Free Ballin’

All this talk through the years that LeBron should develop a low-post game is utter hogwash.  And the idea that he needs a secondary scorer in the post is nonsense as well. The singular common trait of championship teams is high volume scoring at the rim.  Really, that’s it; that’s the only thread.  And among all those post-merger championship teams, only Isiah’s Detroit teams and Jordan’s Bulls accomplished this without having a dominant low-post scoring big man.  Instead, Jordan was the best ever at attacking the rim from the perimeter, and Isiah one of the best.  And LeBron is right up there too.  The dude converted 70% of his close-range shots this year and took a million of them.  Do you really think he can possibly do better from the post?  nba.com’s hotshots is down right now, but when it’s up again, I suggest you check out the numbers.  Dwight Howard’s offensive repertoire consists entirely of dunks and shots within five feet of the hoop and his shooting percentage on those shots is about the same as LeBron’s on his drives to the rim.  And sure, LeBron does well enough backing down and spinning off guys who are too small for him already, but any other time spent developing that part of his game is wasted time he could be using to learn to shoot straight from 20 feet away.

A fun thing to do, by the way, it to take a look at the history of Finals losers.  Common trait amongst almost all of them?  Lack of high volume scoring at the rim.  Reggie’s Pacers?  Kidd’s Nets?  Not so much with the dunking, those teams.