3reppom wrote:
The biggest LeBron stopper is LeBron. No one can stop him from getting to the rim and he can get his own shot from deep at any moment. If you want to stop LeBron you want him playing between 10 and 15 feet. But he resides on another plane of existence in terms of athletic ability. So if you set up a scheme to give him that area of the court between 10 and 15 feet you are really giving him the rim. There really isn't a person on the planet who can make LeBron work really hard on every offensive position, the best way to do it is with team defense aimed at making LeBron take the lions share of his shots from that 10 to 15 foot range. The Magic are the best case study in that because they have Dwight Howard who is probably the only big man in the NBA who can challenge Lebron at the rim. Perhaps Josh Smith but that is the list. If a team doesn't have an ultra athletic big who is willing to challenge LeBron at the tin then their team should not even attempt to defend him because it just isn't going to happen.
There are definitely guys in this league who can make LeBron work. You have to have someone who can cancel him out--so he can go for 30, you just have to make sure that he isn't able to do it any easier than your 30 point guy. There is no one in the league that can shut him down. But you still have to have that "LeBron stopper" to be a contender right now. If you don't, you have no chance against the Cavs. If LeBron isn't tested at all, it's nearly impossible for anyone to beat the Cavs.
Look at what other contending teams have, they all have ways to be able to try and slow LeBron down and to at least cancel out his points. You aren't a contender if you don't. Look at the other playoff teams that aren't considered contenders--that's a big glaring weakness in all of them. Like the Bucks, they have NO answer for LeBron--there isn't one answer for him, you can do it in different ways (the Lakers try to take more of a one on one approach, the Magic use Dwight Howard's presence in the lane to allow their guys to play up and physical on him because they've always got help) but you have to have some sort of an answer to contend in the NBA right now. And like I said, it'll be like that as long as the team around LeBron is good enough to contend.
