The whole Lebron sweepstakes has become an obsession bordering something that you would see on Dateline. Not much basketball being discussed. When people talk about it, it's more like "If the Knicks get Lebron, who he gonna play with?...he should go to Chicago because they got a team already." That's not basketball...and Lebron is not your typical basketball player. I mean if Carmelo was a free agent, Chicago would be the absolute best place for him to play. Carmelo is a scorer...a finisher. He's be a receiver if he was in the NFL, meaning the dude relies heavily on the offense and the point guard. It's also more essential to have the right players around him in order for the team to succeed. That's Carmelo though...and we not talking bout him.

Lebron is your team. He's the sun and his teammates are his planets. He's the Queen Bee, the Mother Ant. He's bigger than most power forwards and he's faster/quicker and just as skilled as any guard in the nba today. Everyone wants to mention Michael Jordan. Jordan was the greatest player that ever played but he needed a system, coach and the right players around him to win championships. He was a guy you knew no one can stop when it came to key points in the game. He was also a master killer in the 4th quarter. Nobody have come close to that...except Kobe Bryant...but again we're not talking about him today.

Lebron is not a receiver...he doesn't need a point guard to get him the ball. He doesn't necessarily need a certain coach to "coach him". Lebron can carry a teams offense, but he's not a Jordan/Kobe master killer of the fourth quarter. You can collapse on him and over work him because his current/former organization along with the nba fraternity want him to be "The King". They expect him to rise above all obstacles like the man is superhuman. What Lebron needs is a real chance to be the director of the ship. He always has the ball in his hand...the Cavaliers pretend to have Mo Williams running the show, but whenever they get in trouble they scrap that idea and we end up watching Lebron pounding the ball into the court trying to create miracles. He doesn't need a miracle....he needs Magic.

Magic Johnson was a 6'9" do it all player...he was just as fast and skilled as any point guard in the league and about as big and strong as any big man in the league. Sound familiar? He won his first NBA Championship sitting in at center for the injured Kareem Abdul Jabbar. He played his greatest ever in those playoffs. It wasn't quiet Magic's team yet until they cut the nonsense and put the ball in his hands. He became the greatest point guard the nba had ever seen. He lead a fast breaking offense they called "Showtime". It was incredible to see such a huge man flying up and down the court delivering passes Bob Cousy had to tip his hat to. They dominated by giving Magic receivers AC Green, Kurt Rambis, Micheal Cooper, Byron Scott, and probably the best finisher ever in James Worthy. He also had Kareem who was able to prolong his career focusing on defense and his sky hook, while being the trailer on some of those fast break opportunities.

Lebron needs targets, he needs receivers. He needs guys that want to get out a run and are just as physically gifted as he is. He needs that James Worthy, Byron Scott, Kareem type of player. He needs those Kurt Rambis, AC Green, Michael Cooper type role player. He needs players that compete and have their own energy and abilities. Lebron James doesn't need to be "King James". He needs to be "Magic 2.0"

Cut and paste this youtube link into your browser:

Lebron IS a point guard. He needs to be officially given that opportunity. His career 7.0 assist average including 8.6 during the 2009/10 season is evidence enough.

The Knicks have the ability to start him on this path...the right path...and buy/trade for all the pieces he needs to be successful. Mike D'antoni is also the perfect motivator and offensive mind to get the guys around Lebron to function in an uptempo offense. Ask Steve Nash.

nixluva wrote:Yeah that's about right. Lebron to me is a hybrid of Magic n Jordan. He's not quite either guy but a great player. We have a coach that can get the most out him. Players that fit around him to catch and shoot/finish.

Magic never averaged much more than 19pts per game in a season. He could have easily averaged 25pts per and better but his job was to make his teamates better. He always came up with baskets in the clutch, cuz truthfully no one could stop him.

Lebron was also the point guard his first year under Paul Silas. Give Lebron legit targets and he would be incredible.

nixluva wrote:Yeah that's about right. Lebron to me is a hybrid of Magic n Jordan. He's not quite either guy but a great player. We have a coach that can get the most out him. Players that fit around him to catch and shoot/finish.

Well put. I totally concur with that. I just hope he realizes that NYC is also the place he wants to get that done.

EnySpree wrote:

Juice wrote:Bill Simmons did a huge write up stating he's more Dr. J.

well the hype I guess with the free agency....and the dunking. Other than that I don't get it.

And last night, LeBron's DNA finally made sense to me. Throw Jordan out. Throw Magic out, too, except for the "controls sections of a game with passing/rebounding" part. Keep Bo. Now, add this guy … Julius Erving.

I will explain.

Doc was one of the 20 best NBA players of all time. (In my book, I ranked him 16th.) Like LeBron, he did things on a basketball court that nobody had ever seen before. Like LeBron, he made the court shrink with a full head of steam. Like LeBron, his peers revered his talents. Like LeBron, he was articulate and thoughtful. Like LeBron, you watched him from afar and thought, "He seems like a good guy." Like LeBron, he was a small forward who rebounded bigger than his size (at least the first few years). Like LeBron, his durability was almost unparalleled. (Doc played in 1,277 of a possible 1,395 games, including seven seasons of 95-plus games). Like LeBron, women and children loved him. Like LeBron, he was extremely savvy about his image (and how to cultivate it). Like LeBron, he was an incredible, once-in-a-generation athlete. Like LeBron, his faulty outside shooting plagued him, so teams laid off him, packed the middle and prayed he would miss 20-footers. And, like LeBron, he was a nice guy.

(Hold that last thought for a second.)

Doc at age 26 (ABA, 1975-76 season, his fifth): 29.3 PPG, 11.0 RPG, 5.0 APG, 50.7% FG.

LeBron at age 25 (this year, his seventh season): 29.7 PPG, 7.3 RPG, 8.6 APG, 50.3% FG.

Doc in the '76 playoffs (13 games): 34.7 PPG, 12.6 RPG, 4.9 APG, 53.3% FG.

LeBron in the '10 playoffs (11 games): 29.1 PPG, 9.3 RPG, 7.6 APG, 50.2% FG.

The big difference: Doc captured two ABA titles (in '74 and '76). LeBron hasn't won anything. Of course, the ABA played right into Doc's wheelhouse: The league didn't have enough big guys, nobody played defense, a school-yard-type game carried the day, and the league was diluted enough that someone as gifted as Doc could run roughshod. When the ABA and NBA merged in the summer of 1976, Doc switched teams (to Philly) and the big question became, "When will Dr. J win an NBA title?"

Now here's where the parallels get interesting. Doc spent the next six seasons falling short as everyone picked him apart. Stuff like, "He's not the same guy that he was in the ABA," "He's too nice, he doesn't have a killer instinct" and "His teammates are letting him down." The '77 Sixers (a selfish team of freelancers) memorably self-combusted in the Finals against Bill Walton's methodical Blazers. When the '78 Bullets shocked Philly in six, not only did Washington's Bobby Dandridge outplay Doc in the series but everyone started calling David Thompson (rather than Doc) the NBA's best ABA import. The '79 Spurs knocked Philly out again, with San Antonio's Larry Kenon playing Doc to a draw. (That March, Sports Illustrated ran a feature called "Hey, What's Up With the Doc?" and wondered whether his best years were behind him.) Once Philly quietly started building a team of unselfish guys around him (Caldwell Jones, Bobby Jones, Mo Cheeks) and found him a second scorer (Andrew Toney), Doc's fortunes changed: Finals appearances in 1980 and 1982, as well as a (dubious, but still) MVP award in 1981. But only when Philly acquired Moses Malone, a true alpha dog and the league's best player at the time, did Doc finally get an NBA ring (in 1983).

Let's go back to those first three Philly seasons: Doc was stuck playing with guys such as George McGinnis (the ultimate ball stopper, owner of the all-time turnover record), World B. Free (gunner), Darryl Dawkins (great athlete, low basketball IQ), Jellybean Bryant (Kobe's dad -- I don't need to say any more) and Doug Collins (another guy who needed shots). He deferred to them way too much. For the '76 Nets, Doc averaged 22.7 shots per game. From '77 through '79: 16.7, 16.4, 18.7. Do you realize what a joke that was? Unfortunately, he was too nice of a guy. Doc allowed everyone else to determine his destiny. When he tried to take over … it never felt right. He was always one of those flow-of-the-game stars. Always. The same quality that made him a wonderful teammate also made him a liability if things were falling apart.

(Sound familiar?)

Doc's Philly teams kept self-combusting at the worst possible times. The '77 Sixers took a 2-0 lead in the Finals, then blew four straight. They lost do-or-die playoff games by two points (1978) and three points (1979). In 1980, everyone remembers Magic (only a rookie) playing five positions, notching a 42-15-7 and improbably winning Los Angeles the title; nobody ever wonders why Philly, playing at home against a team missing the 1980 MVP (Kareem), laid such an unforgivable egg. In 1981, the Sixers blew a 3-1 series lead to Boston in the Eastern Conference finals, losing the last three games by five points total. (And by the way, they led in the final minute of all three games.) By the time Philly blew the 1982 Finals, the consensus on Doc was this: phenomenal player, loved by all, an ambassador for the game, one of the best ever … doesn't quite have it.

Then Moses showed up, Philly finally won a title, and people everywhere forgot they had felt that way.

Uptown wrote:Yo Eny, did you start that "Die Hard Knickfans" facebook page? I see it has 93 members.

nah...i saw that after I made the fan page...my page is the "Diehard knicks blog"...I have about 33 "likes"...

EnySpree wrote:

Juice wrote:Bill Simmons did a huge write up stating he's more Dr. J.

Thanks for posting it Juice....

He basically confirmed his retardation....its a long drawn out article not even explaining the reason he compared lebron to dr. j....

Lebron has never played with the amount of talent Dr. J had as a 76'er. Dr. J wasn't big time ball handler, not did he make his teammates better really...he was a great player but more like Carmelo because he is a reciever....I mean he himself said Dr. J didn't get the touches he should have....Lebron doesn't need touches if he is the point guard....which he essentially is but hasn't really been given that role flat out...only why Mike Brown is lost and needs Lebron to save the Cavs.

Anyway...I wanted to mention what Lebron might need to be successful as a point guard....targets.

Someone said Chandler could be like Sprewell....Spree had huge balls and played with energy and a chip on his shoulder....Chandler plays like he is a narcoleptic. Dude has no pulse. IMHO....Lebron needs a guy that can run the floor just as wild as he does...someone like Iggy of the 76'ers or Richard Jefferson of the Spurs. Both guys can fill the lanes perfectly. I like Iggy better cuz he can handle and pass very well at the 3-2 spots. A sign and trade for Iggy would be awesome. David Lee would be awesome as well if he could be retained but he needs help...maybe Shaq follows Lebron and D'antoni actually finds a way to include him in the offense/defense. If they resign Lee, maybe Mike Miller comes too.

How good would a rotation of Lee, Gallo, Shaq, Lebron, Iggy, Walker, TD, and Mike Miller be???

Bring Back Renaldo Balkman!