LeBron James' NBA Finals runs come with an asterisk

[Blue&Orange]

did lebron-led teams NOT beat the best west teams in 2012 & 2013?

i agree that the EC is weak. has been for a while. but do people seriously think miami don't make the finals those seasons? LOL

Yes Lebron with the "it's going to be easy team" the never done before 3 max players team beat two western teams, first with the help of the refs, second Ray Allen.

LOL indeed.

[ArbitraryWater]

True, but you gotta consider sample size, and the fact he faced better teams throughout (Suns, Blazers, Jazz, Mavs etc).

Besides LeBron's over the top fanbase, not many people take his titles seriously. They're more like pity rings. Teaming up with arguably the best player at the time, and a top 5 PF to make a super squad in an already crappy conference? Yeah it counts for something, but how much credit does he really get for stacking the deck against meek competition?

I still have him as a top 5 perimeter talent, and borderline top 10 player

damn since when you this retarded

[Miller for 3]

Imo, in Lebron's playoff career he is 1-7. Only the 2007 Spurs, 2008 Celtics, 2009 Magic, 2010 Celtics, 2011 Mavs, 2013 Spurs, and 2014 were above average teams that Lebron played. Lockout year doesn't count, and every team Lebron's team has beat was either hurt, terrible, tanking, or not trying

[plowking]

So the 2013 run doesn't take into account Bosh's injury?

And the other data shows Bron's teams were generally a lot worse off without him?

So what is the problem here? About to beat a 60 win team, and he beat the Bulls who would have made it to the second round out West anyway. People act like the Bulls were some easy feat, but they were a few minutes away from being down 3-1 to those Bulls. Now in hindsight it was easy...

[kuniva_dAMiGhTy]

damn since when you this retarded

I don't speak broken english. Come again, young foreigner?

[Smoke117]

Notice how it's only Kobe dick suckers that are so shook up that they have to make this kind of thread? No actual real basketball fan ever makes a bullshit thread like this...because we don't have agendas. Hoopbitch doing damage control...lol. *smirk*

[eliteballer]

[3ball]

Says sbnation

http://www.sbnation.com/2015/4/22/84...nference-chart

LeBron James has been to four consecutive NBA Finals series and five in his career. That accurately suggests a high level of dominance over the Eastern Conference. After all, James is in just his 12th season. His five conference titles in 11 full years is a darn strong rate.

The ring bearers of the previous generation -- Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan -- have seven and six conference banners, respectively. They've each had at least 17 full seasons. LeBron is on pace to pass those two legends within the next couple of years, assuming his success in the East playoffs continues.

Of course, LeBron has a long way to go to catch up where it really matters: Actual NBA championships. LeBron has two. Kobe and Duncan each earned five. And therein lies the rub. LeBron's teams have won the East in half of his seasons. But once there, their success rate plummets. That fact, plus what we know about the NBA's deep conference imbalance, leads me to question whether winning the East is actually much of an achievement at all, at least compared to winning the West.

As it turns out, making the Finals out of the West has been a much more difficult challenge in most of the past 15 years. This chart shows the average regular season scoring margin of teams that each conference's champ beat in the playoffs each year.

For instance, last year the Heat and Spurs won their conferences. The Heat's number is an average of scoring margins of the teams they beat to get to the Finals (the Bobcats, Nets and Pacers) and the Spurs' number is an average of scoring margins of the teams they beat to get to the Finals (the Thunder, Blazers and Mavericks). The Heat's average East playoff opponent strength was +1.06. The Spurs' average West playoff opponent strength was +4.24.

When you run those numbers over the past 15 seasons, the West path to the Finals has been appreciably more difficult 11 times, the East path has been more difficult three times and it was essentially a push once. The exceptions to the norm: From 2009 through 2012, when the East had multiple strong contenders and the West was more deep than daunting. James' teams missed the Finals the two years the East's opposition was best.

A comparison of the average difficulty of making the Finals in each of the trips LeBron, Kobe and Duncan have made paints as stark a picture. (Note: we didn't include Duncan's first Finals berth in 1999 since that was a bizarre lockout season.)

LeBron's been to the Finals very frequently. But the data shows that the path to the Finals in the East -- where LeBron has spent his entire career -- is almost always easier. So, while the Finals berths are an accomplishment, they are a lesser accomplishment than making the Finals out of the West, especially in the case of LeBron's fellow all-timers who have racked up banners in the tougher conference.

This isn't about diminishing LeBron's accomplishments. It's about putting them in the proper context.

Tim Duncan flirted with the Orlando Magic in 2000. How many Finals would he have made if he'd jumped ship? Ten? Kobe was drafted by the Charlotte Hornets in 1996. How many Finals would he have made if he hadn't been traded? Twelve?

Of course, Duncan and Kobe have traditionally had better supporting casts and coaches, and the basic numbers used here don't account for injuries to opponents that may overrate the difficulty of the Finals paths. There's a lot of context missing from this basic study.

But it's something to keep in mind when we consider the greatness of Kobe, Duncan and the other stars of the West. Their paths to glory have been a lot tougher than the paths of their Eastern contemporaries.

I know some of ya'll gonna hate me for this, but fucc you it was an interesting read.

Proof gonna proof

And backed up by missing the playoffs in the West...

We now know that his Finals appearances mean little - the OP stats prove it along with actual events (missing playoffs in West)

[sdot_thadon]

Op was 1000% correct it should come with an asterisk:

Lebron 8 straight trips to the nba finals*


*= only replicated by the Boston celtics who actually made 10 straight from 58-66

aka 1 man dynasty.

[SpaceJam2]

Op was 1000% correct it should come with an asterisk:

Lebron 8 straight trips to the nba finals*


*= only replicated by the Boston celtics who actually made 10 straight from 58-66

aka 1 man dynasty.

Shut. It. Down.

Lol at only 3 in a row

[34-24 Footwork]

Lol. Vicious bump

[34-24 Footwork]

Notice how it's only Kobe dick suckers that are so shook up that they have to make this kind of thread? No actual real basketball fan ever makes a bullshit thread like this...because we don't have agendas. Hoopbitch doing damage control...lol. *smirk*

A few years later, the data checks out, COMPLETELY

I personally never thought he'd come out West to validate it, though.

[bullettooth]

Shut. It. Down.

Lol at only 3 in a row

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RWvcuVKHa0

[Celtics 1825]

Imo, in Lebron's playoff career he is 1-7. Only the 2007 Spurs, 2008 Celtics, 2009 Magic, 2010 Celtics, 2011 Mavs, 2013 Spurs, and 2014 were above average teams that Lebron played. Lockout year doesn't count, and every team Lebron's team has beat was either hurt, terrible, tanking, or not trying

The team with the greatest record in NBA history wasn't above average??

[RRR3]

The team with the greatest record in NBA history wasn't above average??

They weren’t trying, obviously.