Forget Kobe-LeBron, the best Finals would be Melo-LeBron

If we polled every NBA fan out there and asked them for their dream Finals matchup, I'm guessing about 90 percent would say "Lakers-Cavs." This has been the case for the past two seasons. Once we got nostalgia out of the way with the Boston-L.A. Finals in 2008, everyone's attention turned to the Kobe-LeBron battle for the "best player alive" title. I'm not knocking a potential Lakers-Cavs Finals. I'm just saying that we might be ignoring a better series.

Did you watch last Thursday's Cavs-Nuggets game? LeBron James casually threw up a 43-point, 15-assist, 13-rebound triple-double, only to be outdone by Carmelo Anthony, who hit the game-winner, right in LeBron's mug for a 118-116 overtime victory on the road at The Q. It wasn't just a good game, it was an epic game -- about as good and dramatic and riveting as a regular season game can possibly get.

It was so good that it had players like Dwyane Wade and Chris Paul tweeting about it a few minutes after it ended. After the game I remember thinking, "What could possibly be better than watching seven games of a high-stakes Bron and Melo duel for the championship?" The answer is: nothing.

What made last Thursday's game such an instant classic is that LeBron and Melo were both tasked with checking each other. That is key. Bill Russell vs. Wilt Chamberlain was a great rivalry not only because Boston and Philadelphia were always battling for league supremacy, but also because Wilt and Russ fought from tipoff until the game-ending buzzer. It's something we can't say for Magic vs. Bird. It's also something we can't say about a potential Kobe vs. LeBron battle. Save for maybe the last five minutes of the game, we wouldn't see Bron and Kobe squaring off against each other too often. Nothing can approach a Lakers-Cavs Final when it comes to star power and the drama of the world's two best players trying to settle the "Who's The Man?" debate. That's abstract stuff, though. I'm talking about something very tangible, I'm talking aesthetics. A Cavs-Nuggets Final means that we'd get Bron vs. Melo -- literally -- for 40 to 45 minutes a game over an entire series. Think about that.

Six years ago, around this time, Melo and Bron were rookies battling each other for the Rookie of the Year award. It was the rivalry that was supposed to transfix the NBA public for the next 15 years. LeBron vs. Carmelo. They would have been picks 1 and 2, if Joe Dumars hadn't made the worst Draft selection of the new millennium. It never happened, though. Gradually, LBJ kind of left Melo in his dust. It became a LeBron vs. Kobe or a LeBron vs. D-Wade thing. Melo's Denver squads were always competitive, but he was always out there in the margins, sort of hovering right outside of the "elite of the elite" club. This is the first year that someone could argue Melo as the league's MVP and do it with a straight face. This is where we always thought we'd be: LeBron and Carmelo leading elite teams and playing better inidividual basketball than just about every other human being on the planet.

Last Thursday's game was a bit of a coronation for the LeBron-Carmelo rivalry, because, to be honest, their head-to-head games up to that point had been underwhelming. Before Melo's 40-point gem, he averaged just under 20 ppg in his previous 11 games against the Cavs. LeBron wasn't much better, averaging a pedestrian (for him) 23 ppg in those same 11 games. Neither of them shot particularly well and none of the games was as hyper-competitive as last week's classic. Thursday's game featured two virtuosos engaging in one-upmanship that we haven't seen in a while. Take any position battle -- whether it's Kobe vs. Wade or Chris Paul versus Deron Williams -- and it'd still fall short of the epic battle LeBron and Carmelo waged. Each time down the court in that fourth quarter we saw two of the league's three best players stare at each other and go to work. One was saying, "I'm not going to let you score on me" and the other was saying, "There's nothing you can do to stop me." And it's true isn't it?

Late in the fourth quarter, Melo had Bron isolated on the left wing. He jab-stepped toward the lane and then, on a dime, spun back to his left and dropped in a finger roll. The play was mildly embarrassing for Bron, but he casually jogged up the court with a "What am I supposed to do? He's Carmelo" look on his face and tried to get him back. There's something very compelling about two of the best players to ever pick up a basketball being virtually helpless when faced with the task of stopping each other. I want to see that as often as possible.

Imagine a seven games of Bron vs. Melo for all the chips. It could happen. It should happen. It needs to happen. Now let's get Melo a puppet and start the campaign.

Perimeter skills make Jamison a valuable addition to Cavs

A lot of pre-deadline trade talk centered around Cleveland making a deal for Amar'e Stoudemire. But the Cavs, in the day before the deadline, landed Antawn Jamison from Washington in a three-team deal, and they didn't have to give up prized second-year forward J.J. Hickson to do it.

If Zydrunas Ilgauskas is waived by Washington and eventually returns to Cleveland, the Cavs would have given up only a late first-round pick and some financial flexibility to get Jamison.
More important, Jamison is a better fit in Cleveland than Stoudemire would have been, giving the Cavs a power forward who can shoot from the perimeter.

The way the Cavs have been playing, though, it's not clear that they needed to make a move. They've won 13 straight games (11 of them without Mo Williams), and through Wednesday, Cleveland has the second-best offense in the league, the fifth-best defense, the best record and the best point differential.

They were in a similar position last season, didn't make a move at the deadline and were upset in the conference finals by Orlando. But as we wrote two weeks ago, the Cavs, with their ability to dominate the paint, are better suited to beat both the Magic and the Lakers this season.

Still, they couldn't pass up the opportunity to upgrade at power forward. If there's one weak link in their rotation, it's Hickson. The 21-year-old has been the starter since November, but doesn't play as much as super-sub Anderson Varejao and, to date, the Cavs are better with Hickson on the bench than on the floor.

Hickson factor

A quick look at the Cavs' offensive and defensive efficency with J.J. Hickson on (and off) the court.

Off. Rat. = Points scored per 100 possessions Def. Rat. = Points allowed per 100 possessions

One issue with Jamison, as it would have been with Stoudemire, is defense. In seven of his previous 11 seasons, Jamison has been on a team that ranked in the bottom five in defensive efficiency. And only once has he been on a team that ranked in the top 18. That was as a rookie in Golden State, when the Warriors ranked 12th in the lockout-shortened 1998-99 season.

Team Defensive Efficiency, Antawn Jamison's Career

The Cavs faced a similar situation when they traded for Mo Williams. In Williams' last season in Milwaukee (2007-08), the Bucks were the league's worst defensive team. But Williams came to Cleveland, integrated himself just fine and the Cavs finished second defensively last season.

Also, before he came to Orlando, Rashard Lewis was on nothing but bad defensive teams in Seattle. But playing alongside Dwight Howard and being coached by Stan Van Gundy, Lewis has been a part of one of the best defensive teams in the league over the last three seasons.

The key difference between those additions and Jamison's might one of timing. Williams and Lewis joined their new teams in the offseason and had a full training camp to learn the system.

Speaking of Lewis, he would be Jamison's matchup when the Cavs face their biggest threat in the Eastern Conference. While Dwight Howard was Cleveland's biggest matchup issue in last year's conference finals, Lewis averaged 18.3 points on 49 percent shooting and hit several big shots in that series.

Curiously, though, in his last nine games against Jamison, Lewis has averaged just 12.8 points on 38 percent shooting.

Don't read too much into those stats. Jamison is long and athletic and can probably keep up with Lewis better than a lot of power forwards in this league, but his defensive effort was lacking with the Wizards. Lewis missed a lot of open looks in those games against Jamison.

If Jamison was simply replacing Hickson in the rotation, we might predict that the Cavs' defense wouldn't fall off much. But Ilgauskas' departure (at least for the next month) means Hickson will still play often and Varejao will log major minutes at center. So expect the Cleveland D to suffer somewhat.

Of course, that the Cavs have been able to play top-five defense with Shaquille O'Neal on the floor for 23 minutes a game is proof that coach Mike Brown knows what he's doing. Plus, Jamison should help balance any defensive dropoff with his play on offense.

There's no reason to think that the Cavs -- the best offensive team in the league from Christmas to the All-Star break -- can't get even more efficient.
All stats are through Wednesday, February 17 and were compiled with the help of the NBA and StatsCube.