NBA: I am the god of basketball

Chapter 257 James' current historical status
While the Rockets swept the Spurs 4:1 and entered the finals, the game between the Heat and the Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals has entered a fierce stage.

Although the record in the regular season is lower than that of the Pacers, the Heat with James are obviously the stronger team in the playoffs.

In the first four games, the Heat, like the Rockets, beat the Pacers 3:1. Unlike the Spurs, the Pacers fought back tenaciously in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals, chasing the total score to 2:[-].

The two sides played the sixth game at the Heat's home court.

In this life-and-death battle for the Pacers, Paul George gave his all and scored a game-high 29 points and 8 rebounds. However, the only team that could give him enough help was David Wayne with 16 points. Stuart and Lance Stevenson.

Roy Hibbert, known as the black Yao, who was placed high on the Pacers, performed like an undercover agent. He made 3 of 1 shots and scored 8 points, 3 rebounds and 3 assists with free throws.

On the other hand, for the Heat, James and Bosh both scored 25 points. Although Wade only scored 13 points despite his poor hand, he had 6 rebounds and 6 assists, which helped the team in other ways.

At 117:92, the Heat used a big victory and eliminated the Pacers 4:2 to advance to the finals.

Heat vs. Rockets, this is a drama that has been staged in the league for the past two years. The two teams met in the finals for the third consecutive year. Before that, the two teams each won one game, which was considered a tie.

But if you want to say something different, the Heat took a big advantage at the time. Yao was unable to play because of Perkins' foot injury, and Wang Chao led the single-core team to fight alone against the Big Three and lost to their opponents.

Last year, both teams were strong and healthy. The Rockets added Garnett to form the Big Three configuration, and the Heat also absorbed Ray Allen, Lewis and other good players.

However, as a result of the collision between the two aircraft carriers, the Heat were smashed to pieces like paper.

With a 4:0 sweep, and all four games were slammed with big scores, the Heat had no way to fight back.

There is one thing to say, if the Rockets are still in the same state as last season, there is no suspense in the finals, and the Heat will definitely not be their opponents.

This is also something that Heat fans are extremely grateful for.

Garnett, like Ray Allen on their side, has withdrawn from the team's main lineup as his age has led to a rapid decline in his competitive state.

Dayao suffered an injury at the beginning of the season and had a truce for nearly half a year. He didn't come back until the second round of the playoffs, and he has only played 9 games so far.

In fact, compared to Wang Chao, the Heat are more afraid of Dayao. After all, no matter how strong Wang Chao is, at least he is a player in the same position as James. With James, Battier and others teaming up together, Wang Chao's performance can be curbed a little bit. Even if it is an extreme way of blocking the passing path of other Rockets players by double-teaming.

But Dayao is different. As long as Dayao reaches the basket, the Heat have nothing to do. They have no players inside who can stop Dayao. This is why the Heat almost frantically signed inside players after their disastrous defeat last summer.

But what can you expect from the inside players who are signed only by the veteran's basic salary?
None of the several centers signed by the Heat can be relied on. As a result, Bosh can only be used as the team's center, playing a more mobile small-ball lineup.

This lineup is really useful in today's era of lack of high-quality inside centers, but in the finals, they met the Rockets with Dayao...

Now, the Heat and their fans can only pray that Dayao is still seriously affected by injuries before the finals. There is no chance of winning.

But obviously, their expectations were still in vain.

On June 6, the first game of the Finals was played at the home court of the Rockets.

Yao is impressively on the Rockets' starting list, but unlike the first game of the Western Conference Finals, Garnett was not on the starting list, which is enough to prove that the Rockets are serious.

Wang Chao, Butler, Leonard, Chandler Parsons, Dayao, these are the Rockets' starting five.

The starting lineup for the Heat is Mario Chalmers, Wade, James, Rashad Lewis and Bosh.

Lewis was originally a substitute for the Heat, but in the playoffs, Lewis's performance is remarkable, especially the 37% shooting rate from the three-point line is second only to James and Ray Allen, considering his 2 meters 08 His height can completely appear in the power forward position, so Lewis has been mentioned in the starting list since the Eastern Conference Finals.

Just from the starting lineups of the two sides, a huge gap has already been seen.

The Rockets' lineup is stronger than the Heat's in terms of height and overall overall strength.

If the Heat want to compete with the Rockets, the Big Three must all play a role.

But this is not realistic, because this season, the Heat are almost entirely supported by James. The other two giants, Bosh has always been the one who is responsible for the blame. He averaged only 16.2 points and 6.6 rebounds per game in the regular season, and the data is not as good as Leonard of the Rockets. awesome.

However, Wade was plagued by injuries, his explosive power continued to decrease, and his scoring ability was also affected. His average data per game has dropped to 19 points, 4 rebounds and 4.6 assists.

This score is the lowest value since Wade's rookie season. Except for the first season when he joined the league, Wade averaged 16 points per game. In the following seasons, he has never averaged less than 20+ points per game. Nine seasons!
After entering the playoffs, Wade's performance has also continued to decline, averaging only 17.2 points before the finals.

The so-called Big Three of the Heat actually exist in name only at this time, neither Wade nor Bosh has the strength of a top star.

Wang Chao reckoned that at this time, James might be ready to run away after losing the finals. After all, it seems that this Heat team no longer has the strength to compete for the championship.

As a free agent whose contract has expired, there is nothing wrong with such an approach. After all, there is no reason in this world that if you work here, you will be a cow and a horse for a lifetime.

James also brought a championship to the Heat, and he doesn't owe them much. The only thing he owes is probably his good brother Wade.

And James' behavior of running away when he can't beat it does seem to have a little price drop. After all, when Jordan was beaten by the Pistons every year in the early days of the Bulls, he never thought about running away.

But this is only an evaluation of a player's personality and choices, and will not really affect the evaluation of a player's historical status.

After all, this kind of thing cannot be judged by double standards. The behavior of carrying a bucket and running away is also done by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who is usually recognized by the league as the second player in history. Chamberlain, who was struggling for a championship to no avail, chose to switch to the Lakers, and joined Jerry West and Elgin Baylor, two of the league's top superstars, to form the Big Three to compete for the championship.

At that time, the ages of the three were 32, 30 and 34 respectively. Although they were a bit older, they were still in their prime. At least in the first and second years of formation, the personal abilities of the three They are still outstanding, and it is the only team in the league where three players can average 20+ points per game at the same time.

It's a pity that this pair of the first Big Three combination in NBA history failed to win the championship as they wished. Chamberlain's first championship with the Lakers happened to be won in the season when Elgin Baylor retired.

The Lakers symbolically awarded Baylor a championship ring after winning the championship, but strictly speaking he still did not win the championship.

Having said so much, of course, it is not to prove that James’s behavior of running away with a bucket is correct, but it is a bit unfair to treat James with a double standard after all. Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, O’Neal and other top ten superstars in history There are similar situations, but they are rarely mentioned, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's 41 wins and 41 losses. It is not appropriate that the MVP who has not even made the playoffs can be used as the basis for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to be stronger than James.

Leaving aside these factors, just looking at the honors James has won is indeed enough for him to be in the top ten or even the top three in history.

Of course, this is limited to James in the original history.

In this time and space where Wang Chao was born... James' current honors can be ranked among the top [-] in history.

Now James, the trophies on the honor book are as follows:

Regular season MVPX1, championship X1, finals FMVPX1, scoring champion X1, a few defenses for one team... and then it was gone.

This honor is really quite barren, especially compared with James at the same time in history, there are three less regular season MVPs, one less championship and one FMVP, and all of these are thanks to Wang Chao.

The existence of Wang Chao has solved the possibility of the Jamie and Zhan Hei groups scolding each other on the Internet in advance.

No one is going to discuss the historical status of a player who is ranked twenty or so in history.

If James can't win the second championship or the second regular season MVP, his historical status is even lower than that of Durant later, and naturally there will not be so much discussion.

And now, what Wang Chao has to do is to smash James' dream of winning the second championship with the Heat.

As soon as the game started, the Rockets immediately followed the style of play of last season and frequently passed the ball to Dayao inside.

Yao could easily score against Howard and Duncan in the Western Conference Finals, let alone Bosh?

As long as he can receive the ball in the penalty area, for Dayao, there are only two options to score a field goal or score a free throw.

In the first quarter, the Rockets established a double-digit lead around Dayao, and continued to play steadily in the second quarter, extending the lead to more than 20 points.

In fact, the strength of the Heat in the 13-14 season is obvious to all.

In the finals against Leonard's version of the Spurs, they were swept by Gentleman 4:1, with no resistance.

The Rockets led by Wang Chao must be stronger than the Spurs. Not to mention the presence of Yao on the court, even without Yao, with the super five front lineup, Wang Chao is sure to beat the Heat to win the championship.

(End of this chapter)