LeBron and Curry, NBA's Best In Finals

This is a perfect scenario for the NBA, these finals will showcase the two best players in the NBA.

Think back to all the horrible non marketable teams that almost made it.

• Chicago: Rose is the only one you can throw out there and can you depend on him being healthy?
• Atlanta: Really? lol
• Houston: A team of pretenders that weren't worth advertising
• LA: Perhaps the whiniest team in all of professional sports.

Golden State was not only the best team in the regular season but they were also the most fun to watch.
Cleveland has the best player on the planet with tons of story lines.

This is the NBA's dream right now. Sometimes you have a team sneak in that doesn't have any personality other than an underdog and makes the finals awful. 2002 Nets, 2001 76'ers, 1995 Orlando Magic.

No matter who wins these finals the NBA front office should be able to carry this momentum into the start of next season.

Sucks that Cleveland is so banged up going into this. Love out completely, Irving on one leg ... Even healthy Golden State would be the favorites but with some of his best teammates hobbled this is a very tall order for James and the rest of the Cavs. I agree that it's the teams people likely wanted to see but not like this, a healthy Cleveland would be a lot better. Got a feeling James is gonna be 2-4 in finals appearances after this. If Cleveland were healthy I'd give them a 40% chance of beating GS. But with them beat up the way they are I put it at around a 25% chance.

I disagree about Golden State being the most fun team to watch. They are a team that lives on the perimeter and those are the least interesting teams to watch imo. Anybody can get good at shooting 3s if they practice it enough, even some out of shape guy with a beer gut that smokes a pack of cigarettes everyday. The most entertaining teams are the ones with great athletes. Guys like Lebron, MJ, and Dwyane Wade back in his prime are/were infinitely more fun to watch than GS's wings firing up 3s all night long. Not saying shooting 3s ain't effective, cuz it is, but it's far from the most entertaining style to watch ... to me anyway.

Go Golden State !! Woop, woop !

@Jaysonguy: "Think back to all the horrible non marketable teams that almost made it."

You lost me. Chicago and LA are big markets that can't be ignored.

Team of pretenders? 2nd Seed in the West. Golden State was better, but we are a legit team.

I would argue Harden, but he just doesn't have the support.

Warriors in 6.

They're big markets but they don't have any players on either team the NBA can build a campaign around.

The NBA already tried with Rose and that failed spectacularly because of his inability to stay on the court. LA doesn't have anyone that can take the NBA marketing machine on their back besides maybe Doc Rivers? But how is the NBA supposed to promote players from a team that constantly complains how the NBA runs it's business from the court to the front office?

Lebrons is the most overrated player in sports history. Good but not what the league makes him out to be.

Agree completely on everything you said.

@Jaysonguy: "They're big markets but they don't have any players on either team the NBA can build a campaign around."

Are you series.

Clippers have Paul, Griffen, Jordan, Doc Rivers. More importantly, they have Reddick a American born white player.

The Bulls have Rose, Noah, Gasol and the improving Butler(Read his story)

Surely NBA/ESPN/ABC can come up with storylines.

Steph Curry made shots down the stretch. Lebron didn't.

Your life is in shambles.

Lol, the Cavs are in the finals solely because of him. Did you see how they looked every time he went out of the game? If anything he's actually underrated. He has 4 MVP awards but he's really been the MVP for 7-8 years in a row now. Just like Jordan he's been robbed of it several times by voters that hate voting for the same guy every year.

@Heirren:

You should probably lay off whatever the **** you are drinking.

@mdk12345: Warriors were winning when irvin got hurt

Like i said " Warriors ! " Woop , woop !!

@Wickerman777:

He's clumsy. It is a joke even mentioning his name in the same sentence as Jordan.

LOL

Stay in System Wars.

I'm not saying he is a bad player. Just listen to the way the press, announcers, media, etc talk about him. The league hyped him up as something he isn't. Announcers will hail X pass as something that cannot be done by other players...anything he does in a game gets accentuated by the media for zero reason. He is a bit clumsy and complains almost all game.

He is nowhere near Jordan, or even Kobe.

I'm tired of hearing that, the hate for the media... project it there.

People act like the Jordan never had a bad game (You know by the same Media and now social media that we tend to project the hatred to Lebron from), Jordan had plenty of bad games. Jordan or Kobe couldn't play all 5 positions, or guard all 5 positions like Lebron has his entire career.

Let's ignore all stats:

2 arguments come up against Lebron these days. Killer instinct and Championships

You are seeing the Killer instinct now, the three game stretch he has had so far is and will go down in NBA history which ties me to the second point. Championships. He may never reach as many as Jordan, but winning one for Cleveland, with a very depleted roster will be bigger than any of Jordans. People forget Jordan was 2-9 in playoff series before Pippen and Co came around, the same team that was a bad call away from reaching the finals when he went off to Baseball. That team was loaded, other than the Heat teams, Lebron has never had that kind of team. Yet in a very different era defined by a free agency market that was not there in the 90's, we want to blast him for wanting to learn how to be a champion when he left Cleveland because players didn't want to go to Cleveland. Much like life, people evolve and people need to get off the hate train.

Media overhypes him and he has to meet those standards, people hate him because the media over hypes.. so he has to prove them wrong. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Fans are a fickle bunch. I'm not saying he is the second coming of god, but 20 years from now people will look back at him as one of the all time greats. I was a huge fan of watching Jordan and the Bulls, it was amazing... I can say the same for Lebron and his career.

@Innovazero2000:

I watched Jordan. He did have bad games like any other player. The difference is that these bad games were pointed out by announcers. I've never seen a player in any sport so hailed by media as a "can do no wrong" type of scenario" as Lebron James.

Are you kidding? LeBron gets so much hate from all sides when he makes even a minor ****-up. Where were you during his first year in Miami? He was lampooned and derided the entire season as a villain and got completely torn apart because of his performance in the NBA Finals vs the Mavericks that year. He's done a brilliant job repairing his image the past few years and maturing as an individual, but to say the media hypes him up as a "can do no wrong" player is just a straight up lie. Check your facts.

I don't disagree... at the time you are right. This is a different type of media these days though, unfortunately the media does the same with Jordan now (Unlike then) because all you see is the awesome stuff. (Jordan had a lot of them) While I can understand people's disdain for Lebron because the media forces him on you, I have to be objective as I can't put that on Lebron. He is not perfect as a player or person... but some of the stuff I read (from "haters") would have uneducated, mainstream fans believing he's average or terrible.

@Aljosa23:

I wasn't watching basketball at the time, I believe. I'm more referring to the last few years. I didn't even know who he was by face until maybe 2011(10/12ish? Maybe earlier). My older brother kept up with basketball and one day he said there was a player on the court that is considered one of the best players of all time--I couldn't pick out any standouts.

And I don't even dislike the guy. In fact, it is actually quite nice to see a stand up role model for younger kids, vs a lot of the other shenanigans going on with modern sports stars. There's just this drama the media creates around the guy. I'd almost bet that even Lebron doesn't care for it as it creates some kind of expectation.