LeBron, Bosh, Wade Take Less Money

let’s sign dennis rodman and make this circus official

Damn bill you killing me with your moronic talk. Kareem is in no one’s top five? What more does Kareem have to accomplish for him to get more love. He has done more than anybody in history has even the great MJ would look at kareem numbers and say damn. Why are clowns like you so quick to gas up MJ as the so-called greatest, kobe as even anywhere near the greatest but downplay what that captain did for two decades. There is no one SINGLE GREATEST player, never have never will be. U want stats, kareeem got em, rings, got em too, awards, that too. Also moses was a straight beast don’t forget that. A automatic top-5 center in league history which says alot. Maybe your true papi (the black serpent) can tell u that.

I love the Cap and all, but who gives him the respect that goes to Russell and the likes. He may be alltime scorer with a bunch of rings, still an unfortunate fact that he isn’t in the GOAT conversation. He should be but he ain’t. Sad fact of life.

@Jukai… Way to plagiarize Scoop Jackson word for word @ 12:19

LeBron James and Dwayne Wade can be entered into the discussions of MJ/Bulls lore and considered as great a duo as Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen ….ONLY after 6 championships. Cut the hate.

To BE the best you have to BEAT the best.

if they were really about this championship ring stuff, they’d each take 80 mil and use the rest to beef up the roster…..just saying. #gohardorgohome

I suppose you can compare the situation at the Heat to that of the Celtics a couple of years ago. I vividly remember reading that the Celtics would win 3 or 4 chips, but they didn’t did they? So unless they get a solid PG who ISN’T Mario Chalmers I refuse to believe the hype. (I’m a Lakers fan by the way)

Just want to say Jukai’s full of it. Kareem didn’t leave LA to play with Magic, Kareem was already there when Magic was a rookie. Magic was huge in the chip clinching game in his first year. LBJ is no Magic. And Magic, Bird, Isiah Thomas played in a great era where there were no big 3′s. Each young star had their own team. Magic was picked up by a vet team and Boston built quickly around Bird. Bosh, DWade and LBJ have chosen to team up in their primes. This could mark a new era in NBA. And if it works and works quickly, it could change the league and what owners will have to do to win is follow suit. But I highly doubt it. There aren’t enough superstars for the league to be competitive if this became the norm. There’d be like 4 teams with big 3′s. And what would u do with the rest of the country’s teams? lol

After reading many of the comments placed, here’s what I think:

1. No player coming through the league should be compared to another. Each player is his own. Rate him by his merits. Look at Robert Horry? 7 rings? Don’t need to be a superstar, and he’s had enough finals performances to put him amongst greats with what he’s won.

2. Cleveland created the monster called LeBron that escaped them, like in Frankenstein. Would Cleveland have picked LeBron as the number one pick if he wasn’t from Ohio? I think they would of went with a NCAA Champion named Carmelo Anthony. However, they drafted him, fed him and gave him everything, and when he learnt to ask for more and saw they still kept giving it created who he is. The media added it’s sauce on top too. In the end he’s become selfish and wants that ring that they kept pressuring him to win for them. Now he’s doing it for himself, with friends. Joining a friend who won a ring already and wanted to win more or leave himself.

3. Loyalty? That’s Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Reggie Miller, Malone and Stockton, and Tim Duncan to name a few. All their lives with one team or for most of it, only to chase that ring when they knew they couldnt give anymore to that franchise, and the franchise blessed those few that moved (Garnett) to go and chase it. Some won it, some didn’t. LeBron isn’t that anymore, but Wade still is. It doesn’t mean though that loyalty falls as a form of measurement on what a player will achieve in their career. Keep it seperate.

4. Taking a pay cut? They all earn millions and will continue to do so. Sacrifcing would be to take way less, for better talent. But if they do that, then will they get the recognition as the Superstars they are, or will they say your bench players were better than most of the other NBA bench rosters? The key point is to be smart with whatever money they get paid, because how many athletes become broke. This is no sacrifice. I call it a budget cut. An organisation has asked them to save money to achieve the goal they all seek.

5. Let’s look at teams with dynasties… Chicago’s first 3peat (Jordan, Pippen, Grant), Chicago’s 2nd 3peat (Jordan, Pippen, Rodman/Harper), Boston 80′s (Bird, McHale, Parish, Johnson, etc), Lakers’ 80′s (Magic, Jabbar, Worthy, Scott, etc), Boston’s Big 3(Pierce, Garnett, Allen), Detroit (Thomas, Dumars, Laimbeer), Spurs (Duncan, Parker, Ginobli), Lakers Present (Kobe, Gasol, Fisher, Odom). ALL have AT LEAST 3 go to guys, with good supporting casts. Now Miami did the same thing… Wade, James, and Bosh.

LOVE THE GAME. IT’S WHERE AMAZING HAPPENS.

I don’t care how much money you make, $15mil is a lot to give up. For these guys (mainly Bron/Wade) to take less money and ‘credit’ in order to win championships, I applaud them. I don’t like they way they did it with Bron having a prime-time press conference and not talking to his former team earlier, and Wade/Bosh having camera crews with them for a future doccumentary. But these guys want to win and put themseleves in position to do so. In no way does this effect my opinion of LBJ being the greatest ever or not – we’ll have to wait and see what his stats look like when it’s all said and done. Judging what’s in somebody’s heart or thier ‘will to win’ is just ridiculous to me. MJ, Magic, Bird, Russel, Oscar etc were all great players who can be considered as the greatest ever (along with LBJ and Kobe someday). Who had the biggest heart or desire is subjective and the stats are ‘hard evidence’ but would have to be compared with consideration to era etc because that matters too. However, Rings still don’t mean a lot in the determination of greatest ever because it’s a team sport. Bill R has more than anybody and a lot of people don’t even put him in the disccusion. Horry has a boat load but no other stats to go along with them. Anyway… Bron/Bosh/Wade will be fun to watch with whomever else they get. The fact that they directly influenced and decided their destiny with FA shouldn’t take away from thier ‘perceived’ greatness on the court. The other greats had teams around them by either luck, devine intervention or just good general managers. These guys (at least in the case of Bron and Bosh) didn’t have that ‘luck’ so took advanatage of today’s rules and created thier own. I don’t have a problem with that.

Tealish
You mentione people who “really” follow basketball.
You know damn well nobody who really follows basketball felt like Lebron had a championship contender in Cleveland after the last two playoff performances.
Jamison and Mo Williams don’t have it and likely never will. Period. The rest of the cavs are scrappy, but they don’t match up witht he other best teams in the league.
I know you know this, regardless of their regular season record.

The Nupe
You could be right about the coaching. But, it’s also that teams have more time to game plan to take away strengths and players with obvious liabilities are more likely to get exploited in the playoffs. You have to have a more well-rounded game, and you have to be able to adjust. Plus, you have to be able to deal with pressure, and NOBODY on Cleveland’s team was great with pressure. Not Lebron, not his teammates and not his coaches.
The Phoenix Suns are another team that killed in the regular season, but has had trouble in the playoffs when the style of play changes. Not as much trouble as the Cavs, but stil trouble.