Tuesday, November 25, 2008

LeBron Quick Hit

Ben Wallace – 6’9, 240. Elton Brand – 6’9, 254. Carlos Boozer – 6’9, 266. David West – 6’9, 240. Amare Stoudemire – 6’10, 249. All of these guys are decent to phenomenal power forwards.

Then there’s this guy, who’s 6’8, 250. He’s LeBron James, a “small” forward. I say this because according to 82games.com, Cleveland’s most effective lineup is one that features LeBron at power forward.

This lineup is Boobie Gibson at the point, Delonte West at two, Sczerbiak at the three, King James at power forward and Anderson Varejao at center. Also, the team with the best power forward PER is Cleveland, probably aided by times when LeBron plays the four.

LeBron is a killer at four because he’s big strong to defend the position, but he’s way faster than most power forwards. This means when he drives by them he’s either going to draw extra defenders, then dish to one of the three shooters (assuming Cleveland is playing their best lineup) or hit a cutting Varejao near the basket for an easy bucket.

If Mike Brown is smart, he'd find more and more minutes for LeBron at the four.

Yet, he might not win MVP, again. Chris Paul is playing better than ever, Dwayne Wade may very well drag his motley crew in Miami into the playoffs (as predicted here) and Kobe’s Lakers look better than ever.

Just something I thought of today. I’m going to go back to watching the King play his future (I hope not) team on NBA TV, the greatest channel on the dial, and fooling around on 82games.com.

Actually, before I go, I just want to proclaim that all of Steph Curry’s games should be televised from now on. Can we make that happen please? 35 ppg, 8 apg, 3 rpg, 3 spg, 53% from the field, 45% from three and 91% from the line. Is that not TV worthy? Ok, I’m done.

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