Two Fantastic Basketball Docos.

Basketball isn't huge in Australia, but there are a lot of people who do watch the NBA on pay TV.

I just watched two brilliant documentaries - and I'm assuming here that any serious basketball followers will have sen them, but if you haven't, they are:

The Fab Five (ESPN)

and More Than a Game.

Both brilliant  - and it's certainly amazing watching LeBron James a s a high school player.

Jaylen Rose is also a very engaing character.

Question:

Is LeBron the most powerfully gifted and exciting athlete on the planet?

I've watched the Fab 5 documentary maybe 5 times now............very well done. I remember growing up a fan of the Fab 5 and it still breaks my heart that they never won a National Championship. Still haven't watched More Tha a Game Yet, but it's on my list. Im a huge LeBron fan and I think we still have yet to see the best from him. I think at times his mental toughness didnt match his physical side. But now I think that's starting to change and when it does...........look out.

Both great documentaries. The 30 For 30 series has a few other nice NBA docs as well; Without Bias is solid, and I liked No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson (if only becuase I find Iverson oddly fascinating) And to answer your question: yes. As much as I dislike the guy (in a sports fandom sort of way), I'm not sure there's anyone in sports with a physical makeup that matches the sport he dominates as perfectly as LeBron James. Jalen does a lot of TV for ESPN nowadays as well. He's okay, but probably the best thing he has said is fairly simple: if you're looking to evaluate draft prospects, you ask them three things. Can you dribble, can you shoot, and can you pass? And if you can't do any of those particularly well, you're probably going to struggle at the next level. (In other words, pure athleticism only gets you so far.)

Good points.

So - a tomahawk looks cool but doesn't get you extra points :-)

Seems to me that every high school player these days would be focusing on exciting looking moves rather than basic skills and those who have the skills and a bit of flair will proceed to College and the NBA with or without the fireworks.

Living in Boise Idaho I get to see alot of Australian BB players, BSU recruited most there starters from there, and they are great fundamental players. Keep up the good work over there.

Sorry to get off topic btw, just love the talent coming from there. Both are great documentaries. I have yet to see Labron show a killer mentality .

Oh really? - I'm not really much of a basketball scholar - do you think he's really a LeBron player and not a team player, despite what he says?

He is not a "cleaner".

Relentless: From good, great to unstoppable. I think thats what the book was called.

I'm no LeBron fan, but two championships should be enough to put that sort of stuff to bed. He's a top-five perimeter defender, comes up with more chase-down blocks than anyone in the league, is an excellent post player, can't be stopped on a fast break, and shot over 40% from 3 this year. Again, I can't stand the guy, but he's damn good at putting a cow skin-covered ball into a cylidner of twine and making sure his opponents don't do the same.

LeBron is without a doubt a "team" player, sometimes to a fault.

It's easy to say that, but go back and watch game 6. Really watch it. He flat out choked in the biggest game of the year. If Ray Allen didn't bail him out, ESPN would be talking about another "King James" collapse for the next 4 months.

With that said, I hope the piece of gets hit by a car. (Note the location)

What? He had 32-11-10, and played nearly 50 minutes!. Was it his best game? No, he had some turnovers and missed a few free throws. But they don't make it close to overtime without him. Ray Allen "bailed him out" in the sense that all championships teams need Hall of Fame players to make Hall of Fame player-type shots once in a while. Don't let your LeBron Cleveland jersey smoke-tinted glasses color your opinion. He's a great player. An insufferable moron, sure, but a great player nonetheless.

Watch the game, don't look at the stats. Get rid of overtime from his stats too. He was missing shot after shot, and layup after layup. Turning the ball over time and time again, far from his best effort. This is what separates him and Jordan...Jordan excelled in the most important games, LeBron has routinely crumbled. Sure, he made up for it in a lot of the fourth quarter, but Ray Allen doesn't hit that shot, or the Spurs foul first (as they should have) and history tells a much different story.

He was what, like 8-21 shooting at one point? When most of the 21 came in the paint?

Let's not even start on how much he gets away with...he travels on every other play, and cries when someone touches him as he bowls over everyone else.

And if it helps, I felt the same way when he was here.

James is a great player, he is just not to a Jordan, Kobe, or Mellow type "Cleaner". Time will tell. Read the book, great read and it explains it well.

I've been watching LeBron James since his high school days.  His team's games (St Vincent / St Mary) in HS became so big that some 'home' games were moved to larger venues to allow for 4,000+ spectators to attend during his junior and senior years of HS.  Here's what I remember seeing.  LeBron could have dropped 75 points easily on ANY team.  He always chose to get his team mates involved and gave up 10-20 shots a game to the other kids on the floor.  They could also score.  But who'd want to play with a guy who took all the shots and scored 75 points every game?

When he graduated from HS, he had a workout with Ohio State University's basketball program.  At that same time, there was an OSU junior player who attended the summer workouts working as a summer intern at the company I was at.  This player said not only would LeBron (as an 18 year old) start on Ohio State's team right now, he would be the BEST player on the team without a doubt.  Coming right out of HS, I was kind of skeptical.

Fast-forward to the NBA draft:  Selected #1 by Cleveland Cavaliers.  Believe he scored 27 in his first NBA game.  The rest is history.

Fast-forward to now:  LeBron knows it's literally 'all on him' to continue winning championships.  If he continues to help his team win championships, he's going to be spoken of as an 'all-time NBA great.'  If he doesn't win multiple championships, it's all his fault.  The only way he can win is to continuing winning championships.  I saw it more this season than ever before:  "Give me the ball, I'm going to WIN this game."  And he does.  End of story.

Like him or not, he's definitely top-5 NBA all-time players in terms of production during regular and post-season games.  Maybe top-3.  Maybe he will be considered the best NBA player of all time when it's all said and done.  The book on LeBron isn't complete yet.

dave

Nope. He will never surpass Jordan. Ever. His first 8 years guaranteed that.

The bottom line is he had to jump ship to win. Jordan didn't. And I don't wanna hear the "they didn't have a team" BS, because the Cavs were the best team in the NBA two years in a row. You don't do that with just one player. They lost to teams they shouldn't have, and a lot of the blame (especially against the Celtics) falls on LeBron. He flat out failed, choked, whatever you want to call it. What does he do, he jumps ship to form a super team with a guy who already proved he could win without him (Wade).

There's no doubt that LeBron is the best player on the Heat right now, but the Heat is still Wade's team. He's the original...he's proved he can win.

Nobody can say the Bulls were anything but Jordan's team.

Can anyone imagine Jordan jumping to the Celtics to play with Larry Bird and getting Ewing to come along? Never would have happened...

Top 10 at best. Top 3 is just laughable