Great adjustments Mr. Brown. You seemed to have the same influence on this game as you have had the entire season. Guess what that is… NOTHING. Lebron played stellar again tonight, no different from any other game this series. Scoring or assisting on 32 straight points in the 4th quarter. Quite remarkable I might add. Mo finally stepped up with a solid 1st half. Gibson knocked down some clutch 3’s in the 4th.
They came out strong for the first 9 minutes, then you began to see everyone settle into the same old “Am I really playing with Lebron James??” game plan. It’s amazing that in reality, the Lebrons win, not when he does good, but when the rest of the team makes shots. Lebron can have a triple double every night if his teammates make shots. I’ll be a critique and say when Lebron gets a triple touble, its really not that special. If Mike Brown knew how to coach (I hate those two underlined words in the same sentence) then Bron Bron would be putting up triple doubles every night. 37 14 12
All the articles out today on the game exclaim, “Lebron comes through in the clutch” or “Lebron delivers” or “…took over the 4th quarter”. The man, who is only two and a half years older than me, always delivers. The headline should have said, “Lebron’s team delivered”. Honestly, all he needs is one guy; one guy that can match his intensity every night and not be enthralled into who Lebron is, instead be a teammate, like Pippen was to Jordan, or McHale was to Bird. Save the utter amazement for retirement. These guys have to get the job done now.
Imagine this guy in Van Gundy’s system or….. here in the Big Apple (yes I said it, as I look out my office window to my right onto the roof of MSG)… Watch out. Get him out of Cleveland, why play for a team that just let a foreign company buy a piece of the team. Capitalism at its finest people.
On to my next cogitation… Derek Rose, the humble kid from the Windy City, and Memphis (I’ll refrain from mentioning Calipari because we all know nothing will happen to him) are involved in a grade-changing scandal that could in fact wipe out their 38 win season from a year ago. With my short lived college basketball career, I honestly believe that there has to be some kind of stipend for these athletes. With the NCAA running a $1 billion industry thanks to March Madness, how come none of that money goes back to the athletes who actually make it happen?
With this whole 1 year of college needed to play in the NBA, these 1 and done athletes have every reason to take money from boosters, coaches, or the school because they know they will be long gone before anything serious is put on their shoulders. Something needs to change, end of story. This stuff will continue to happen because coaches are no longer competing to build a core group, instead they are building to win now because no longer do majority of top athletes aspire to win a National Championship, or any championship for that matter, instead they aspire to be in the NBA. Who cares if a kid is 17 and ready for the NBA. Their certainly not going to college for the education; their going to college because they cant enter the NBA.
Don’t be surprised if more and more high school stars follow Branden Jennings and head to Europe where they can sign contracts, get endorsement deals, and learn professional basketball without being probed by a hypocritical governing body in that of the NCAA. Let coaches text a thousand times a day, let parents fly for free on charter plains, and let boosters guarantee cash upon arrival, it has always happened in the past, so why stop now? Do we really want to talk ethics in this day and age? I don’t think so.
Until next time…
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