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LeBron: "We hated Clevelanders growing up"

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This seemed like a good place for this.
 
LeBron gets rightfully hit for not working on his game during the summer. Seven years into the league and still no post-game. Seven years and still no idea how to play off the ball.

But Dwight Howard is on a whole different level. The guy is going into his seventh season and still doesn't have a single, go-to post move. Never mind a decent mid-range game. Can you imagine Howard with one good post move and a 15 foot jumper that teams at least had to respect?

Howard should have been with the USA team this year, working on his game and learning to demand the ball in crunch time.
 
-Akronite- said:
To bring CLE a title would be to go against all the odds and change history like few in sports ever have. He passed up that chance to get easy rings in Miami (at least he thinks they'll be easy). And to do all that in the classless disgrace of a fashion he did burnt his image down, not just here in Ohio, but across the nation. He has entire city's worth of scorned fans waiting for his blood come the NBA season.

That's not the story was supposed to go. He went from hero to villain, doesn't he understand? You can't be a true Cavs fan unless you hate L*****. But I think us REALCAVSFANS were almost all REALLEBRONFANS. He's the one who changed, we just reacted. For him to call out the fans for being two-faced in support of him is beyond reason.
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I'm sure LeBron realized how much winning a title for the Cavs would have meant to the area and to his career, but a team with a superstar and no secondary stars has a tough hill to climb due to the way the lottery works, and the salary cap. When he was drafted, I think most would have agreed that 7 years would be a reasonable commitment from him and enough time for the Cavs to build a champion.

As for him calling out people for being two-faced, like I've said, I completely understand it. People who've truly got your back, got your back. They give you the benefit of the doubt. They make sure they understand what really went on before they attack you. People felt a deep connection to what LeBron could do for them, win for them, earn for them, etc, and no matter what he did there was going to be a feeling of betrayal when he cut them off.

He's completely botched the divorce. He's done nothing to help anyone from Cleveland understand why he's done this. He didn't even try to let anyone down easy. He concerned himself with moving forward without realizing the destruction he would leave in his wake.

But the Cavs were always on the clock, and 7 years was a fair shot to build a champion.

Hating LeBron doesn't make you a "true fan" ... it just means you let someone in to your heart who never belonged there.
 
JonFromVA said:
Unfortunately when it comes to Cleveland teams they always let you down every time as well. The best way to survive as a Cleveland fan is to eliminate expectations for both players and teams.

It would be easy to go all gloom and doom like cmstophe, but that's hardly productive nor fun.

My formula is high hopes but no expectations.
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I'm the same way Jon...I'm always cautiously optimistic. Being that most of my sports fandom happened in the free-agency era, I know that clinging to players will most often get you burnt because they leave in most cases (in Cleveland that is).
 
InBoobieWeTrust said:
The team will bounce back, maybe not right away, but it's not the death of the franchise or anything like that.

Just going through another phase of sports that plenty of franchises go through.
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I am sure they will be back eventually. No team stays bad forever. What you said is basically what I meant: we are screwed...albeit, for the foreseeable future. Nothing is eternal. The Indians have sucked for 3 years, and in another year or two will be good again for a few years (hopefully not just one). The Browns have sucked for a long, long time, and could finally be getting better. Unfortunately for basketball fans in Cleveland like you and me, the Cavs are just now entering a part of the cycle that really blows, and it could be a long one.
 
camakazee said:
Wow... didn't even realize so few people were on right now.

To be honest, I expect it to be at its worst after this upcoming season. Not only is there the possibility of a lockout, which will turn away everyone but the die-hard fans, but you're seeing a lot of fans cling to the team right now because of the betrayal they felt on July 8th. They want to see the team dismantle LeBron's giant ego this season. But of course, win or lose, after that feeling of revenge has passed for those that aren't true Cavs fans, they'll likely go back to ignoring the team for the most part. A lockout would only exacerbate this problem, putting empty space in between the first season without LeBron and the games following.
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The lockout would be brutal- but it might get things done. I'm a fan of the sport so I will remain that, whether there is a lockout or not. I never understood people who stopped being baseball fans because the league didn't play one fucking season. Ridiculous.
 
Xeal said:
Lebron is.....a strange person.

Honestly, I've very rarely met or knew of someone whose thought process and paradigms seem (I emphasize SEEMS, because I don't really know him) so completely foreign and strange.
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He's not just strange - he's stupid. Anyone who thinks that Cleveland teams don't represent NE Ohio is genuinely moronic. If that were true, then Gilbert only had to change the name of the Cavaliers from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Ohio Cavaliers, to make explicit what is pretty obviously implicit. LeTurd also needs educated in the definition of a metropolitan area, or more precisely, a Combined Statistical Area - the Cleveland-Akron-Elyria Combined Statistical Area, in particular. People from NE Ohio are cut from one cloth.
 
KilgoreTrout said:
Anyone who thinks that Cleveland teams don't represent NE Ohio is genuinely moronic.
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They do when the teams are actually good and worth watching, that's why the Cavs were busy trying to stretch their market out to Pittsburgh when the team was good.

When Cleveland teams are bad you'll see fans in the nearby areas start switching their allegiance to Cincinnati or even Pittsburgh.

NY, Dallas, and Chicago?

That's unconscionable.
 
The way lebron handled his free agency is indefensible. His actions and behavior were opposite of who has claimed to be throughout his career. It's been said many many times, but if he would have handled the process with more class and professionalism and treated the organization and fan base with respect, than the anger would be less now than what it is. He's not at all the person or player he claimed to be or the one we thought him to be.

He can look in the mirror for some of the blame for not winning a championship. Under the circumstances they inherited and also had to operate under the Cavs organization did all they could to pursue a title. It doesn't make it any easier when the supposed franchise player refuses to make a commitment and doesn't try to recruit talent to join him.


lebron is a con man and it's long past the point where anyone should continue to fall for the con and defend his actions and behavior.
 
InBoobieWeTrust said:
You're really selling Shaq short here. He's always had a good array of moves, drop-steps, spinning into a beautiful right hook, and a few up and unders which I've honestly never seen Dwight Howard execute, like, not even once.
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He doesn't use those moves consistently but it's partly because 1) he never gets the ball enough (his usage rating this year was pitiful), and 2) for the short amount of times he does get the ball, he'll use his usual running hook or scoops.

Games where he has the ball more in a better rhythm, he'll bust out more moves. The first game against the Lakers was a great example of it, except that he had nearly 20 points in the 1st half then the team stopped giving him the ball. All of that and the fact that he gets fouled much more frequently than Shaq did then, and wrapping Howard when he's at around 5 feet is almost a must, whereas there was a lot less of that back then (and comparing Shaq to Howard, they both averaged nearly the same amount of FTA while Shaq's USG% was FAR higher).

Howard's shortcomings offensively are mental and partly due to the team he's playing for. If he was on a team that didn't have 3 other volume shooters, he'd be getting a lot more shots and consequently a lot more points. While he probably wouldn't be shooting the 60% he shot this year, I'd still expect it to be a very high percentage, as checking out his game log this year, games where his USG% was high, so was his TS% and eFG%.


I think the biggest jock on his post game is because of how ugly it looks, but let's face it, a guy who's shorter than Chris Bosh with shoulders bigger than a human face and wingspan nearly 3 inches bigger than your average 6'9/6'10 nba player, it's bound to look incredible awkward.


Howard's post game ranked 19th in points per possession with players who posted up at least 350 times, according to Synergy, which is more efficient than a list of players that includes O'Neal, Carlos Boozer, Andrew Bogut, and Chris Kaman. And only 7 players' post-ups produced scores more often.






Obviously, I'm not saying he could be as good, but read it in context. The rule changes would most likely make Howard as dominant as Shaq was back then, but in TODAY's league. Those rule changes would ensure that Howard was the most physically gifted center on the court every night and it wouldn't hinder him for being able to use his full strength in the post, which sadly is what those rules do to centers today. Not to mention how much less often he'd be in foul trouble.
 
ButterMPancakes said:
He doesn't use those moves consistently but it's partly because 1) he never gets the ball enough (his usage rating this year was pitiful), and 2) for the short amount of times he does get the ball, he'll use his usual running hook or scoops.

Games where he has the ball more in a better rhythm, he'll bust out more moves. The first game against the Lakers was a great example of it, except that he had nearly 20 points in the 1st half then the team stopped giving him the ball. All of that and the fact that he gets fouled much more frequently than Shaq did then, and wrapping Howard when he's at around 5 feet is almost a must, whereas there was a lot less of that back then (and comparing Shaq to Howard, they both averaged nearly the same amount of FTA while Shaq's USG% was FAR higher).

Howard's shortcomings offensively are mental and partly due to the team he's playing for. If he was on a team that didn't have 3 other volume shooters, he'd be getting a lot more shots and consequently a lot more points. While he probably wouldn't be shooting the 60% he shot this year, I'd still expect it to be a very high percentage, as checking out his game log this year, games where his USG% was high, so was his TS% and eFG%.


I think the biggest jock on his post game is because of how ugly it looks, but let's face it, a guy who's shorter than Chris Bosh with shoulders bigger than a human face and wingspan nearly 3 inches bigger than your average 6'9/6'10 nba player, it's bound to look incredible awkward.


Howard's post game ranked 19th in points per possession with players who posted up at least 350 times, according to Synergy, which is more efficient than a list of players that includes O'Neal, Carlos Boozer, Andrew Bogut, and Chris Kaman. And only 7 players' post-ups produced scores more often.






Obviously, I'm not saying he could be as good, but read it in context. The rule changes would most likely make Howard as dominant as Shaq was back then, but in TODAY's league. Those rule changes would ensure that Howard was the most physically gifted center on the court every night and it wouldn't hinder him for being able to use his full strength in the post, which sadly is what those rules do to centers today. Not to mention how much less often he'd be in foul trouble.
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Howard doesn't have the mentality or touch around the rim to consistently put up the kind of offensive numbers Shaq did regardless of the rules.

You can harp about his USG% all you want, but dude has to demand the ball more. With higher USG generally comes lower efficiency numbers as well so I would be careful before extrapolating it as fact.
 
JonFromVA said:
I'm sure LeBron realized how much winning a title for the Cavs would have meant to the area and to his career, but a team with a superstar and no secondary stars has a tough hill to climb due to the way the lottery works, and the salary cap. When he was drafted, I think most would have agreed that 7 years would be a reasonable commitment from him and enough time for the Cavs to build a champion.

As for him calling out people for being two-faced, like I've said, I completely understand it. People who've truly got your back, got your back. They give you the benefit of the doubt. They make sure they understand what really went on before they attack you. People felt a deep connection to what LeBron could do for them, win for them, earn for them, etc, and no matter what he did there was going to be a feeling of betrayal when he cut them off.

He's completely botched the divorce. He's done nothing to help anyone from Cleveland understand why he's done this. He didn't even try to let anyone down easy. He concerned himself with moving forward without realizing the destruction he would leave in his wake.

But the Cavs were always on the clock, and 7 years was a fair shot to build a champion.

Hating LeBron doesn't make you a "true fan" ... it just means you let someone in to your heart who never belonged there.
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I am pulling your Cleveland Card.. From here on out you have no right to rep the city of Cleveland... Where ever you reside these days make it a point that is your home because obviously you are way out of touch with the City of Cleveland and everyone that lives there or were raised in Cleveland...

Do yourself a favor and become a U of V Cavalier fan, you obviously have no business being a Cleveland Cavalier fan... Please stop... You lost you Cleveland Card...
 
InBoobieWeTrust said:
Howard doesn't have the mentality or touch around the rim to consistently put up the kind of offensive numbers Shaq did regardless of the rules.

You can harp about his USG% all you want, but dude has to demand the ball more. With higher USG generally comes lower efficiency numbers as well so I would be careful before extrapolating it as fact.
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The league average TS% was 54.4%, I crossed out all of the games where his TS% was below the league average for the center position (55.7%)

howardusage.jpg



Out of the 41 games I showed (all above his season average USG%), Howard shot below the league TS% for centers 10 times, 7 of those times still being above the league average TS%.



It's not crazy to think that the main reason Howard doesn't score so many points is because he's on a team full of volume shooters, just like it wasn't crazy when Ray Allen suffered a nine point PPG decrease when he joined the Celtics (-3.6 points for Kevin Garnett and -5.4 points for Pierce).
 
ButterMPancakes said:
The league average TS% was 54.4%, I crossed out all of the games where his TS% was below the league average for the center position (55.7%)

howardusage.jpg



Out of the 41 games I showed (all above his season average USG%), Howard shot below the league TS% for centers 10 times, 7 of those times still being above the league average TS%.



It's not crazy to think that the main reason Howard doesn't score so many points is because he's on a team full of volume shooters, just like it wasn't crazy when Ray Allen suffered a nine point PPG decrease when he joined the Celtics (-3.6 points for Kevin Garnett and -5.4 points for Pierce).
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You just wasted your time to gather a bunch of evidence that does nothing to further prove your case.

It's no secret that Howard's efficiency is at a high level and his volume is at a low level, there is no reason to think that if his volume went up that his efficiency would stay the same. If Howards volume were to go up, it would be a result of him attempting more shots in isolation situations and post moves rather than achieving the unreal TS% he gets from the easy buckets.

Your stance is that he could dominate the league like Shaq, but you're simply wrong in that regard. One of the reasons Shaq was such a force was because that if you needed a bucket, if you needed points, you could give Big Fella the ball and let him go to the work. The same has not held true for Dwight Howard and it's been blatantly evident in watching him struggle mightily against guys that Prime Shaq would have dropped 40 on without sweating(okay, maybe not without sweating :chuckles:...doesn't take much for Shaq to sweat :chuckles:)

Dwight Howard reminds me a lot of Alonzo Mourning, except he doesn't have to go up against prime Shaq, Hakeem, Ewing, David Robinson, and so on and so forth which makes him the best Center in the league by default. It's a disservice to Shaq and how great he was to try and blame Dwight Howard's lack of Shaq-esque numbers and production on a few rules and Rashard Lewis.
 
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Noonan said:
LeBron gets rightfully hit for not working on his game during the summer. Seven years into the league and still no post-game. Seven years and still no idea how to play off the ball.
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I think this is the first summer Lebron has had off in seven years. Hard to work on your game when you are repping USA every summer. But even so I think his jumper has improved by legues what it was when he came into the league. Will be interesting to see what he does with his summer off, beyond piss people off on twitter.
 
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