66 wins with Mo Williams and Delonte West (who were good just to be clear but obviously not all nba level).

Imagine if he had someone like Chauncey Billups or Brandon Roy. Would have been devastation

Ilgauskas and Mo Williams were the only ones besides Lebron to generate points.

There can’t really be any competition all time in terms of such an insane level of player having as comically little support as he did right? Only one I could think of would be Kareem on some of those 70s bucks squads but even then he had a few all stars, LeBron was on what would have probably been the worst team in the league if they didn’t have him and he took them on multiple deep playoff runs

Just went and looked at that team, Jesus Christ I forgot how bad they were. The ghosts of Wally sczerbiak and Ben Wallace. I wonder how many games that team wins without LeBron that year. 23?

His starters didnt even play bad. Lewis and pietrus just got blistering hot from 3 in the few games cavs last by a point. The guys like pietrus lewis never had any relevance in the nba after this series anyways and went ice cold in the finals. Hedo was also basically a bum outta the league after this series.

I know yall love blaming lebrons teammates but his starters were not bad at all. Hedo pietrus lewis alston all seriously were irrelevant to the nba after this series. Lee as well but he never became anything anyways

You play that series back and id say cavs win at least ⁸⁄₁₀ times. Magic hit some fucked up 3s. And again lewis hedo alston Lee pietrus all peaked here. They became ass in the nba right after this series and had pathetic seasons after

The Magic were also juicing/cheating, so there’s that too lol

Mavs “ruined” it the next year too, then the Thunder. There were basically ³⁄₄ straight years the preseason odds were Kobe/LeBron but it never happened.

LeBron also barely missed out on playing against MJ too.

I feel like for the sake of legacy it might be better Cavs missed those finals, aside from Kobe obviously that Lakers team had an ELITE front court and better depth

I remember Jerry Sloan saying before a series against them that his Jazz team had no chance because of the Lakers front court; may have been reverse psychology but he was right

I wasn’t one of them. I was so happy Orlando beat Cleveland. It actually gave me a team to root for in those finals, even though I knew it was a long shot.

He had plenty to do with it. Don’t blame his teammates.

Cavs would’ve been spanked in the Finals.

His teammates? LeBron had amazing stats in the Orlando series but there were key moments where he failed to score in late game moments which cost his team the game. The final possession of game one he had a chance to win the game with a made basket, had a 1v1 situation, drove to the basket, saw his defender literally fall down in front of him leaving him with an opportunity for an open midrange jump shot but he didn’t even attempt to take it, instead continuing his drive and dishing it to a teammate at the three point line who missed the shot. Bron was hitting on 50%+ of his midrange shots that post season, his teammate was shooting 30% from three. Game four he missed a crucial late game free throw that would have won it for them. Instead of going into game six up 3-1 they instead went in 1-3 down. Game six he was pretty bad, shooting poorly and seeing Dwight drop 40 instead.
Bron fans love to bag Jordan for losing in the first round when he was averaging 43ppg across a series but when we criticise LeBron in 2009 the response is always “but he averaged 38ppg how is it his fault!”. Well it’s because context is always ignored when it doesn’t suit their narratives.

I strongly believe his peak was in Miami but I can’t blame anyone for watching the 09 version and saying this

Yeah. Sometimes just delete the stats and accolades

Just watch basketball

Ignore the ring culture brainrot. Guys like MJ and LeBron had to play way better before they had teammates. MJ was averaging 37 a game or 33/8/8 back when teams were averaging 20 fewer ppg on garbage squads while playing elite defense, somehow remaining efficient during the golden age of centers with two bigs that didn’t leave the key. LeBron in 2007 and 2009 with a similarly garbage team around him was also having to do too much. Their stats fell a bit because they didn’t have to try so hard once they had teams around them. It’s good, because it prolonged their careers and we still got to see that monster come out when they get deep playoff runs. But I get what you mean.

Yeah he was putting up goat level offensive production (including efficiency which is obviously super important) on a cast that wasn’t even built to optimize for that. Makes it that much more insane

I’ll contrast with the 2018 Cavs, who while not having high talent in general, had very good spacing by the time they reached the playoffs and were built for LeBron to be able to get clear lanes to the basket. Basically the opposite of the 09 Cavs

they guarded Bron 1v1 with Hedo/Lewis (mediocre defenders at best, generally below average) and shut down the other 4 guys

those numbers required actual context, the magic were daring him to score all the points, it worked out for them, they beat the favored team convincingly

This is a strange myth that r/nba has perpetrated. The 2009 Cavs were 4th on offense, 3rd on defense.

If by facing the magic you mean the refs were doing everything they could to help LeBron win. 61 free throw attempts in games 3-5 to try and help the Cavs win was diabolical but nobody cares about free throws unless it’s Wade vs the Mavs in 2006

A lot of the Cavs defense in regard to PA can be credited to Lebron controlling the pace of the game on offense.

He could have the ball for 23 seconds of the shot clock and still generate the most optimal look at the hoop for himself or others.

This didn’t allow as many offensive possessions for opponents which is why Cleveland was among league leaders in points allowed.

i feel like 2020 lakers has an argument in there just due to his playmaking abilities.

“Genuinely good defense” undersells a year he was second in DPOY

2018 Bron is the greatest basketball player ever

2011 and 2018

I wonder if LeBron low-key is grateful for what Dwight did for him in 2009.

Eh, the 09 squad was generally well fitting around LeBron’s strengths. Moreso that they just had some key guys who ended up being either playoff droppers or with exploitable weaknesses against a bad matchup in the Magic.

But def not a championship quality cast lead by anyone else in the league

He was good too quickly. Just imagine if they had two more top-5 picks after getting Lebron like Wemby did. Could have had Chris Paul on those teams instead of Mo Williams lol.

‘09 playoffs, 35.3 ppg

I think most would say his FTR is absurdly low given his gamestyle across his career, but especially in that Cavs stint since he was doing a larger portion of his scoring at the rim than in later seasons when he had an consistent midrange/3pt game to complement when the rim was unavailable.

Check LeBron’s playoff free throw rate in the 2008 and 2010 playoffs

Yeah… he had 19.1 FTA per 100.

Neither of those guys actually has a playoff run with higher points per 100 possessions, regardless of however many games they played. The closest is Westbrook averaging 46.9 pts/100 possessions in 5 games in the 2017 playoffs.

This is actually pretty absurd, given how much less ball dominant 2009 LeBron was compared to those guys

lol how is this being overlooked

damn lol

Imo points per 100 means more than ppg. If it’s a fast paced game then obviously more points will be scored but that doesn’t mean anyone played better or helped their team win because they score more

Fun fact: Joel Embid is the all-time leader in points per 100 possessions.

17 years ago at that.

Seems pretty clear it means three series in a single playoff run.

And someone else pointed out that 2020 Donovan Mitchell was at 50, but he played just one series.

facts lol

Tbf this was prime attack the rim LeBron

Lebron if anything always had a bad whistle compared to how frequently he was getting downhill to the rim. That’s why he started flopping so bad by the time he got to Miami.

And Lebron was getting hacked by their wings before even getting to Dwight.

Jordan averaged 47.6 per 100 over 3 games. LeBron did it over 14. Lol

Citing Jordan’s career playoff average is irrelevant to the point made in the post, unless your point is ‘Guys but what about career!’. That’s a separate discussion, not a rebuttal to this post