{"id":6828,"date":"2010-05-19T00:09:39","date_gmt":"2010-05-19T07:09:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=6828"},"modified":"2017-06-10T11:12:11","modified_gmt":"2017-06-10T18:12:11","slug":"the-peterson-principle-51810","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=6828","title":{"rendered":"The Peterson Principle 5\/18\/10"},"content":{"rendered":"
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LeBron will need more help next year <\/p><\/div>\n

How quickly they turn and how soon they forget. How did the best basketball player in the world become a stiff overnight? Does anybody remember what the Cleveland Cavaliers were like before LeBron James got there?<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

I\u2019m not the president of the LeBron James fan club but wasn\u2019t this a little too much? After the Cavs were dismissed from the playoffs last week one would think James had committed treason or murder. He was torched by fans and media alike. He was called everything from a quitter to a bum. He became the best player in the league to a joke overnight.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

Ok he had a bad game. Kobe Bryant had two terrible games against Oklahoma City and the Lakers won the series in six. That\u2019s what happens when you have other guys on the team that can play. If Bryant is off, then Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom or Derek Fisher is on. Even Andrew Bynum, (yeah Bynum) can play a little bit.<\/p>\n

If James has a bad game, as happened in game five against the Boston Celtics, who\u2019s going to step up? Mo Williams, Anderson Varejao? Jamario Moon? Wally Moon? Who? Yeah, my point exactly.<\/p>\n

James hasn\u2019t won an NBA title in his first seven years in the league. But honestly who could win with these guys? Put Kobe on this team and Cleveland gets knocked out of the playoffs by Boston in the second round. Put Dwayne Wade on this team and they\u2019re dumped in the first round.<\/p>\n

Michael Jordan didn\u2019t win a title until he played with Scottie Pippen. Bryant didn\u2019t win one until he played with Shaquille O\u2019Neal and vice versa. Most teams have at least three options. Cleveland has one.<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re the star you get the credit when you win and you take the heat when you lose. So to a point I understand it. But it\u2019s time to take a step back and look at it realistically. The Celtics didn\u2019t beat Cleveland because James was bad. They beat Cleveland because they have Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo. If you throw in a couple of the Celts bench players they have six legitimate scorers.<\/p>\n

The Cavaliers have LeBron James and a bunch of guys that would have trouble starting at Kentucky. They brought in O\u2019Neal this year thinking that would put them over the top. Yeah Shaq was pretty good\u2026five years ago. Shaq made 21 million this year to average 12 points and six rebounds per game.<\/p>\n

James was lambasted after the Cavs got eliminated but in the last game he had a triple \u2013 double. 27 points, 10 assists and 19 rebounds weren\u2019t enough as Boston finished them off. That\u2019s career for a guy like Moon. Whatever happened to Delonte West? Wasn\u2019t he supposed to be another option?<\/p>\n

LeBron\u2019s triple- double wasn\u2019t enough because he didn\u2019t have any help. Williams had 22 but disappeared down the stretch. Shaq had 11 but you would barely have known he was there. Varejao, Moon and West had 11 points combined!<\/p>\n

James was accused of quitting in game five but did you know his 15 points were second on the team to O\u2019Neal\u2019s 21? Sure he stunk. But when you play for Cleveland you can never stink because the rest of the team already stinks.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t think James wasn\u2019t taking notes as the playoffs progressed. Chicago with Derrick Rose and Miami with Wade are looking pretty good to him right now. The fans in Cleveland were booing James after that game five performance. And it is definitely their right. But next year they might be booing him in a Chicago Bulls uniform.<\/p>\n

I actually found myself rooting for the hated Celtics yesterday as they beat Orlando in game one of the Eastern Conference Finals. If Boston wins the Lakers will have home court advantage in the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n

Rooting for the Boston Celtics- it seemed so sick\u2026hypocritical\u2026almost like calling LeBron James a bum.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s my principle.<\/p>\n

Tim can be reached at tspeterson@yahoo.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How quickly they turn and how soon they forget. How did the best basketball player in the world become a stiff overnight? Does anybody remember what the Cleveland Cavaliers were like before LeBron James got there?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,12817],"tags":[2964,2963,2972,2962,2973,2967,2965,2971,1638,2961,288,1551,113,1549,2968,2969,2970,1714,2966],"class_list":["post-6828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fanview","category-petersonprince","tag-anderson-varejao","tag-andrew-bynum","tag-delonte-west","tag-derek-fisher","tag-derrick-rose","tag-dwayne-wade","tag-jumario-moon","tag-kevin-garnett","tag-kobe-bryant","tag-lamar-odom","tag-lebron-james","tag-michael-jordan","tag-mo-williams","tag-pau-gasol","tag-paul-pierce","tag-rajon-rondo","tag-ray-allen","tag-shaquille-oneal","tag-wally-moon"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6828"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59561,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6828\/revisions\/59561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}