This summer will be going on nine years since LeBron James left the Cavaliers to head south join Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami in seek a dynasty filled with the idea of winning multiple NBA championships. At the time, I hounded LeBron by calling it the weakest move from a superstar in NBA history. However, as I look back on it, I have changed my mind. He DESERVED to make that move. I believe the game of basketball has cut LeBron short.

Honestly, who taught King James the game? Who is the best coach James has played under in his tenure in the league? Mike Brown, David Blatt, Paul Silas, Brendan Malone, Luke Walton, Tyronn Lue, or Erik Spoelstra? Many would say Spoelstra, but was he ever considered a top 5 coach in the league? No, probably not. Let’s take a look at what James had to deal with while entering the NBA.

Over this history of the NBA, several of the best players of all-time have come into the league as rookies or as a young player with another Hall of Fame player already on their teams’ roster. For example, when Magic Johnson was drafted in the 79-80 season, he came into the Lakers franchise with Kareem Abdul Jabbar in his prime Kobe Bryant as a rookie was paired with Shaq, who was already on the team. The same goes for Charles Barkley as he had two Hall of Famers on his team in Mosses Malone and Julius Erving. Karl Malone started off with Hall of Famer Adrian Dantley and a younger John Stockton. Even Tim Duncan came into the league with David Robinson. Larry Bird started off his career with two Hall of Famers in Tiny Archibald and Dave Cowens. Hakeem Olajuwon as a rookie had Ralph Sampson. Well, what about Jordan, Shaq, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Durant? All of these guys within their first couple years in the league got another Multi-time all-star or Hall of Fame-caliber player. In year four of Jordan’s career, the Bulls traded for Pippen. Year two the Magic drafted Penny Hardaway, as a rookie Nowitzki came into the league with Steve Nash, and year two the Thunder drafted Russell Westbrook and James Harden the next year. As for James in his first seven years in Cleveland, he played two all-star players in Mo Williams and Zydrunas Ilgauskas in which they only made it once as teammates of LeBron.

I believe that the NBA inadvertently has cut James short winning more championships. In the 2009 Eastern Conference Finals James averaged 38.5 PPG, 8.3 RPG, 8 APG while shooting 48.7 percent from the field and still lost in six games, his 2nd leading scorer was Mo Williams who averaged 18.3 PPG on 37.1 percent shooting. The lack of help James has had in his early and late Clevland years is astounding. In last year’s finals he took a very untalented Cavs team to the promised land and once again his teammates let him down, his 3rd leading scorer was J.R. Smith who only averaged 9.5 PPG and made one of the biggest mistakes in NBA Finals history.

LeBron’s decision made him the scapegoat for great players to make their own decisions about their futures in free agency. “Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason”. King James was the first superstar player in the modern era to team up with multiple superstars to chase championships. Since then Kevin Durant and Chris Paul have done it and the trend is just going to increase, meaning more and bigger names will follow his footsteps as time goes on. I think it’s time we give LeBron the credit he deserves and realizes how great he has been with less, and as for those other great players I guess sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.



