ill play devil's advocate and side with artest
okay, lebron is offensively good, statwise. he puts up points per game than artest. then again, he should....thats his job in cleveland. he also has more assists than artest...he should, as he's a point guard. they have about the same rebounding average, so i won't hit on that.
but defense comes in to win this for artest. his defense is crazy as everyone knows. it doesnt matter if he can't shut down lebron...its how he shuts down so many players. he gets the toughest defensive assignment pretty much every night.
artest's steal average is nuts...a little over 2 picks per game, and thats only counting the steals he gets, and not the turnovers he merely forces opponents to give up. offensively, artest is pretty good himself....about 18 ppg, 4 assists....and thats all while busting his ass at the other end of the court playing defense. he also commits less turnovers.
artest also has playoff experience (a huge plus), and knows what its like to be a roleplayer. what happens when lebron has to focus on something other than what he's used to? im interested in seeing how lebron will perform in the second half of the season, where teams really start to clamp down and work for those playoff spots.
right now artest is just better.