No one ever "counted" losses until Lebron

[StrongLurk]

Humans often get smarter with time, so now people realize that looking at a player's record against Finals teams (the best teams) is a good idea.

It's quite revealing given a sufficient sample size... For example, it's clear that a player with a 22-33 record (lottery record) against Finals teams produces weaker team ceilings than players that produced a 24-13 record in the Finals (MJ, Curry or Kobe).. The difference is ball-domination, since Magic has a losing 24-26 record in the Finals just like Lebron - essentially, ball-dominators have losing Finals records (Lebron, Magic, Westbrook, Harden, Luka, etc), while highly-assisted skillsets like bigs or jumpshooters produce more sophisticated ball movement and levels of team offense so they have winning Finals records (Kareem, Duncan, MJ, Curry, Kobe)... SGA is the first winning primary ballhandler in the Finals but he isn't really a high-assist player - he actually closes a lot of possessions himself via mid-range assassin, so he's more like Kobe/MJ despite his primary ballhandler role and low assisted rate.

btw, in addition to having all the winning Finals records, highly-assisted skillsets like bigs or jumpshooters are the 1st option for all the best teams, aka dynasties (3 in 5), or dominant title runs (1 loss average per round, 4 losses max).

Lebron has more FMVPs than Kobe and Curry combined.

Lebron also has more MVPS than Kobe and Curry combined.

[Full Court]

Lebron has more FMVPs than Kobe and Curry combined.

Lebron also has more MVPS than Kobe and Curry combined.

Lebron has more choke jobs than Curry, Kobe, Jordan, Duncan, and Wilt combined.

[sdot_thadon]

Baylor was never denigrated as a player becuase of his finals record. We didn't treat great players the way we treat Lebron EVER. The thing you could say was held against Baylor was his retiring without having won a ring at all. That was a thing that "validated" your greatness and completely different from Lebron's situation. We later saw this with guys like Ewing, Barkley and Malone. Iverson. More recently Melo. That asterisk of * never won a championship aside their name. Guys that won? They were good for life and just waiting for their hall of fame call. And even with that, i never saw a single bad view of Baylor or his career. Wilt was one of the only guys i can remember having really any sort of negative press surrounding his career. And the negative wasn't a 2-4 finals record, it was the perception that he quit in a finals series. And even with this he was widely regarded as
Goat for a period of time. Some people saw Oscar Robertson as the goat with only a sidekick ring to his name. Finals record was never a thing until Lebron. Most of the shit i've seen people bitch and moan about with Lebron was never a thing before him. I feel like it has alot to do with the times, Floyd Mayweather was also hated harder than I ever saw a great boxer get hated on. Hot take media really warped the minds of sports fans too. And with that shift people's concept of what greatness actually is began to change. Post 80s i cant really recall many people talking about Bill Russell as perhaps the greatest of all time. But 30 years later never having logged another single minute, he's seen as a greater player than Wilt in an all time sense. I've always been intrigued by all time debates since I was a kid. Lebron brought about some shit I've never seen in these conversations before him.