Dwyane Wade believes LeBron James and Giannis are better than Kevin Durant and that NBA media went out of their way to anoint KD the Best.
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The Eastern Conference semi-finals of last year’s Playoffs brought in more debate than any other series in the 2021 postseason. It was a series between the Milwaukee Bucks and Brooklyn Nets with the latter being the heavy favorites to win it all.
It could have ended that way, but the Nets dramatically lost a 2-0 series lead to the Bucks. Having the series tied at 3 apiece, in Game 7, they were up 6 going into halftime, the game changed drastically for Kevin Durant’s team in the 2nd half. Kyrie Irving, watching from the bench in street clothes, didn’t help their cause either.
The Nets suffered a late collapse in the absence of their superstar point guard, and they lost Game 7, 115-111, to the Bucks in overtime. But since then, there’s been a massive debate about whether it would have happened the same way had Brooklyn didn’t suffer so many injuries throughout the season.
It was a championship or bust season for the Nets. However, the Bucks winning the championship in Kyrie’s absence, half-fit James Harden to support KD, and the Slim Reaper’s last shot at the end of regulation have been a bigger subject of discussion than how Brooklyn managed to lose it all.
Even after Bucks came through with the championship the narrative of “Giannis is great, but he is no KD” has been running rounds of news debates and social media. Now, D Wade has his say on the subject.
Giannis Antetokounmpo and LeBron James are held to higher standards by the media compared to KD believes Dwyane Wade
Although Giannis Antetokounmpo and Co’s brilliant sweep against Jimmy Butler’s Heat in the first round had them back in contention as well, their dismantling of a rather shorthanded Nets is considered an upset.
It might be one of the most laughable debates alongside the Lakers’ 2020 Championship, both of which are heavily critiqued by several people in the NBA community who most probably haven’t won anything big in their lives. But now a 3x champion and an analyst with NBA on TNT has taken the time to speak on the subject.
No doubt, things might have been different if Kyrie was not injured or if Harden was fully fit. Nevertheless, it’s not necessarily a guarantee that the Nets would have won it all had they prevailed over the Bucks because the Atlanta Hawks and the Phoenix Suns would have matched up better with them than they did with Milwaukee.
It doesn’t matter who thinks what about this discussion, it won’t shut down until we get a rehash of the series this season.
