Larry Hughes was an on the All Defensive team prior to signing in Cleveland. Ilgauskas was an All-Star before Lebron was drafted and after. The same excuses don't apply to other stars in the league. No one complains that Melo hasn't had help, and he didn't in New York, or that Oladipo didn't have help with the Pacers, or that Giannis hasn't with the Bucks. There are many cases of stars pushing their teams to the playoffs on their own but with Lebron there are excuses for why he didn't win championships every year when there doesn't need to be. You can't win every year and just because you're a star doesn't mean you're guaranteed a ring. Ask Barkley, Reggie Miller, John Stockton, Karl Malone, Steve Nash, the list goes on and on. Looking back at why they fell short though none of them immediately resort to the "I didn't have any help" line that Lebron does whenever he doesn't win a title that season.
I think Lebron complaining for help has cost him a lot, not just in how his legacy is viewed but in terms of how teams have been built around him. He's been inpatient and refuses to build chemistry with role players. Look at the Spurs, they were a dynasty because of their consistency and they were a team of role players. Lebron played 7 years in Cleveland then bolted. He played 4 in Miami and ran back to Cleveland because they were able to assemble a better big 3 than what he had in Miami. That team in Miami wasn't the super team that he anticipated, or that the media crowned them as. In their introductory press conference it was Lebron that said they didn't get together to win A championship but many. He did the whole "not 2, not 3, not 4..." and talked about 7 or titles together. Then Dirk proved they weren't unbeatable that following June. Dirk didn't have much help that year, he carried the Mav's past Miami. The Heat did win 2 titles in 4 years with 4 trips to the finals but that was seen as a failure or disappointment because of how Lebron and the media built them up.
It takes time to build a contender, you can't just throw a collection of players together and expect a title. Miami should have taught him that. That's why the 04 Lakers didn't work with Shaq, Kobe, Malone, and Payton. Payton won a ring a few years later in Miami because they built a team, not an All-Star team. The Knicks were guilty of assembling a team of former All-Stars when Isaiah Thomas' was their GM. He'd go after anyone with name recognition and ended up assembling a horrible roster of "me-first" players. Teams need to be assembled, they can't be bought, not in the NBA. Lebron has tried that method over and over and failed but continues to push for it. They lost to the Warriors last year, but the Warriors already look beatable and they haven't lost anyone. Cleveland lost Kyrie though so they no longer had the core of the team that beat them after their 73 win season when many thought they were unbeatable. A lot of people think the Rockets can beat them this year and Harden only has Chris Paul when it comes to stars. They did fine without Paul last year but since they added him the Warriors aren't the dominating favorites they were. Had Cleveland taken another shot at them they might have been able to beat them again but Lebron was pushing for them to trade Kyrie for Paul George and Bledsoe at the draft last year, which started their implosion.
I feel like in your effort to disprove my point you said a few things that confirmed it.
First off, Larry Hughes, in Cleveland, was a chucker who made his team worse on both ends when he was on the court... infact, that was basically his MO throughout his career outside of that one career season in Washington. If Hughes played now, with all the advanced stats, he would hardly see the floor. He made all-defense because he led the league in steals, but all he did was gamble in passing lanes.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/hughela01.html
On that site, scroll down to his ortg and drtg. His rookie season and that year in Washington were literally the only years of his career where his team was not hemorrhaging while he was on the court. He sucked.
Ilgauskas was solid but was slowed by foot problems.
You mention people not complaining that Oladipo and Anthony didn't have help... well, Oladipo has been at it for all of one season, Anthony ditched a talented Nuggets team to join a Knicks team that had to drain most of their talent to get him. Furthermore, the key difference is that James "without help" was dragging the Cavs on deep playoff runs, while Anthony never went anywhere at all. And that is with Anthony playing alongside Tyson Chandler and a couple healthy years of Amare, which is more help by a HUGE margin than LeBron ever had in his first Cleveland run.
In his first run in Cleveland, where they averaged around 55 wins per year, he played alongside TWO guys that made all-star teams while he was there... that is... insane, especially considering he was in the East where the bar for making the All-Star squad was a bit low. Most contending teams have two or more all stars caliber players on their rosters at all times. And again... the "all-stars" who accompanied LeBron were Ilguskas and Mo Williams... yikes.
You're also correct that building a contender requires patience, and the Cavs had none and this was before LeBron was meddling in roster affairs. They tried to rush to contention really early in his career, making old, expensive rosters with huge turnover every off season. They won 61 games in his last year there... 61 wins out of a team that relied heavily on dudes like Anthony Parker, Delonte West, JJ Hickson and fossilized versions of Antawan Jamison, Shaq and Z. The next year they won 19 games, the only starter to depart was LeBron.
He had no help. I honestly don't blame him for leaving (especially if the rumors about DeLonte West were true... yuck), but they way he did it with "THE DECISION" was about so profoundly stupid as could be possible and absolutely poisoned public perception of him.
And Miami didn't ruin the perception of "throwing together players and expecting a title"... because they did exactly that. In 4 years they went to the finals 4 times and won twice. Given the hype it was a "disappointment" but in those 4 years the Heat had more success than most franchises have had in their entire histories.
I would have liked to have seen LeBron's career trajectory if Cleveland's front office hadn't been wildly incompetent, but that wasn't the case. If he hadn't left then I suspect he'd still have zero titles, because Cleveland wouldn't have gotten those draft picks with him around... and again, it shows how terrible that franchise is ran that whenever they don't have the league's best player they end up drafting first every other season... and then taking Anthony Bennett...
Seriously, the more I think about it the more confirmed it is to me just how insanely talented LeBron is. That franchise is a horrifically ran franchise, him averaging like 55 wins per season and 5 trips to the finals there is a herculean effort.
