2018 NBA Finals

[snowmanny]

I've heard several folks say LeBron is Magic Johnson. Maybe he's Wilt Chamberlain. Stronger than everyone else, an athletic freak with amazing individual accomplishments. With his sheer physical presence and skill drags his teams to very very goodness and every once in awhile happens upon a championship. Looks like the greatest player of all time and maybe he is - and as with Russell, Abdul-Jabbar and Jordan there's no real argument against either of them -but something is slightly off. 4X MVP which is impressive but maybe low for someone called the greatest player alive for more than a decade straight. Moves around a few times in his career and those teams become automatic favorites.

 

[Reverend]

I've heard several folks say LeBron is Magic Johnson. Maybe he's Wilt Chamberlain. Stronger than everyone else, an athletic freak with amazing individual accomplishments. With his sheer physical presence and skill drags his teams to very very goodness and every once in awhile happens upon a championship. Looks like the greatest player of all time and maybe he is - and as with Russell, Abdul-Jabbar and Jordan there's no real argument against either of them -but something is slightly off. 4X MVP which is impressive but maybe low for someone called the greatest player alive for more than a decade straight. Moves around a few times in his career and those teams become automatic favorites.

I was talking about some similar stuff with a friend of mine and he pointed out during game four, that IF LeBron were to somehow will the team to victory and then the championship, it would be beyond anything Jordan had ever done. My response was that Jordan would never have let himself get into this situation--hell, he brought in Rodman.

I think that should factor into greatness. Like, is it individual greatness, or is it a function of winning? Which is the real goal here?

 

[Jimbodandy]

I was talking about some similar stuff with a friend of mine and he pointed out during game four, that IF LeBron were to somehow will the team to victory and then the championship, it would be beyond anything Jordan had ever done. My response was that Jordan would never have let himself get into this situation--hell, he brought in Rodman.

I think that should factor into greatness. Like, is it individual greatness, or is it a function of winning? Which is the real goal here?

"Knowing how to win" is unfair, but there's something there. There's some combination of matchup luck, team owner/GM luck, ball/injury luck, and "let's maximize Elvis's talents" poor team building that contributes to guys like Lebron, Wilt, Dan Marino, et al. (include Peyton maybe) winning far fewer titles than their ungodly skillset would lead you to expect. But some of it is them.

 

[wonderland]

Lebron has made it to eight straight finals, losing only once to a team that wasn’t better than his (Dallas). His team beat a 73 win team when his best supporting players were healthy. The last two years there’s no same in losing to Golden State. I think he knows how to win just fine. I also feel safe in saying if Durant didn’t join Golden State Lebron would have at least one more title.

 

[the moops]

Do we know what GSW backup plan was if Durant resigned with OKC?

 

[Jimbodandy]

Lebron has made it to eight straight finals, losing only once to a team that wasn’t better than his (Dallas). His team beat a 73 win team when his best supporting players were healthy. The last two years there’s no same in losing to Golden State. I think he knows how to win just fine. I also feel safe in saying if Durant didn’t join Golden State Lebron would have at least one more title.

I think that Lebron falls on the "victim of horrible team building" end of the spectrum. But it's not unfair to wonder if there aren't decisions that he made along the way that are different from how MJ or Kobe handled things and whether that would have mattered ring wise.

 

[Sam Ray Not]

Do we know what GSW backup plan was if Durant re-signed with OKC?

The general presumption is that they would have signed Harrison Barnes to a max extension, but I've also heard that they weren't too hot for HB after his no-show in the 2016 finals. My best guess is that they would have let Barnes walk and gone hard after Horford (and probably landed him). Interesting alt. universe...

 

[Euclis20]

Horford wouldn't have been an option, he signed before Durant did (IIRC, the Celtics found out they had Horford either right before or right after their meeting with Durant).

 

[Sam Ray Not]

Horford wouldn't have been an option, he signed before Durant did (IIRC, the Celtics found out they had Horford either right before or right after their meeting with Durant).

Ah, you're right. Looks like Horford tweeted out "Celtics Pride" on July 2, two days before KD's Players Tribune "My Next Chapter" announcement (which still amazes me to read, since he buried the lede at the end of the second paragraph, which killed me at the time!) The Cs had room for two max deals, so could theoretically have signed both. Still ... I feel like the Warriors by 2 July must have felt good enough about their Durant chances to have given up on Horford — whom they they had previously been interested in, per Marcus Thompson II.

 

[TripleOT]

I thought this was a pretty interesting stat:

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/23739593/lebron-james-cleveland-cavaliers-played-significant-hand-injury

If Boston got to play this LeBron, the Celtics would have won it. James was devastating from three

Ah, you're right. Looks like Horford tweeted out "Celtics Pride" on July 2, two days before KD's Players Tribune "My Next Chapter" announcement (which still amazes me to read, since he buried the lede at the end of the second paragraph, which killed me at the time!) The Cs had room for two max deals, so could theoretically have signed both. Still ... I feel like the Warriors by 2 July must have felt good enough about their Durant chances to have given up on Horford — whom they they had previously been interested in, per Marcus Thompson II.

Durant buried the everything in that announcement.

 

[Sam Ray Not]

For fun, here's the career playoff scoring volume (pts per 36) and efficiency (true shooting %) of the all-time studs. (Let me know if I've omitted anyone crucial...)

20.0 pts on .618 ts (McHale)
24.9 pts on .606 ts (Curry)
20.2 pts on .601 ts (Miller)
17.7 pts on .595 ts (Magic)
25.5 pts on .591 ts (Durant)
16.3 pts on .585 ts (Allen)
21.0 pts on .584 ts (Barkley)
22.7 pts on .580 ts (Harden)
24.8 pts on .579 ts (LeBron)
22.4 pts on .577 ts (Nowitzki)
23.7 pts on .573 ts (Kyrie)
23.4 pts on .571 ts (Kareem)
23.5 pts on .569 ts (Hakeem)
28.8 pts on .568 ts (Jordan)
23.3 pts on .565 ts (Shaq)
18.4 pts on .554 ts (Pierce)
20.4 pts on .551 ts (Bird)
21.3 pts on .549 ts (Wade)
19.9 pts on .548 ts (Duncan)
18.9 pts on .547 ts (The Admiral)
23.5 pts on .541 ts (Kobe — lol, Kobe sucks)
21.7 pts on .526 ts (Karl Malone — lol, the Mailman sucks)
23.7 pts on .489 ts (Iverson — lol, Iverson totally sucks)

(But I'm told Steph Curry lacks FMVPs or something...)