How Much Objective Value Does a Finals' Loss Have?

[Egg Nog]

No one really remembers how high you went as something of an accomplishment value, if you don't win the whole thing. Like for us here in Los Angeles the Dodgers are just kind of looked upon as a team that struggles a lot. Not a world series 2nd place winner two years in a row.

I believe the OP is asking the question in relation to evaluating individual players rather than teams.

[Texas Chuck]

First, I'm not sure why you felt the need to exclude Russell. Give some respect to the elders

Respect is good, but I don't think Russell belongs to the modern era. He played on consistently stacked teams in a tiny league, for a coach who was a step ahead of his peers. Their dominance shouldn't be forgotten IMO, but things just don't work that way anymore.

I hate that I have to keep pointing some obvious truths, but here we go again:

smaller league means tougher competition. Russell -- nearly 10% of the games in his career played against Wilt. This goes without mentioning some of the other greats in the league at the time. Players today don't approach this sort of thing. If anything the competition per game was much tougher than it is today.

His career ended in 1969. Later that same year Lew Alcindor made his NBA debut. He didn't play in the dark ages.

You credit Red for being ahead of his peers, but really it was Russell who essentially pioneered big man defense both from a horizontal and a vertical perspective. Think about that for just a minute. Bigs leaping to block shots was not a thing until Russell did it. Coaches hated guys leaving their feet. Bigs never switched out on to perimeter guys until Russell did it. His insistence on not just blocking shots but directing them to teammates or to himself much in the way an NHL goalie doesn't merely stop shots but directs rebounds to safe locations.

The only player with an argument to being more dominant is his own era is Mikan and in that case you actually do have to question how strong the league was. And no player changed modern basketball more than Bill Russell. His defensive innovation is still felt today.

And it goes without saying that Russell was a world class athlete who would have been physically dominant in any era, but imagine him playing with better shoes, and without the constant battle against racism. Year round training and coaching etc...

He's not the literal "best" player of all-time. Standing on the shoulders of giants and all have allowed others to surpass him. But you cannot have a discussion of "greatest" and leave out Bill Russell. His impact was just too big.

[Egg Nog]

was Jordans East really a strong conference?

You know what? Not really, at least not from the perspective of the Bulls. The east was top-heavy and certainly strong...an east team won the title 2/3rds of the time during Jordan's (non-Wizards) career...but 6 of those were the Bulls themselves so it's not really the right way of looking at it. Early in Jordan's career he faced brutal east teams, but he also would've had to face some of the great Lakers teams of all-time had the young Bulls made it past the Celtics/Pistons.

[gigantes]

First, I'm not sure why you felt the need to exclude Russell. Give some respect to the elders

Respect is good, but I don't think Russell belongs to the modern era. He played on consistently stacked teams in a tiny league, for a coach who was a step ahead of his peers. Their dominance shouldn't be forgotten IMO, but things just don't work that way anymore.

I hate that I have to keep pointing some obvious truths, but here we go again:

smaller league means tougher competition. Russell -- nearly 10% of the games in his career played against Wilt. This goes without mentioning some of the other greats in the league at the time. Players today don't approach this sort of thing. If anything the competition per game was much tougher than it is today.

His career ended in 1969. Later that same year Lew Alcindor made his NBA debut. He didn't play in the dark ages.

You credit Red for being ahead of his peers, but really it was Russell who essentially pioneered big man defense both from a horizontal and a vertical perspective. Think about that for just a minute. Bigs leaping to block shots was not a thing until Russell did it. Coaches hated guys leaving their feet. Bigs never switched out on to perimeter guys until Russell did it. His insistence on not just blocking shots but directing them to teammates or to himself much in the way an NHL goalie doesn't merely stop shots but directs rebounds to safe locations.

The only player with an argument to being more dominant is his own era is Mikan and in that case you actually do have to question how strong the league was. And no player changed modern basketball more than Bill Russell. His defensive innovation is still felt today.

And it goes without saying that Russell was a world class athlete who would have been physically dominant in any era, but imagine him playing with better shoes, and without the constant battle against racism. Year round training and coaching etc...

He's not the literal "best" player of all-time. Standing on the shoulders of giants and all have allowed others to surpass him. But you cannot have a discussion of "greatest" and leave out Bill Russell. His impact was just too big.

I can certainly respect your opinion, and FWIW I consider you a great poster, but this stuff is in the realm of wishful thinking to me, and always has been.

The idea that 'everything is that much more boiled down and intense in an eight-team league' is a good straight-ahead thought, though. I can understand your thinking process in terms of that, if that's your thinking process, while ultimately not agreeing with you in the whole.

Russell doesn't remotely belong in the GOAT discussion for the reasons I said. Not just because I'm a "bball-savant" (I'm not, I'm just some idiot spewing his opinion). Russell doesn't belong because the conflating factors render him a huge fish in a tiny pond. If that happens to impress you, then good for you! It doesn't, over here.

Wilt, Jordan and LeBron are worlds ahead of Russell in real-world accomplishment, and I'm not sorry for saying that. Also, Kareem probably belongs in that group, too IMO.

[Lalouie]

*Poll assumes player was one of the best players in the series and key in getting their team to the Finals.

edit: You can re-phrase question as "In your educated opinion, how much value does a Finals' Loss have?" - - - answers are not expected to be perfect or totally objective.

Hello. I am genuinely asking this and I think it would be helpful to try to quantify the actual value of a Finals' loss, if possible.

Please don't reply with personal attacks. The goal here is to actually try to objectively analyze Finals' records.

Please don't comment "it's a team game" without explaining your reasoning. Obviously it's a team game, but it's a team game where individual greats have a huge influence on winning and losing!

Obviously a key person in this discussion is LeBron, but this is not intended to bash him or any other player.

Please don't say "losing in the Finals' is better than losing in the first round" - - everyone already knows that and no one said otherwise. That's a straw-man argument.

For reference, let's look at the amount of Finals' wins/Championships among some all time great players (again, all time greats, not Robert Horry) in the semi-modern era (leaving out Russell/list is not comprehensive):

Kareem: 6
Jordan: 6
Magic: 5
Kobe: 5
Duncan: 5
Shaq: 4
Bird: 3
Curry: 3
LeBron: 3
Wade: 3
Durant: 2


Losses in the Finals' among same players:

LeBron: 6
Kareem: 4
Magic: 4
Shaq: 2
Kobe: 2
Bird: 2
Wade: 2
Curry: 2
Durant: 2 (only played 12 minutes in one of them)
Duncan: 1
Jordan: 0


So what value, if any, should we give to Finals' losses?

Also, if we're going to give credit for Finals' losses, should we give credit to losing in the Semi-Finals and earlier rounds of the Playoffs as well?

It's interesting that most people on this board seem to consider Finals' losses a positive thing, but losing in earlier rounds a negative thing. Why? Where/when is the cut-off for it becoming a good thing to lose?

Can we determine a semi-objective formula that gives a more comprehensive rating of a player's playoff record, than just Finals' wins and losses?

no amount of losses equals a ring. that just pure bad math. it's like "throw 'em a bone conciliatory math". the buffalo bills is known for nothing more than losing, and that was back then. now,,,,they're not even a blip.

the loss total ONLY has a perceptive positive value when it's balanced by the wins, simply because, well,,,you can't win all the time. if you win a lot and lose a few, you can't win all the time. if that is the case, what if you lose a lot and win a few?

if you lose more than you win, it means you were playing in the easier conference because the obvious question becomes would you have even gotten to the finals in the other league to begin with.

[andyhop]

Given a ring doesn't have a fixed value why would a loss in the finals have a fixed value ?

[CS707]

If you’re using finals appearances as a measure of evaluation for a player then winning/losing matters.

[lakerz12]

Given a ring doesn't have a fixed value why would a loss in the finals have a fixed value ?

A ring is generally considered a player's highest honor (especially if they were a top player on the team), outside of maybe an NBA MVP award being the highest honor.

So the question is what approximate value a Finals loss has. Most people agree it is better to lose in the Finals than to never make the Finals at all.

But just how much of an achievement is it? Compared to other top NBA achievements.

[andyhop]

Given a ring doesn't have a fixed value why would a loss in the finals have a fixed value ?

A ring is generally considered a player's highest honor (especially if they were a top player on the team), outside of maybe an NBA MVP award being the highest honor.

Rings are of totally different values depending on how much you contribute to the team winning one, just as losing Finals are of totally different values depending on how much you contribute to your team losing one.

Anybody having a fixed value for either is someone with too simplistic a view of the world.

[Hornet Mania]

Context matters. Lebron's Finals losses (except 2011) are easily defensible in context.

It's not just his haters though, his fans also are happy to ignore context when it improves the preferred narrative. The East was an absolute joke (still is, to some extent) during his run of consecutive conference titles, it would simply not have happened in a competitive conference like the West.

So imo, his Finals losses are a lot less damning than the detractors want people to think but the consecutive Finals appearances is also not exactly as incredible as fanboys claim either.

[antonac]

Context matters. Lebron's Finals losses (except 2011) are easily defensible in context.

they're not, they're actually worse.

Lebron is supposed to be the unquestioned GOAT in the eyes of people that make this argument, but the fact is he had teams stacked with assets for 8 seasons and wasn't able to elevate his team to being the best in the league for all but 2 of those seasons.

Lebron fans seem to rally around this idea he should get an A+ for effort when the other contenders to the GOAT crown actually went out and made their teams dominate.

[antonac]

also, for the OPs question, a finals loss has absolutely no "objective" value by the very definition of the word "objective".

If you're ranking players in an all time great list it's fundamentally subjective.

[Edrees]

It depends. If you make the finals, and are clearly outmatched and just got there because you had an easy road to the finals, I would say something similar to an all star appearance in terms of value. Like "oh yeah, what you did was nice, but not that special"

However, if you beat really good teams to get there and lost due to a bunch of injuries to your team, I'd say it's very high valued because you achieved a lot and probably would have won if not for injuries.

I would never count it as a negative and it breaks all my sense of logic to think it could ever be a negative. At worst, it's neutral. I can accept that point of view that it makes no impact, that second winner is just first loser. I don't agree but I find it acceptable for people to take that stance.

Context matters. Lebron's Finals losses (except 2011) are easily defensible in context.

they're not, they're actually worse.

Lebron is supposed to be the unquestioned GOAT in the eyes of people that make this argument, but the fact is he had teams stacked with assets for 8 seasons and wasn't able to elevate his team to being the best in the league for all but 2 of those seasons.

Lebron fans seem to rally around this idea he should get an A+ for effort when the other contenders to the GOAT crown actually went out and made their teams dominate.

I don't think you're answering the question. If Lebron lost in the first round, it would still be true that "he wasn't able to elevate his team to being the best in the league" so you're not really answering the question if it was worse to lose in the finals than it was to lose in the first round. The fact that he didn't win the title that year is a negative. However, the question is if he should be further punished because he lost in the finals instead of the first round. If losing in the finals is a negative, it would have boosted his legacy if he lost in the first round that year because his finals win % would be higher now.

In BOTH scenarios he's already knocked down for not winning the title that year. Every year a player fails to win a championship, that's a knock down for them. That's not really what's being questioned here.

[DevilsAvocado]

I think looking at the value of losses is more silver lining type stuff and less actual legacy credit.
I think credit is given for each round you advance because Advancing further is always good no? It's never good to lose but it's an achievement to go further especially when teams are building on previous years.
I think that value is more on a team level as they see growth and progression. For individuals as I mentioned I don't see it being an addition to their legacy.
I don't think it has value in the sense that a silver medal would. There's one trophy.

I don't think it's possible to come up with an objective system to rate value of players playoffs as there are too many variables to account for. As mentioned in the op and by several posters issues like teammates, opponents strength, path to the finals, injuries, etc make it difficult to assign objective value. So all we can really do is basically cherry pick a few players and highlight specific finals losses where you believe some credit should be given which is probably what most of us do, me included.
The only actual objective measure, the only real metric that is common and shared between every finals for every player regardless of any of the aforementioned variables is win or lose. One trophy.
I'm probably a hypocrite tbh as I'm sure I've applied either standard when it suits me.

[BigtimeNBAfan]

Context matters. Lebron's Finals losses (except 2011) are easily defensible in context.

they're not, they're actually worse.

Lebron is supposed to be the unquestioned GOAT in the eyes of people that make this argument, but the fact is he had teams stacked with assets for 8 seasons and wasn't able to elevate his team to being the best in the league for all but 2 of those seasons.

Lebron fans seem to rally around this idea he should get an A+ for effort when the other contenders to the GOAT crown actually went out and made their teams dominate.

I don't know if anyone thinks he is "the unquestioned GOAT." And his teams were not stacked compared to he played against and a few of them weren't even stacked, period. The 2007 team was not a good team. The 2018 team was not a good team. Both had similar rosters the next year and were near the bottom of the league yet Lebron took them to the finals. In 2015 he had his second and third leading scorer out in the finals. In 2017 he had a healthy roster, but nobody honestly believes he had the better team going up against Durant, Steph, Klay and Draymond. 2018 as mentioned his team was vastly inferior to the Warriors.

So yes 2011 Lebron deserves criticism. Most people even Lebron homers acknowledge he played poorly in the finals that year. Otherwise I don't see how a Finals loss can be blamed on him. He played well in the Finals with teams that were far inferior to who he went up against. You could put prime Kobe, prime MJ, prime Magic, prime whoever in his shoes and they aren't winning any of the finals he lost with the exception of 2011. And at the same time those guys likely don't win in 2016 which he did do against a 73 win historic team down 3-1.