Yep, unless we're talking the Michael Jordan that played for the Washington Wizards, there is no valid comparison here. In 35 career finals games, Michael Jordan never scored fewer than 22 points. LeBron has now done it four times (three of them losses) in a row (20, 17, 8, 17). For someone who was anointed the next great one, that's pretty pathetic. For the series, LeBron is averaging 17.2ppg, and the guy hey was making fun of is averaging 27. Here's a hint for LeBron: next time, you might not want to make fun of the guy who just beat you. If you go back to LeBron's previous finals appearance, when his team was swept by San Antonio, Lebron has never scored more than 25 points in a finals game. His career finals scoring average is 19.3ppg, compared to his regular season career scoring average of 27.7ppg. In his nine finals games he's shooting exactly .0400 FG% (66/165), compared to his regular season FG% of 0.479. I think his new nickname should "King, of the Regular Season, James". Clearly, he wilts under the pressure of the finals. Combine his weak finals performances with the way he quit on his team last year against Boston and it's very clear this guy just isn't someone who can lead his team to a championship. He pretty much admitted that when he decided to leave Cleveland and try to ride Wade's coattails to a title in Miami, but at this point he's not even an adequate Robin to Wade's Batman. He's more like Alfred the butler. BNM
Peronally I think it's kind of funny ... even funnier when you consider that their mouths are writing checks that their asses can't cash.
Not that I want to defend LeBron much (he is a douche) but we should probably bring in a little perspective here. How many times did Jordan make it to the Finals by the age of 26? 0. MJ was nearly three full years older than LeBron when he won his first championship. Comparing LeBron's chokejob as a 22 and 26 year old to MJ's mastery from ages 28-34 isn't really fair. It's comparing a guy who is only now entering his prime playing years to a guy who began and finished his championship run during his prime years. LeBron has done everything he can to make a fool of himself this year. And he choked in the Finals. But he's still been the best player on two Finals teams--pretty damned amazing for a 26 year old. And he's still the best player in the league. His biggest critics say he lacks maturity. That kind of goes hand-in-hand many times with lacking age. People who say he'll never be as great as Mike don't appreciate that Mike wasn't as great as Mike at James' age. It's far from certain (or maybe even likely) but he's got a pretty good start.
Mook, your comments are true but also not quite to the point. No one questions James' talent, but he did behave like a jerk this season start to finish. Also, he's 26 but he's been in the league 8 years. ESPN ran a story about how high school to NBA players have to learn pressure as they have not played in the NCAA tournament. Even one or 2 years in a Division 1 school a player has probably gone through several rounds of tournament basketball.
You make an good point about him being in the league 8 years... I was listening to some "expert" on a sports talk show a while ago and he was saying that the number of games played is more indicative of wear and tear on the body than actual age. He said 1,000 games played (in the NBA, not including the Olympics) is where you start really seeing the effects of "aging". Basically the guy was saying the more times you get deep into the play offs the faster you will "age". Kobe hit 1,000 during last years play offs and he didn't have enough left in him to get out of the 2nd round this year. Kevin Garnett hit it during the finals of his championship season with Boston and his scoring average dropped off by 20% (5 points) the next year and no championship. Fortunately for them, Kobe and Garnett have that basketball IQ and killer instinct so they can still be effective after their athleticism starts to decline. But LeBron has already played in over 600 and I don't see any indication he has or will develop that mental toughness and smarts.
also someone tweeted that dampier +3 others from the heat were also at the club for the Dallas championship party in miami...... dayum
That's lame. Dampier played there for six years (before this one with Miami) so it makes sense he has lots of friends there... but that still seems inappropriate. Ed O.
