean Wilts first 7yrs in the NBA (1960-1966) he averaged 40ppg-25rpg (oddly enough he only hit 51%FG) and 3.4ast. Never won a chip until 67′ when his scoring average dropped nearly 10ppg.

Kareem also had a few years of outlandish stats
from 1971-1976
30ppg-16rpg-4apg-1spg-4bpg 54%FG
1 championship
1 Finals MVP
4 Reg Sea MVPs
Those^ are nasty numbers but kinda hallow when you consider the winning, but still outta this world, yet still not as good as Larry’s.

seriously..i’m trying to keep my sanity. but i don’t know how this turned into a discussion of defense.

i started off talking about baron davis and how he got 8 assists in his last game without even having to try hard to get it. like, it looked so easy because guys on the knicks were just clicking.

the game looked very easy for him. now, someone ended up flipping that to shit on other knicks players who don’t do things they should be doing.

okay, but that was besides the point.

you guys are simply looking at me saying these guy try hard and saying it’s not true because they can be better.

i didn’t want to talk about any knicks players’ defense. i just talked about for instance pure “trying”.

look at it this way…when a father is playing his 6 year old son in the backyard in 1-on-1 basketball. the dad knows he can win, so he isn’t trying that hard. back to baron davis, guys on the knicks were on fire in the 3rd quarter that baron davis got those assists without even really breaking that much of a sweat.

now, guys wanted to flip that aspect into talking about the players on ny and their lack in statistical categories.

there are different kinds of trying hard.
1. where you go into the game (i.e lebron playing against an undermanned, non-playoff team or when a game is out of hand and guys are on chill mode or the dynamics in the rookie-sophmore game). that’s the kind of trying hard i was talking about.

2. the trying hard you are talking about is guys needing to elevate a certain aspect of their game. players who are lacking something in their game. players who are not able to do something when they should be able to.

those are different types of trying hard.

that is why i keep repeating i did not want to go into talking about defense or rebounding. simply i started off talking about trying hard in respects to going hard. ramping up the level of play or focus. or going H.A.M.

two very different ways of looking at trying hard.

please ensure my sanity and finally get this through your minds of the difference i am talking about in trying hard.

even though melo is lacking in defensive ferocity, he can still go into a game and give his best. whether his best is not suitable for you because he should lock up his man, it doesn’t mean he didn’t have it in his mind to go hard and by the end of the game he wasn’t sore and beat up.

@unchecked

I haven’t looked at the article so i don’t know. But maybe they are only going back to Jordan when talking about the stats.

And while as i stated above, the only reason i don’t include Oscar is because he wasn’t winning during his great statistical years. By the time Oscar won a ring (1971) he was 32 and averaging 19ppg 6rpg 8apg. They didn’t keep track of steals/blocks and there was no 3pt line.

But based on only stats without winning, Oscar and Wilt would be untouchable.

@bieb,

let’s talk baron… how do you know he wasn’t trying hard two nights ago? are you basing your statement on the fact that he got 8 ast in a such a short time?

if you ask me, he’s trying harder than he’s tried in the past few seasons… why? cuz he’s fighting for playing time behind lin… if he doesn’t go out and ball out of his mind, he’s sitting on the bench behind mike freakin bibby… every other situation he walked into after his hornets days he was locked in to be the lead guard, this is the first time in his career where the focus is not on him… dude’s fighting to stay relevant…

then on melo… if he’s got it in his head to play defense, and can physically play defense, but does not play defense… isn’t that clearly ‘not trying hard enough’? we know he’s physically able to do it because he’s done it sporadically… even consistently when he was on team usa… but in the nba, no so much…
umm.. and are you seriously going to talk about being tired and sore at the end of the game? these are professional bastketball players… there are 9 other players on the court playing in the same game he is… maybe if melo shoots less he will be less sore and less tired and maybe he can play some defense then…

hakasan…i am not declaring baron didn’t try hard. you are right in saying i should say he wasn’t. i just said it APPEARD as so because guys around him were scoring so easy. it’s like when people say michael jordan made scoring LOOK so easy, or when guys pull of incredible dunks it LOOKS easy, meanwhile that guy actually can be trying hard. that’s all i was saying. i agree with you that baron has to work his ass off, but i just said that qtr, everything was clicking so well for the knicks that baron davis made 8 assists look like he did it in his sleep.

as for melo, yes, i agree when it comes to defense. i was probably the first guy here saying melo had the tools to play defense. i didnt want to get into the defense aspect because months ago that turned into World War 15. i was only speaking (really just defending/making a rebuttal) on the fact of what melo CAN do on the basketball court, he tries hard at that.

if you read thru my post where i was about to go insane, i specifically dissected two definitions of trying hard.

1..where a player is performing in the dynamics of an all star game

vs

when a player needs to go into the gym , stay there, and work on improving a deficiency.

but good stuff anyway hakasan

on baron, fair enough, you did say ‘look’… but

dude,

i don’t think anyone here is saying that melo is not physically capable of playing defesne…

but there’s only 1 all star game every season… not 83, or in this year’s case, 67…

i’m gonna refer you back to #40 when @jay pointed out that melo doesn’t consistently move his feet to stay in front of his defenders… we know he can still move his feet cuz he’ll sprint down to shoot a fadeaway…

on your 2 ‘trying’s… what does that have to do with people pointing out melo doesn’t try to play defense? are you saying that he treats every game like a all star game, or that he doesn’t have a deficiency? i addressed the first point already, and to the 2nd point… being able to do something and doing it in the game are 2 things… if you have it but can’t bring it to the real game… it’s even worse than not having it at all…

my point is your logic is flawed because you are saying a coach can never look at melo and say “you played hard” because you think his defense is behind on his offense.

it’s flawed reasoning.

i’m sayingmelo can play hard in every game regardless of whether or not he will ever make an all defensive team.

playing hard is playing hard.

@71,

not every award winner are chosen based on stats, one way or another. larry legend also never won a 4 peat… so his numbers are less significant in the year they didn’t win the championships? i think there are too many ways to interpret these ‘significances’… that’s why i personally don’t want to put them in the same discussion… but you have your reasons…

i’ll agree to disagree on the awards vs. statistical significance.

i also caution with dabbling in the what if’s… if you want to say that bird can score 35/game, then i think you have to also take into account that his rebound numbers would probably go down, and that his assist numbers would definitely go down (less possessions for other people)… then you don’t have this awesome across the board line anymore…

on the kobe/lebron should go for the trip/dub line thing… who knows man… maybe if bynum avg 20shots a game his sweet feeling knees would be not so sweet playing knees… maybe if you feed the ball to jones more than 10 times a night, his arms would fall off… who knows… if it happens, great… but that’s up to the players to figure out what they want to do on the hardwood…

i’m not sure who discounts the best 5 seasons of magic johnson’s career… not even me, who grew up in la in the post magic lakers era… and um… as long as you win the championship, it’s definitive that you’ve beat some of the best players/teams of the era right? like joe dumars and isiah thomas beat some of the best players/teams of the same ear, so did hakeem in the two years without mj…

by the way, my fav. lakers team was that vlade/campell/ceballos/jones/van exel team….

@bieb’s 74,

not true, no one is saying that at all…
if fact, people brought up how he defended quite well on Team USA, and that he had a series when he guarded kobe well… those times, melo played hard…

mj, not to take away from this defensive ferocity, will always be remembered first for his crazy offensive skills… but no one is going to say that he didn’t play hard on defense… same with last decade’s kobe…

it’s when there’s such a discrepency between how he plays offense and defense, that people call out melo for not playing hard ‘the entire game’

white whale..lmao ! you had me laughing with your conspiracy.

all i will say is that, this is the first time in a long time that i’ve posted so frequently as today.

@75,

we’re not saying melo can’t, we’re saying he doesn’t

plus…

stockton played against some pretty athletic guys in his days as well… he might not be able to keep up physically, but he played dirty personal defense like tripping and tugging, and great team defense, by giving his opponents the weak side and let them deal with a dirty and mean ostertag/malone… that was their system…

Example… i have a little cousin who’s 12 and is really good but there’s no way he’s beating me. I’m just way better than him. So I go out and start jacking shots. Practice some post moves on him. When he has the ball, I play defense on my heels. I don’t really care if he scores or not because no matter what, he’s not outscoring me.

I think that’s the same mentality Melo has.

When I play adult ball. I’m diggin in on defense. Why? Because I’m step up to the challenge.

Same thing with Melo. Dude falls on his heels versus lesser players, but steps up and plays hard against another elite player. The difference between him and I, is he’s the professional.

I’m sure many people here can relate to stepping down their game versus somebody because you’d win the matchup regardless of how hard you play, whether it’s a cousin, nephew or someone else. We’ve all done it. But Melo’s the pro… playing for a franchise… ‘earning’ millions of bucks.

@jay,

look what you’ve done…

@bieb,

not the same thing… jay is saying that when he plays his little cousin, he’ll win no matter what he does… the closet analogy in the nba is if the heats are playing the bobcats and lebron is guarding… boris diaw/derrick brown/biyombo/higgins whoever…

the reason why the situation is different in ny is because they’re barely a .500 team… if they are playing .750 ball all the time, no one would care if melo is not playing defense… but truth of the matter is that melo’s lack of defense costs his team wins…

too often melo lets mediocre players get to their season averages and the lack of defense by another knicks player gets torched by the opposing team’s star player, which results in a loss… or how about it… melo guards lebron well in the first quarter, but since the rest of the team gets outscored by wade and bosh, melo gives up from 2nd quarter on, knicks lose…

anyways, time to start the weekend…

SHOTS FIRED

Miami Radio Host calls Derrick Rose
“Most Fraudulant MVP we’ve ever seen”
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/03/01/miami-radio-host-rose-most-fraudulent-mvp-weve-ever-seen/

why? Well apparently they took exception to Rose not dancing a jig and cooning around on stage with the other East All-Star starters. Who btw, are the only ones who were dancing during any of the intros. Because now that i think about it, not one of the Western Confr guys were dancing and none of the East/West reserves were dancing while being introduced. So that means only those four guys outta the 24 all-stars were dancing (although Wade only seemed to nod his head a little).

I kinda wish Wade, Bron, Melo, or Dwight would say some disrespectful shyt about Rose. That way we can start up a real rivalry. Not a made up TV rivalry.

TRYING HARD
(VERB)

1) Trying to “FIT IN” in terms of fashion and social acceptance.

2) Selling your character just to be socially accepted.

Synonym: POSER

(adjective)

a person who struggles to achieve something but he/she is hopelessly doing it.

@Big. I would ride that dick, hopefully reenacting that night in Eagle.

I digress on the original point. I am sick of these “super teams” I agree Lebron needed help in Cle and they never got him the right players to really compliment his style. I really hope that Howard doesnt go to the Lakers because again, its a super team and Id prefer to see a team built with complimentary characters or a one-two punch. The difference too between the Heat and all other teams is that they celebrated for NO reason and they acted like they won something instead of merely joining forces from three shitty teams. There is a difference in Lebron’s confidence compared to other players that exude it