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He's just jealous
He's just jealous
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy.
Stfu.
Seems to me they are all jealous that LeBron's Heat are going to be one of the greatest teams everBlindly hating a man who willingly chooses to
1) share the spotlight
2) take less money
3) sacrifice personal glory and stats for championships
ing re s
I'm not one to defend LeBron James too much, but I will to some extent here.
The difference with LeBron is that while he's joining another premier player, it's not like he's joining Kobe and the Lakers who just won a le or the Celtics who just won a couple years ago. He's joining a great player in Wade but a team that has been mediocre at best the last couple seasons and even missed the playoffs a couple years ago.
Also, he was never a rival of Dwyane Wade really, not as much as he was a rival of Carmelo. LeBron and Wade have pretty much always been close friends since they were drafted. Magic and Michael and Larry might be friendly now, but they were never friendly off the court (at least that I know of) to the extent that LeBron and Wade have been. You add the fact that Magic and Michael and Larry became closer friends with their Olympic experience as well, but that happened at the tail end of the careers of Magic and Bird. For LeBron and Wade, that happened after the fifth year of their NBA careers.
I agree for the most part with Magic and Michael criticizing LeBron, but I also think that the two of them using themselves as an example doesn't quite apply because of different cir stances.
you think lebron gives a what magic johnson has to say
lol seriously?
He didn't "think about it" because he was on the most ing stacked team ever.
What's next Kobe Bryant saying he didn't "think about" joining Allen Iverson in 2001? Give me a break
Eh, Magic, Michael, and Larry were icons...but this is getting a little too much.
Hard to take what Magic and friends say seriously especially since they also are still working for teams in the NBA:
TrueHoop reader Mike, however, takes special exception to the idea that Johnson would stick with a mediocre roster over playing with superstars. He e-mails:
As much as I admire and respect these players, it becomes hard to take them seriously when none of them had situations comparable to LeBron, and all of the them got to play with other great, Top-50 All-Time players. The quest to play with other elite talent is basically universal amongst stars, be it Wilt going to join Hal Greer and later Jerry West and Elgin Baylor or all the way up to Kobe openly flirting with the Bulls and Clippers and threatening trade demands until the Lakers acquired Pau Gasol.
The fact that LeBron simply exercised his rights as a free agent to leave Cleveland to do what countless other players have done, rather than demand trades or refuse to play for the team that drafted him, should not be held against him.
I'm not even a fan of LeBron, but at this point I think he's getting dumped on pretty unfairly.
And in the case of Magic Johnson, Mike has done his homework. He found a Mike Downey L.A. Times article from 1991:
Magic Johnson would have returned to Michigan State rather than play for the Chicago Bulls.
"I'd have stayed in school," he said here Tuesday, standing alone outside Gate 3 1/2 of Chicago Stadium, the house that could have been his. "A coin toss changed the course of my whole life." Chicago called heads in a 1979 coin flip with Los Angeles for the No. 1 pick in the NBA college draft. It came up tails.
Johnson signed with the Lakers after his sop re year of college and proceeded to win five championships. The Bulls picked second, took UCLA's David Greenwood and have won no championships.
"I wouldn't have played here," Johnson said on the eve of Game 2 of the NBA finals between his team and the team that could have been his. "The only reason I came out was to play with Kareem and the Lakers."
Then Mike gets to comparing the Lakers who played with Johnson in his first seven years to the Cavaliers who played with James over the same period. Johnson's teammates, in aggregate, had:
- Two first team All-Rookie selections (Byron Scott, James Worthy)
- 11 All-Star appearances (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar seven times, Norm Nixon twice, Worthy, Jamaal Wilkes)
- Four All-NBA first team selections (Abdul-Jabbar)
- Two All-NBA second team selections (Abdul-Jabbar)
- Five All-Defensive first team selections (Michael Cooper three times, Abdul-Jabbar twice)
- Four All-Defensive second team selections (Cooper three times, Abdul-Jabbar once)
- One MVP Award (Abdul-Jabbar)
- In addition, Abdul-Jabbar, Worthy, Wilkes, Nixon, and Cooper all got votes for MVP at one point in time or the other during Magic's first seven years, and Cooper won defensive player of the year in Johnson's eighth year.
Mike does a similar analysis on James' Cavs' rosters:
- Zero first team All-Rookie Selections
- Two All-Star game appearances (Mo Williams, Zydrunas llgauskas)
- Zero All-NBA first team selection
- Zero All-NBA second team selections
- Zero All-Defensive first team selections
- One All-Defensive second team selection (Anderson Vareajo)
- Zero MVP Awards
Mike adds, in conclusion:
In order to have a situation even comparable to Magic's, LeBron would have needed to be drafted onto, say, Tim Duncan's team (to parallel Abdul-Jabbar), played the last six years with a prime Bruce Bowen (to parallel Michael Cooper), and had the Cavs draft Danny Granger in his third year (as a parallel to Worthy), and that's ignoring guys like Scott/Wilkes/McAdoo etc.
I mean, let's be real, if LeBron had been in a situation like that does anyone doubt that he would have stayed? That he would already have multiple les and that we'd be talking about his place amongst the top 10-15 players of all-time instead of dumping on his compe ive fire? Magic had it easy, which make his comments seem absolutely ridiculous.
I'll acknowledge there's a chicken and egg thing here. I can hear the argument now: If James had been a better leader, then the Cavaliers would have won more les which would have earned his teammates more accolades. Even leaving aside entirely the reality that James has been about as productive as any player in NBA history, let's concede that point, and merely say: It's still not even close.
In fact, there's a debate to be had about whether James' current SuperFriends team in Miami is as good as the one Johnson played for. Is Dwyane Wade more valuable than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar? It's an insane question without a real answer, but I think we can agree there are strong cases to be made on both sides of the equation, and though Wade has a much better PER (around 30 last season) Abdul-Jabbar's was still insanely high in the mid-20s through Johnson's first seven seasons, and Abdul-Jabbar almost never missed a game.
What it really comes down to is that Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson can say they wouldn't have stooped to seeking out teammates as good as Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. But bear in mind they also never had to confront the reality of seven years with the kinds of rosters James played on in Cleveland.
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/pos...-teammates-too
I loved hearing Bird say the same too. Why in the would he leave when he had ing McHale, Parish, and Walton, not to mention a great backcourt with Dennis Johnson and Ainge?
I don't get the bags lately that are acting as if Magic and these other guys that are still active parts of current NBA franchises are unbiased and aren't influenced at all by their current roles in the league. Magic can stfu, he was a part of the Showtime Lakers for s sake, of course he didn't want to join another team.
I'm impressed this guy's still alive...HIV my ass.
Looks like we were all posting the same at the same time
Double, actin' the ass again.
yeah, this is stupid of Magic to say. He only had the 2nd best player in NBA history at his side.
Goddamn!! This is still an issue?!? I'm getting a little tired of the "hypocrisy" coming from the legends.
Why the would Magic leave the Lakers with all the talent surrounding him. This is getting ridiculous
Wow, Cane owned this ty thread.
ing sad hypocritical players.And in the case of Magic Johnson, Mike has done his homework. He found a Mike Downey L.A. Times article from 1991:
Magic Johnson would have returned to Michigan State rather than play for the Chicago Bulls.
"I'd have stayed in school," he said here Tuesday, standing alone outside Gate 3 1/2 of Chicago Stadium, the house that could have been his. "A coin toss changed the course of my whole life." Chicago called heads in a 1979 coin flip with Los Angeles for the No. 1 pick in the NBA college draft. It came up tails.
Johnson signed with the Lakers after his sop re year of college and proceeded to win five championships. The Bulls picked second, took UCLA's David Greenwood and have won no championships.
"I wouldn't have played here," Johnson said on the eve of Game 2 of the NBA finals between his team and the team that could have been his. "The only reason I came out was to play with Kareem and the Lakers."
i'm going to LOVE when someone points out that exact quote to Magic's face.
he's gonna stutter and .
According to the do entary with Magic and Bird "A Courtship of Rivals" they became friends during a converse commercial... the one where Bird is shooting hoops in his farm and Magic comes speeding in with a Limo
LOL nice find MH.
I think this is just the point of LeBrons life that he has to go through when he's being hated on by his hometown, other nba players, some rappers, legends, Delonte etc. Except for his best friends and now his friends are going to help him to get out of this situation by winning a championship and not one but multiple and when it will be all said and done LeBron will be better than the legends because he sacraficed money for a championship.
This just in, Charles Barkley comments on LeBron leaving. He says there's no way he would've left the Dream Team to play with Toni Kukoc for Croatia
BS lakaluva
Even if LeBron wins only one championship he will still be considered a legend. And your looking at it the wrong way LeBron would've never left his team if his GM would've surrounded his team with the talent similar to what Kobe has and Magic, Jordan, and Bird had. He left because he has good talent during regular season and when the playoffs arrive they all disappear and he gets all the blame for having a bad a game. While when Kobe shoots 6-24 and his team still wins.
Hating on Lebron is the best trend of this summer. Better than any summer fashion collection that those designers will come up with.
King, gettin' his settle on.
tee, hee.
wrong ......lebron is leaving to join other superstars....bird...MJ and magic had talent around them that wasn't considered superstars until they won they stuck together then became stars ....these players are already stars he's joining this isn't worthy of comparison...anyway!!!!
is getting old as I stated b4 it's everyone who called lebron king or assumed he was the next best thing are the ones more discouraged cause he failed yall hopes and expectations.
it's not jealously.
Everyone who thought he was the next coming without winning that's what it is
Next will be jerry west coming out talkin mad !!! not our fault u lacked intelligence and good judgment saying kobe past lebron was senseless!!!
lebron past kobe i meant dayum typing on an iphone .... !!!
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