A follow up to my post. Here are the players that lead the Cavs in playoff scoring and how they got there:
Lebron James: Drafted
Kevin Love: Acquired in a trade, All-Star at Minnesota
Kyle Korver: Acquired in a trade, All-Star at Atlanta
George Hill: Acquired in a trade
JR Smith: Acquired in a trade, NBA 6th man with the Knicks
Jeff Green: Acquired in a trade, NBA All Rookie Team
Tristan Thompson: Drafted
So, you have to go 7 deep in the scoring chart on the Cavaliers roster to get to the 2nd guy that they have who was a draft pick. the rest of their starters are guys that they traded for. 3 of the top 4 scoring players for Golden State were draft picks by the Warriors. Again, Golden State is guilty of making good draft picks and then building depth with a few solid trades. Durant is the only player that they've got on the roster who joined them as a known superstar and they had already won an NBA championship without him. If anything, he's had a negative impact on Steph Curry but you don't hear Steph complaining because he'd rather be a champion than being on a team whose fans are bitching about how the other teams are doing it better.
There are certain players in the NBA who elevate their teammates. Lebron is that type of guy, and there are those who are still great players but detract from their teammates and Durant is that type of guy.
Steph Curry by nature is a point guard and yes he can take over a game but he elevates. Klay obviously is that support type superstar that when the game is on the line he won't let the team down and will takeover, but he is perfectly comfortable helping his teammates.
Lebron is like a hybrid of Thompson and Curry with just a massive physical presence. There is no doubt in the NBA he is the single best player / teammate in the NBA because of his consistency, raw skills, and willing to support his teammates.
While people bag on him for going to Miami, I think he really wanted to win a championship so badly and knew that he just didn't have the support structure to win at Cleveland at the time and knew that with Bosch and Wade he could win. He went and they won, and then when that was over he saw that Cleveland had Kyrie Irving and was like...hey they have somebody besides me there who can play. Time to go back home. They also got Kevin Love and now Lebron had teammates that he could win with in Cleveland that he never had in his first stint.
And they won. But it was clear that Irving felt overshadowed by Lebron and wanted to be the Franchise center piece and opted to be traded to boston.
Lebron James has won titles at two different teams as the leader of the franchise. That's incredibly hard to do and sort of shows how the guy really is the best playeer in the NBA, but.... but...
The Warriors are a much more interesting story of how a perennial doormat in the NBA as you said rose up out of nowhere with some extremely saavy picks and some extremely saavy coaching and play style. It wasn't just super star mashup led by the best player in the NBA since Jordan. It was a bunch of young upstarts who came out of nowhere and developed viscious range attack and smart rotating defense.
Durant came to play with an unselfish team, but isn't used to being unselfish.
Lebron goes to lead a team with pieces he can win with and elevate.
In my opinion, Lebron would be a WAY WAY better fit for Golden State than Durant. Just because they would rarely if ever lose a game. It would be too unfair to have someone who can control the center of the court like Lebron and dominate through physical athleticism and then some nasty permiter killers waiting in the wings.
