A lot has been made about LeBron James’ role in the Toronto Raptors’ decision to fire head coach Dwane Casey earlier this week. After seven seasons with the team, Casey found himself jettisoned from Toronto following a four-game series sweep at the hands of James and the Cavaliers.
Despite winning a franchise record 59 games this past regular season, talk of Casey’s demise in Toronto was ramped up following that humiliating defeat. It’s the third consecutive season that James and his Cavaliers have eliminated Toronto from the playoffs.
Obviously, there’s some out there who believe James played a huge role in Casey’s demise.
We can now add Boston Celtics forward Marcus Morris to that growing list.
Marcus Morris is asked if LeBron James can break teams. “I think he probably broke Toronto, if that’s what you’re referring to.”
— Tom Westerholm (@Tom_NBA) May 12, 2018
“I think in the Toronto series, no disrespect to them, but watching film, it just looked very easy at times,” Morris added. “He looked very confident. And there was no help. I didn’t see no physicality, I didn’t see any of that.”
It’s hard to argue with Morris’ logic here. There’s no telling how far Toronto would have gone in each of the past three years if it didn’t have to take on King James.
In this year’s conference semifinals, James averaged 34.3 points, 8.3 rebounds and 11.3 assists. The series itself culminated in a an ugly 35-point Game 4 loss. Eventually, this cost Casey his job. To ignore James’ role in this would be ignorant.