Kevin Durant has great range, but he is nowhere close to the complete package that LeBron James is. Nowhere near as strong and nowhere near as good of a finisher. Kevin Durant took a pretty talented Thunder team and got them the 8th seed. LeBron got his team the 1 seed and is capable of taking any team to the finals assuming he has the right role players. As I said, there is not one single GM that would take Durant over LeBron….not one.

Durant is nothing more than a better version of T-Mac.

quote:

---

Make no mistake, this is all about Lebron. All of you saying this is some great humanitarian gesture crack me up.

---

Who gives a f***? The man is doing all he can to provide for his kids, his kids' kids, his kids' kids' kids, and his kids' kids' kids' kids. There are far greater problems in the nba than bron bron making a cash grab and hoaring himself out in the press. Rampant drug use, rapings, prominent womanizing, brandishing firearms and threatening teammates, murdering limo drivers, and the list goes on. There is absolutely nothing wrong with what lebron is doing.

Pretty talented and also all with a mean age of around 20-21-years-old. He basically took a good college team and lost in six against the eventual champs.

Also, the Thunder had the same record as the 6th seeded team and were only seven games back from the first-place Lakers.

LeBron has had two talented teams for the past two years. His MVP years. Best record in the league. A willing GM and a Popovich protege for a coach and fizzled out in less-than-spectacular fashion. Two years ago, he pouted off the court like a pre-teen. This year, he mailed it in on national television against an aging Celtics team.

Durant has McGrady's all-world skill set, yes. But it's looking more and more that LeBron has more in common with McGrady than Durant does with his heartless play in recent years.

I'll take McGrady's skill set from his best years (at age 21!) and Kobe's killer instinct over empty triple-doubles every day. With Durant, at least you know he won't quit on you.

Choosing a no-opt-out? In Oklahoma? With that potential. Durant is the anti-LeBron and that's why I would pick him.

Could you imagine Durant with a guy like Wade?

quote:

---

Head Ninja In Charge
posted 9:56a, 07/08/10



Pretty talented and also all with a mean age of around 20-21-years-old. He basically took a good college team and lost in six against the eventual champs.

Also, the Thunder had the same record as the 6th seeded team and were only seven games back from the first-place Lakers.

LeBron has had two talented teams for the past two years. His MVP years. Best record in the league. A willing GM and a Popovich protege for a coach and fizzled out in less-than-spectacular fashion. Two years ago, he pouted off the court like a pre-teen. This year, he mailed it in on national television against an aging Celtics team.

Durant has McGrady's all-world skill set, yes. But it's looking more and more that LeBron has more in common with McGrady than Durant does with his heartless play in recent years.

I'll take McGrady's skill set from his best years (at age 21!) and Kobe's killer instinct over empty triple-doubles every day. With Durant, at least you know he won't quit on you.

Choosing a no-opt-out? In Oklahoma? With that potential. Durant is the anti-LeBron and that's why I would pick him.

---

First of all, having Westbrook and Green playing alongside of you isn't "a good college team." Those are 2 pretty quality players.

As far as the "pouting" is concerned....you say that he doesn't have much concern about winning and then you turn around and say this? Seems to me that if he didn't give a sh-t about winning, he wouldn't have been so upset and would have just shaked the other teams hands collected his millions, and went about his business.

You also bring up the point about Durant leading a team to the playoffs at the age of 21, which is nice and all but LeBron took his team to the NBA Finals at the age of 23. His starting roster was Daniel Gibson, Z Ilgauskas, Sasha Pavlovic, and Drew Gooden. You can't sit there with a straight face and tell me that roster isn't complete garbage and isn't much worse than the guys Durant had around him this year.

Like I said, Durant has outstanding range and is a great shooter, but he doesn't draw the double and triple teams that LeBron does because he doesn't have the complete skill set like LeBron does. He is not getting to the basket and finishing like LeBron does, and that is one area he falls way behind when comparing the two players. Hell, the guy couldn't bench 185 1 time coming into the league.

I certainly don't agree with all of this attention that LeBron is drawing to himself, but your hatred is clouding your judgement about him. There is good reason why there is this much attention surrounding what team he is signing his next contract with, and it certainly is not because he is a worse player than Kevin Durant.

[This message has been edited by David_Puddy (edited 7/8/2010 11:12a).]

To further puddy's point, I'd rather have green or westbrook than any player on the cavs.

LeBron also has the best single game playoff performance of the last decade in that game vs. the Pistons.

I love how quick everyone is to forget that Lebron took a crap team to the finals very early in his career, as well as had that playoff performance vs. Detroit.

Also agree that I'd rather have Westbrook or Green over anyone currently on the Cav's roster.

He played a Wizards team without Butler or Arenas in the first round. The Nets were already a shell of their early-decade selves. The Detroit series was amazing. Then they got swept by the Spurs.

The first two rounds were a cake walk. It might have been the easiest path to the Finals in NBA history.

And of course Westbrook and Green are talented, but no one would have said that at the start of the season. They've matured admirably, but still have a ways to go.

Mo Williams was an All-Star only a year ago. Antawn Jamison was coming off a 22 and 9 season this year.

LeBron taking a team to the Finals is one of the most overrated feats in basketball. How does he "carry" a team of scrubs to the Finals one year and then flame out during his prime with a better supporting cast around him?

Only two explanations:

1. The 2007 Eastern Conference bracket was a joke and his carrying a team to the Finals was severely overrated.

Or.

2. He's lost his desire to win in recent years due to the constant pressure and scrutiny (hence all of this Miami talk).

Either scenario doesn't bode well for him. I'm sticking with my opinion. I'd start a team with Kevin Durant over LeBron James as of today.