Shouldn't a large portion of all Mike Brown's ESPN Analyst Checks go to LeBron?

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He's a good defensive coach.

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One of the major reasons the Cavs never won a championship with Lebron were his defensive schemes in the playoffs.

I was going to say Robinson and Duncan. But Pop probably gave him the best chance, without Pop he doesn't sniff a HC gig.

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I'd go with player personnel first and foremost.

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Anyone who constantly tries to guard Howard with Big Z in a playoff series is a moron.

I think you should send James some of your check. Maybe he will be friends with you.

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Too bad 13 fans showing up isn't enough for a championship celebration.

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It was estimated that a quarter of a million people attended the 2006 parade.

Just sayin...

No, they should go to Kobe, cause he's a WINNER! and he's BETTER! DUHHHHH????!!!?!

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wrong.
they lost because no one besides Lebron could score.

Mike Brown WAS a good defensive coach. The Cavs had very little talent.

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I'm in this camp as well.

There was only 2 centers on the roster, Big Z and Ben Wallace. They also tried Verajao on DHoward, I believe.

Mike Brown didn't exactly have any other viable choices to guard Howard.

He definitely deserves some of the blame, but you can win with just one dominant player in the regular season. See the Bulls this year.

However, in the post-season, that formula doesn't work. It takes multiple great players to win a title. No team in the last 15 years has won a title with only one great player, besides the 2004 Detroit Pistons, who to be fair, had 4 good players and played outstanding defense in an offensively-challenged era.

In the regular season, no one plays defense. Out of a team's 82-game schedule, you'll probably play maybe 12-15 games against a team who is actually making a hard effort on the defensive end of the floor. In the post-season, they deeper you go, the better and better the defense usually gets. The teams who win play defense. Cleveland ran into Boston, who was built for the playoffs with 3 or 4 great players who as a unit played really good team defense. Good defensive teams bring the opposing team's role players out of their comfort zone and force them to make more plays than they are usually accustomed. Mo Williams averaged 13 points/game on 40% shooting. Antawn Jamison scored 12 points/game on 42% shooting, while grabbing only 7 rebounds/game. His assist/TO ratio was less than 1. Delonte West averaged 5.7 points/game on 38% shooting with an assist/TO ratio less than 1.

LeBron himself wasn't particularly good either, so of course he deserves a lot of blame too. He did average 27/9/7 in the series, but he only shot 45% and turned the ball over a ton. But you could argue that he had to force more action as a result of the lack of production around him. Mo Williams couldn't hit the broad side of a barn the entire series. Antawn Jamison got heavily outplayed by Kevin Garnett. The role players for Cleveland were awful.

I've said it a thousand times on here, but winning in the regular season is nothing like winning in the post-season. Stick a superstar player on a below-average team in the regular season, and that team will win 50 games and make the playoffs. But once post-season play starts, they better figure out a different winning formula than what they used in the regular season, or else they have no shot. You can't rely on one player in the playoffs. It takes 3 or 4 really good players to win a title, or 2 superstars together. Sometimes teams have both, and they are the ones that end up being legendary.

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This is the team that James built. All players that were aquired or the Cavs were looking at had to be approved by James. Him, refusing to sign a contract extention also limited the number of higher profile free agents who were willing to come. His "KIng" style of play probably limited some others from coming as well.

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I don't buy the King style of play as a reason why people wouldn't want to play with LeBron. However, him not signing a contract extension is definitely part of it. I'm not signing myself off to go live in Cleveland for the next 5 years of my life if I'm not sure we're at least going to be winning basketball games.

But at the same time, if I'm LeBron, I'm not signing on for 5 more years of not winning a championship in Cleveland. He wants to see a better team put around him before he commits to that.

In the end, Gilbert and company didn't build a good enough team around LeBron. The fact that they turned down a trade that would have acquired Amar'e Stoudemire because they didn't want to give up J.J. Hickson tells me all I need to know. LeBron/Stoudemire make the Finals last year.

In my opinion, there are not many teams that could have drafted LeBron in 2003 and not won a title by 2010. The front office has to take the blame for that. And if they let LeBron control them, it's a dick move by him, but one they should have shot down a long time ago.