Reason No. 1 – One or two players do not make for a championship team
One or two top players does not make a great playoff or championship team. Watching the NBA Playoffs this season, it is clear that LeBron and PG13 cannot win games on their own or even with other NBA stars. Basketball is a team sport for crying out loud!
Arizona Wildcats Basketball
Case in point: PG13 plays alongside NBA All-Stars Russell Westbrook, and Carmello Anthony and the team is struggling against the Utah Jazz. On the Cavs, James is playing with NBA All-Stars Kevin Love and NBA Champions J.R. Smith and Tristan Thompson, and even then, their team is struggling against the Indiana Pacers. And this is only round one folks.
Bryant couldn’t win it all for the Lakers. Dwight Howard couldn’t win it all for the Lakers. Even Pau Gasol and Bryant alone couldn’t cut it. It takes more than one or two stars to make it far into the playoffs and win the championship.
The Cavs have a pretty great roster, and it isn’t a walk in the park for the team. LeBron is not the panacea, he is a fantastic, exciting player who I love to watch play the game of basketball, but he cannot do it alone. No lottery pick has solved all the Lakers issues either. In three seasons, three top players drafted in Julius Randle, Brandon Ingram and Lonzo Ball, yet there is still no playoffs for the Lakers.
It takes time to grow lottery picks. They come into the league in their teens. And getting stars in their final years has proven not to work well either.