sufandu
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A Top 5 Without LeBron? | FOX Sports
LeBron James' long-time rival Paul Pierce left the King off his list of the NBA's greatest. Could that possibly be justified?
www.foxsports.com
I can be ok with his choices, even if I disagree with his decision to leave Lebron out of the top 5. But his reasoning is completely inaccurate.
“It all came from ‘The Last Dance’ Episode 10, and it went back to a clip where Michael Jordan said, ‘I want to build up an organization.’ All of the great players built up their organizations. Kareem, Magic, Kobe and Shaq continued the tradition, Bird continued the tradition of the Boston Celtics, Jordan starting a tradition in Chicago. Tim Duncan – the Spurs weren’t even on the map before Tim Duncan got there, he built up that organization. I go back and ask myself, what has LeBron done to build up an organization from the ground up?”
Some of those guys stepped onto crap teams and turned them around. Others stepped into really good situations.
Magic was drafted onto a team that already had Kareem, who may have been the most dominant player in the league at that point.
Kobe was an almost identical situation with Shaq having just made the move there.
Bird was instrumental in an amazing turn around, but even he was almost immediately surrounded by a couple other future hall of famers.
What he says about Duncan is probably the most inaccurate. David Robinson turned that team around before Duncan arrived, taking a 21 win team and winning 56 his rookie year. They had four 50 and one 60 win seasons in his first 7 years. The year before Duncan was drafted they dropped to 20 wins because Robinson was injured and played only 6 games. Duncan stepped onto a team and got to immediately play beside a future HOF guy still in his prime.
I'm actually a guy that tends to be critical of Lebron because I see places where I thought he could/should have improved his game and essentially chose not to. Having said that, he did more for Cleveland with less help than almost everyone Pierce listed did for theirs.