G35 wrote:Jokic has been the best example of why Lebron and his ring chasing and team building and style of play is not the best.
All you ever hear from when Lebron was in Cleveland, in Miami, in Cleveland again, and now in LA is that Lebron's teammates do not step up...Lebron has to do so much and its never enough. Even after having Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Ray Allen, Shane Battier, Mike Miller, Udonis Haslem, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love, JR Smith, Tristan Thompson, Kyle Korver, Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, KCP, Kyle Kuzma, Alex Caruso, Anthony Davis, Dwight Howard, Dennis Schroeder, Malik Monk, Russell Westbrook...the list goes on and on.
But then you see Denver and how Jokic is playing with his teammates and none of them are even All-Star level players...their good players but have not made an All-Star game. But you hear all the time from the media and fans that these players keep producing...they perform...the Nuggets know how to play team basketball. All you have to do is watch one game and you can see how these Nuggets players work in a system and KNOW THEIR ROLE. Nobody is trying to do too much...even Joker stays in his lane.
Joker didn't snatch the ball from Jamal and say I have to take the last shot. They trust each other and they believe in each other and that is what Jamal said about his teammates and his coach. They believed in him.
When have you ever heard Lebron's teammates say anything like they have trust...its always, "Well we gotta get use to playing with each other...and we are making adjustments...and its a process."
This is why playing with Lebron is always a challenge because Lebron is the system and his teammates don't know how to play off Lebron. When you are in a role, you know exactly what you need to do. Yes star players have the latitude to go off script at times but they still have to all have a role..
I highlighted the players in your list that LeBron didn't win a ring with.
Korver and LeBron played together and dropped one game en route to the finals against the '17 Warriors. They also played together in '18 and that season is obviously well documented as a roller coaster of a season and they still made the finals.
Ball and Ingram were 21 and neither played more than 50 games that season, and LeBron was injured a large portion of that season.
Schroeder played with him in '21 and both LeBron and AD missed more than half the season and LeBron was injured going into the playoffs. AD hurt during the playoffs again. Dennis himself only played 61 games.
Monk and Westbrook played with him in '22 and again, LeBron and AD missed significant time in the season (26 and 42 games respectively).
So I dunno, kind of seems like as long as LeBron is healthy (and sometimes even when he isn't, see '15 and '23 as obvious examples) he's going to get you deep into the conference finals or finals consistently regardless of team structure. Meanwhile you can't really say the same about Jokic, at least at this stage in his career. And honestly? I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if that's not the case in 5 years.
