LeBron James' NBA Finals runs come with an asterisk

[HOoopCityJones]

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.

[dh144498]

water is wet.

[Magic 32]

[HOoopCityJones]

water is wet.

Considering the debates going on here the past few days, I just thought it was an interesting read to consider. Not really tryna break mold here, lol.

[Cleverness]

edit: didn't notice that it was only the "path to the finals" which only includes 3 teams in the East

yeah, it is easier in the East.

[livinglegend]

Average scoring margin?
How exactly did they calculate that?
The article is not clear.

It's also interesting to see that Kobe had an easier finals run than the east winner in 2009 and 2010.

[HOoopCityJones]

Average scoring margin?
How exactly did they calculate that?
The article is not clear.

Basic math skills I suppose.

[livinglegend]

Basic math skills I suppose.

what exactly is the average scoring margin?

[HOoopCityJones]

Some more perspective on supporting casts.

I crunched the data and found an important footnote to LeBron James' five career NBA Finals appearances (including four straight). His path to the championship series went through much weaker teams than his contemporaries with lots of Finals trips (Tim Duncan and Kobe Bryant). This is an important piece of context when touting LeBron's dominance of the East. The East has largely been shallow and, compared to the West, weak during LeBron's reign.

Here's another important piece of context.

As noted, the data is from the valuable Basketball-Reference.com. If you go back through Duncan's Finals teams and subtract Duncan's Win Shares from the team total, you're left with -- on average -- a 49-win team. That's really quite good!

The same applies to Michael Jordan. (The numbers say that if you remove Jordan from the famous 72-win Bulls squad you'd still have a 55-27 squad. He had a really amazing supporting cast.) Kobe's average supporting cast during his seven Finals runs was equivalent to a 45-37 team, which is rather solid. He has a great deal of variance, though; his 2000 team would have won 54 games without him, while his 2004 team was roughly a 40-win team.

But LeBron's supporting casts have consistently been weaker than those of his Finals-heavy contemporaries. Two squads -- the 2014 Heat and 2007 Cavaliers -- would have had losing records without LeBron according to this method. Overall, LeBron's teams during his five Finals runs are barely above-average squads without him. To put it another way: None of them would be 50-win squads without him. Each of the other stars considered here have at least one 50-win supporting cast on the list, and Duncan has four.

Of course, those other guys had a higher success rate in the Finals. Duncan is 5-1 in the Finals. Jordan was 6-0. Kobe has gone 5-2. LeBron is currently 2-3. Context is everything. LeBron typically had an easier route to the Finals, but he was almost always carrying a thoroughly mediocre supporting cast with him. Even though Duncan and Kobe faced tougher paths, they usually had a lot more help to get there. Everything is relative.

[kuniva_dAMiGhTy]

Which is why many put asterisks under his ring count. Forget the lockout which in and of itself was shoddy (injuries), but 2013 might have been an even WORSE conference than 2015 which is saying something. Bucks, Rose-less Bulls, and the Pacers? Horrific.

SBNation is on point, but not saying anything new regarding the other finals appearances.

[livinglegend]

Does anyone know what's average scoring margin?
Where does it exactly come from?
It's good to see graphs and try to give them meanings, but what's the point of them if we don't know where exactly they come from.

[mehyaM24]

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

[dh144498]

It's also interesting to see that Kobe had an easier finals run than the east winner in 2009 and 2010.

It's a point to make that the winners of the East those 2 years were also not the favorites to make the finals.

[livinglegend]

Which is why many put asterisks under his ring count. Forget the lockout which in and of itself was shoddy (injuries), but 2013 might have been an even WORSE conference than 2015 which is saying something. Bucks, Rose-less Bulls, and the Pacers? Horrific.

SBNation is on point, but not saying anything new regarding the other finals appearances.

SBNation also said Lebron had a worse supporting cast.
Easier path, worse supporting cast. It evens out.

[lilteapot]

Who cares, eventually he has to beat the best team coming out of the Western Conference and he's done that twice. Nobody cares about the way he got there.