Anyway, Melo has been pretty introspective and has questioned himself publicly a number of times this season. Just after the Boston game, he was berating himself for committing that bad foul just before halftime. Frankly, hearing him talk about making the game fun helps assuage my fears that he’ll beat himself up too much over his mistakes.

Next note: GAME TIME. Hoo wah

And he has had eight trips to the playoffs where he has gotten out of the first round once.

Which is unfair. It’s also unfair Melo had to be drafted in the same era as Bron. Because he looks so bad by comparison.

I feel as though Dirk was largely viewed similarly…as a soft stiff until he finally won last year…and btw, like Ewing Dirk shot terribly in his first finals appearance from the field (like ewing in 94)…oh, and to say the refs gave miami the series in 06 is a bit disingenuous….yes, it is true that wade marched to the line in the later games of the series, which was ridiculous, but when dallas had a chance to effectively close the series out in game 3 in miami, Dirk missed a crucial free throw that would have iced the game.

John Kenney:
@jon abbey Derrick Rose, Russ Westbrook..even someone like Luol Deng….

It says that white players are often cast in the role of “hustle player overcoming physical limitations.” You never hear of a white player who is “coasting on their talent,” which says a lot about the discourse surrounding basketball.

Uhhh… you realize most white players are more “physically limited” right? Seriously, all the white superstars are pretty much great shooters who play very skilled basketball (Nash, Dirk, Pau, Love, Manu) Some of them are pretty athletic, but almost none have the combination of size, speed, and jumping ability of a Dwyane Wade, Lebron James, or Russell Westbrook. Forget offense, how many truly elite white defenders are there? Length and speed are huge determinants for who the best defenders are, and very few have ever looked like Kevin Garnett or Dwight Howard. White people rarely have the talent to coast on, although a few (Birdman, Chase Budinger, Andrei Kirilenko) have had perceived effort issues to mar legitimate athletic talent.

Doesn’t happen often…

Lebron James is really really really good….

You know how he never had a post game? He has one….

jon abbey: he played one fantastic game and one pretty good game out of four, that’s simply not acceptable for a franchise player. game 1 was when they needed him, game 1 was when they could have stolen home court, and he tossed up a complete stinker.

as for Sunday’s game, I don’t even care that he missed the last shot or what he said afterwards. I care that he sucked for all five minutes of the OT, against an aging team where every key player had played a lot more minutes than him, in a game NY really needed.

if he is the player you think he is, or the player we’re paying him to be, then it’s time he stepped up. hopefully he does.

Jon cmon, should Lebron not be a franchise player for totally blowing 2 FINALS? Sorry for the caps, but Lebron has been abominably bad in Finals series, and it’s always been ok because he had that 1 great Pistons game, or those great early playoff rounds, or he made a bunch of terrible 3′s in the clutch (seriously, they were bad shots) against the Celtics and Chicago last year. Carmelo basically had to play 1 on 5 against a top 5 defense in the playoffs and had 2 good games (game 1 was just bad, it happens to everyone). And no, Carmelo is not on Lebron’s level, but he’s had some pretty unbelievable games in the past couple of playoffs.