2 years ago everyone talked about how lebron was playing with crap. he had no help. this season he got mo williams and west together. both are good players. they won 66 freaking games, became the best defensive team in the leauge, lebron was mvp, brown was coach of the year, mo williams put up a strong 18ppg, west put up close to 14, they swept through the first 2 rounds. now all of a sudden the cavs are back to worthless because they lost to orlando in 6? and lebron is once again the guy with no help? lebron has a good supporting cast. thats what everyone has been talking about alllllllllllllllllllllllllll YEAR LONG!! they lost because orlando is better than we all thought they were. alot better! credit them.
im not in favor of saying "put him in his shoes" its schematics. all i know is that kobe has taken his team farther.
They also overacheived. They also slammed Detroit who was easily the worst team in the playoffs and didn't care all that much. Then they played Atlanta who on top of being overmatched, was very injured during the series. It is easily seen that the top 3 in the East were head and shoulders better than the 4-8 of the East. It is also seen that the 4-8 in the West were considerably better than the 4-8 in the East, although 1-3 are probably better than the 1-3 in the West as a whole.
Lebron still has talent issues on his team. Mo Williams is easily the worst #2 of any of the teams that were in the conference finals. Kobe has Gasol. Dwight has Shard. Melo or Billups are much better than Mo whoever you consider 2nd best. Mo is still better than what he had but he still doesn't have much. This was shown constantly against the other top teams in the league where the Cavs struggled. Against the marginal teams it may be argued that the Cavs were a tougher matchup against marginal teams than the Lakers, Magic, etc. but against good teams who can either slow down LBJ or match his production it hasn't been as much of an issue.
I don't know how you can argue that Gasol, Bynum, Odom, etc. when healthy are easily better than Mo Williams. Shard, Hedo, Nelson (when healthy), are better than Mo Williams. LBJ is probably better than any player left in the league but his team still has it's fault and has been exposed against certain teams (Boston, LA and Orlando). With that being said they are still a good team, but LBJ just like the rest of us don't care about being just good--he wants to win titles. In order to do so I still think Cleveland is going to have to bring in a better #2. Mo isn't a bad #3 or #4 option--but as a definitive #2 he was exposed during the playoffs and especially during the Cavs series. Mo was the same player he was on Milwaukee who traded him basically for scraps. Do you think the Bucks would have easily given him up (I know his backup is also very good) if he was that great.
We also must remember Kobe is 30. He's also had his bumps. He played on a team without much talent and all he could do was garner a couple of first round exits. LBJ has been to the 2nd round and beyond I believe the last 4 seasons with and without great talent around him. Even made it to the finals with Z being his 2nd best player. Kobe couldn't get to the finals without Shaq who many consider to be the best player of the post-Jordan era or Gasol who was basically stolen from Memphis for 10 cents on the dollar. So to think that Kobe is better than that it also false. Kobe didn't make the playoffs either one season (the season after they drafted Bynum) and has had issues with talent. With Odom and Butler--Butler who is now an all-star for Washington--he couldn't do anything either in the playoffs.
