Beginning Thursday, LeBron James will be playing in his seventh consecutive NBA Finals and eighth overall in his illustrious 14-season career.
These simple facts alone have him already in the “greatest ever” discussion with, conceivably, eight to 10 more seasons left in his career. What’s holding him back at the moment, however, is the fact that he’s batting below .500 in his Finals appearances at 3-for-7.
Fair or not, when having a discussion about the best player ever, Michael Jordan and his 6-for-6 record in the Finals will always be the gold standard that James will be chasing.
However, when considering James’ Finals history, were those four losses really on him? Superstar players take all the glory when things go well and all the blame when things go south, but in James’ case when it comes the Finals he seems to have remained a consistent performer and in both his victories and defeats it’s been a case of outside forces guiding his fortunes.
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Don’t believe me? Just take a look at some of his playoffs stats in the years he went to the Finals, compared to his Finals numbers.
Playoffs Stats | Finals Stats | |
---|---|---|
PPG | 27.0 | 25.5 |
RPG | 8.9 | 9.9 |
APG | 6.7 | 7.2 |
TOV | 3.4 | 3.9 |
FG% | 47.9 | 45.5 |
3P% | 31.9 | 33.7 |
3PA | 4.3 | 5.1 |
As you can see in the table above, James has remained almost the exact same guy in the Finals as he was in the entirety of the playoffs leading up to them.
So then, if James remains his same excellent self in the Finals, why hasn’t he won more? As mentioned before, there’s a lot more at play than just him.
In Finals wins
2012
This was James’ first championship triumph and he was spectacular to the tune of 28.6 points, 10.2 assists and 7.4 rebounds per game in a five-game series. However, it’s not that far removed from the 30.3 points, 9.7 rebounds and 5.6 assists per game he averaged in the 2012 playoffs.
The key difference? While the Oklahoma City Thunder were stacked with Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden, that trio was still very young and learning how to play at that level. Durant and Westbrook were 23 at the time and Harden was 22.
James, meanwhile, was 27 and just beginning to fully realize the scope of his all-encompassing abilities. Throw in Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh also in their primes and a host of veteran role players on that Miami Heat team…
Long story short, the veteran team won, as it does more often than not.
2013
This series against the San Antonio Spurs was a far more even matchup in terms of experience and talent compared to James’ win over the Thunder, and it showed in going the full seven.
Of course, the Spurs would’ve won in six if not for Ray Allen’s famous step-back three-pointer to send that game into overtime. On that play, Gregg Popovich made the rare mistake of subbing out Tim Duncan, a move that allowed Chris Bosh to collect an offensive rebound and send the ball to Allen who drilled the shot with 5.2 seconds left. Then Allen would again come up large for Miami to force Game 7.
James was brilliant in the deciding game, scoring 37 points with 12 rebounds, but he was brilliant all series long. Fact is, he won his second title in part because of Allen.
2016
This championship will likely go down as James’ career-defining moment. He broke Cleveland’s championship drought and sort of fulfilled the destiny that was set out for him as a 17-year-old high school phenom in Akron, Ohio.
The thing is, though, it’s difficult not to think what would’ve happened if Draymond Green hadn’t got suspended for Game 5. This is the best defensive player in the series, and he essentially took himself out of an entire game for complete foolishness.
There’s also the caveat of Kyrie Irving’s dramatic triple to put the Cavaliers up by three in Game 7 and some surprising Kevin Love defence on Stephen Curry.
So, yes, James was amazing in that seven-game Finals, but no less amazing than he always is. Green and Irving are major reasons why he managed to break through for Cleveland.
In Finals losses
2007
Just like we can say his championship wins were more because of factors outside of his excellent play, the same can be said of his losses.
The best example of this was his first trip to the Finals when he got swept by the Spurs. James was only 22 at the time and carried a team that featured the likes of Larry Hughes, Sasha Pavlovic, Drew Gooden and Zydrunas Ilgauskas— not exactly the most inspiring lineup to work with. James, who was very-much still a kid, was squaring up against a Spurs team with Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili at the height of their powers.
Impossible to pin any of this on James, who averaged 22.0 points, 7.0 rebounds and 6.8 assists per game in the series— pretty good.
2011
The 2011 Finals is the only example of James not living up to his playoffs standards.
Playoffs Stats | Finals Stats | |
---|---|---|
PPG | 23.7 | 17.8 |
RPG | 8.4 | 7.2 |
APG | 5.9 | 6.8 |
TOV | 3.1 | 4.0 |
FG% | 46.6 | 47.8 |
3P% | 35.3 | 32.1 |
3PA | 4.0 | 4.7 |
There’s no way around it. The peripherals look good, but a scoring drop of six points per game is significant, particularly when you see he was shooting the ball well.
This was his first season in Miami and he may have still been trying to get others involved (Wade in particular) but in those Finals he really looked to be taking a backseat when he should’ve asserted himself as the best player on the floor, like he always is.
2014
James was awesome in the 2014 Finals, continuing one of his best-ever post-seasons, but the Heat still lost in five mainly because he didn’t receive much help from his supporting cast.
Wade and Bosh averaged just 15.2 an 14.0 points per game in the series and were the only other players to average double-digit scoring for Miami in that Finals.
It doesn’t matter how good James is if the secondary guys are playing that poorly, especially with the Spurs featuring five players averaging double-digit scoring in the series.
2015
The Warriors saw some bad luck the year after, but the first title Curry, Green, and Klay Thompson won together saw them have the breaks go their way.
In this Finals, James was essentially on an island as Love was out of the playoffs from the first round onwards and the Cavaliers lost Irving after Game 1.
James, Tristan Thompson and Matthew Dellavedova were able to scratch out two wins in the series in a miracle fashion, but that’s it.
The injuries to Love and Irving sealed James’ fate in the 2015 Finals, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Closing thoughts
With the exception of the 2011 Finals against the Mavericks, it’s really difficult to pin any championship success or failure solely on James.
He is the very model of consistency and that’s reflective in both his playoffs stats and his overall Finals stats, in addition to his remarkable run of seven straight Finals appearances.
For some, this steadiness is the ultimate proof of his undisputed all-time greatness, for others it’ll never be enough.
Regardless of what side you fall on, you can bank on James putting together a strong Finals performance starting Thursday and it’ll likely depend on what everyone else does to determine if he wins again or not.