How weak was the East when Lebron was there

[migya]

How weak was the East when Lebron was there? Particularly his first stint in Cleveland and in Miami?

Watch on YouTube

Pretty compelling alot of this information, as blunt as it is.

[One_and_Done]

Basically irrelevant because Lebron's best teams performed as well vs the West as the East. Check the 2009 and 2010 Cavs in particular.

[migya]

Basically irrelevant because Lebron's best teams performed as well vs the West as the East. Check the 2009 and 2010 Cavs in particular.

When it counted they performed more bad than good. When he lost he got beaten badly.

[70sFan]

It was definitely weaker than the East, but LeBron still faced a lot of strong teams in his playoff runs.

I always find this criticism (as well as Magic's case) unconvincing.

[Owly]

Don't know how easy it is to get precise numbers in terms of points dif between the conferences and average conference SRS
...
What people mean by this can differ as what the video title alludes to "finals" suggests playoff focus either opponents specifically or playoff qualifiers in general, whereas conference quality might more properly refer to the average overall quality.
...
What I would say is
1) I believe conference imbalance is widely known about ... for most of this century the West has been dominant it may get loss noted as we go back but I think the 80s West being weak would be pretty widely known here, going back further for much of the early Celtic dynasty era the West was weaker as it was in 1950 in the merger/absorption year where there were 3 conferences and the West was filled with with a lot of weak NBL franchises.
2) I know many channels (especially successful ones) go clickbait-y with titles and images but if you're going to put a player with an exaggerated/unfortunate expression in trash can ... I don't want that as something input as something I clicked, I don't want to give you my time and I if I were for any reason to see it, you start in a really bad place in terms of whether I can trust you as a source. Telling me someone is "overrated" is probably a yellow flag.

[migya]

2007 -
1st round, Washington, 41-41, srs -0.8
2nd round, Nets, 41-41, srs -1.0
ecf, Detroit, 50-32, srs 3.69, best player Ben Wallace not on team.

2008 -
1st round, Washington, 43-39, srs -0.61

2009 -
1st round, Detroit, 39-43, srs -0.36
2nd round, Atlanta, 47-35, srs +1.7

2010 -
1st round, Chicago, 41-41, srs -1.64


The teams the Cavs beat were bad.

[OhayoKD]

2007 -
1st round, Washington, 41-41, srs -0.8
2nd round, Nets, 41-41, srs -1.0
ecf, Detroit, 50-32, srs 3.69, best player Ben Wallace not on team.

2008 -
1st round, Washington, 43-39, srs -0.61

2009 -
1st round, Detroit, 39-43, srs -0.36
2nd round, Atlanta, 47-35, srs +1.7

2010 -
1st round, Chicago, 41-41, srs -1.64


The teams the Cavs beat were bad.

Lebron has literally beaten three teams with higher PSRS scores than anyone your GOAT topped...

[lessthanjake]

The East was weak in that timeframe, and everyone understood that at the time. The biggest issue IMO was that there was largely just a real dearth of MVP-level superstars in the East. Which is a huge deal because teams almost never win titles without an MVP-level superstar on your team—it’s really integral to playoff success. Throughout LeBron’s career in the East, the MVP-level superstars were massively concentrated in the West: Kobe, Nash, Dirk, Duncan, Durant, Curry, Harden, Paul, Westbrook, and Kawhi were *all* in the West. The only MVP-level guys who spent time in the East in that timeframe were Wade, Dwight, Garnett, and Rose. And for all of those guys it was a very brief period. Wade was MVP-level and then LeBron decided to team up with him, so that no longer counted of course. Garnett was in the West for virtually his entire time as an MVP-level player. While in the East, he was probably MVP-level in his first year in Boston, and then he was really good but not really MVP-level after that. Rose was ostensibly MVP-level one year since he won the award, but even if we considered him truly MVP-level, it was a one-year thing because of his injury the next year. I don’t really think Dwight Howard was ever truly MVP level (even though he got 2nd in voting once), but even if we say he was, he was only in the East until 2012 and in the meantime the Cavs/Heat only faced him in the playoffs once (and lost, despite Dwight’s best teammate being out).

That said, despite the huge lack of MVP-level talent in the East, there were still some at least somewhat difficult teams sometimes. Early on, the Pistons were good (particularly when LeBron faced them in 2006, when they still had Ben Wallace). The Celtics became good for a while with Garnett/Pierce/Allen—and indeed, them being good was clearly a huge reason LeBron went and created the Miami team. I think an argument can be made for the Magic, Bulls, and Raptors being briefly good. I personally didn’t think the Raptors were very good—in part because of their lack of an MVP-level player—but one can’t totally disrespect a 59-win 7+ SRS team. The Magic were pretty good for a brief period, but the Cavaliers only faced them when the Magic were without their 2nd best player. And the 2011 Bulls were a good team IMO.

So it wasn’t just cakewalks every time—though there were some cakewalks in there. I think the East in that era was probably stronger than the West in the 1980s. And I also think it was probably stronger in general than the East had been in the first half or so of the 2000’s. But it was definitely noticeably weak.

[TheLand13]

How weak was the East when Lebron was there? Particularly his first stint in Cleveland and in Miami?

Watch on YouTube

Pretty compelling alot of this information, as blunt as it is.

So first and foremost, I’ve seen a lot of videos about LeBron from this guy and they’re all pretty laughable. I have no problem with channels that provide constructive criticism about a player but this guy just doesn’t do that. He has an agenda, and he’s no different from 80% of the people in GB who spout the same nonsense he does about LeBron. He’s clueless, just like they are.

With that said, there was definitely some weak competition, but it’s overblown.

2015: the competition LeBron faced this season tends to get horribly underrated, and that’s just a shame, because LeBron went through some really great teams that year and he barely gets credit for it. The Bulls and Hawks were both very strong teams that Lebron’s team was able to get through without Kevin Love. That’s despite the bulls taking home court and a 2-1 lead.

2016: there’s nothing really noteworthy about this postseason run. The Raptors were a really good team but none of them really had a chance at taking out the Cavs.

2017: this is the one where I will always say that Lebron’s competition was laughably bad. Even the Celtics, his toughest competition, were a few tiers below Cleveland.

2018: I’ve talked about these teams many times and will continue to do so. There was nothing weak about any of the teams LeBron had to go through here, especially Toronto and Boston. But what makes it most impressive is how bad Lebron’s team was.

So yeah, the guy making that video is a joke. Best not to bother with him.

Edit: just realized I ignored his Miami years. I’ll talk about those later.

[SHAQ32]

East was relatively weak circa 04-07, 2012-17

[JustBuzzin]

Very weak.

Dwight Howard was the only one to beat him head to head without a superteam. Lebron had the East on lockdown until the Celtics superteam came along.

[One_and_Done]

Cavs were 26-4 vs the West in 09, and 23-7 vs the West in 2010. That's better than their record vs the East. Conference imbalance was irrelevant.

[lessthanjake]

Cavs were 26-4 vs the West in 09, and 23-7 vs the West in 2010. That's better than their record vs the East. Conference imbalance was irrelevant.

This doesn’t really get to how difficult a conference is for purposes of playoffs, though, since the difficulty of a conference is mostly about whether there are a number of really good teams. Nor does a team’s regular season record against another team necessarily have much of a correlation with how hard it’ll be to beat them in the playoffs—for instance, the 2007 Cavaliers beat the 2007 Spurs both times they met in the regular season. But yeah, the 2009 Cavs and 2010 Cavs were good enough to beat any team. And in any event those aren’t really the years people are thinking about when they say the conference was weak, since the Cavs actually did face pretty good playoff opponents in the East in those years (and lost to them).

[homecourtloss]

How weak was the East when Lebron was there? Particularly his first stint in Cleveland and in Miami?

Watch on YouTube

Pretty compelling alot of this information, as blunt as it is.

So first and foremost, I’ve seen a lot of videos about LeBron from this guy and they’re all pretty laughable. I have no problem with channels that provide constructive criticism about a player but this guy just doesn’t do that. He has an agenda, and he’s no different from 80% of the people in GB who spout the same nonsense he does about LeBron. He’s clueless, just like they are.

They’re laughably bad.

With that said, there was definitely some competition that wasn’t the strongest, but it’s overblown, hence it’s a lot easier to say in hindsight.

2015: the competition LeBron faced this season tends to get horribly underrated, and that’s just a shame, because LeBron went through some really great teams that year and he barely gets credit for it. The Bulls and Hawks were both very strong teams that Lebron’s team was able to get through without Kevin Love. That’s despite the bulls taking home court and a 2-1 lead.

2016: there’s nothing really noteworthy about this postseason run. The Raptors were a really good team but none of them really had a chance at taking out the Cavs.

2017: this is the one where I will always say that Lebron’s competition was laughably bad. Even the Celtics, his toughest competition, were a few tiers below Cleveland.

2018: I’ve talked about these teams many times and will continue to do so. There was nothing weak about any of the teams LeBron had to go through here, especially Toronto and Boston. But what makes it most impressive is how bad Lebron’s team was.

So yeah, the guy making that video is a joke. Best not to bother with him.

Edit: just realized I ignored his Miami years. I’ll talk about those later.

While the competition may not have been the greatest ever, it does get downplayed to explain away the consistent success that James showed in the postseason, consistency that is very rare in this game. During the time that they were being played, nobody expected easy series, certainly not the blow out +15 NET series. It is only after the fact that the winds were forgone conclusions.

2015

Hawks vs. Cavs—5 people picked the Hawks and not a SINGLE person picked the series to go less than 6/7 games [before knowing how little Kyrie would play]. Love was out, Kyrie was hobbled and played limited minutes (2 games, 49 minutes, 13 ppg) and still the Cavs swept a 60 win team, a +15 NET win, but in hindsight, “Of course the Hawks suck, lol.” LeBron Matthew Dellavedova, JR Smith, Iman Shumpert, swept and 60 win Hawks team. If anything, this is one of his most underrated achievements.

http://www.espn.com/nba/playoffs/2015/story/_/id/12904540/experts-predictions-conference-finals

Bulls vs. Cavs: 5 people picked the Bulls, nobody picked a series shorter than 6/7 but when it was over, it was, “Of course the Cavs won because thr Bulls suck. Kenny Smith at halftime of game one (without Love or JR) said the Bulls were just better but afterwards, he talks about “How easy the East is for LeBron”

http://www.espn.com/nba/playoffs/2015/story/_/id/12802517/experts-predictions-round-2

2016

Pistons vs Cavs: One person predicted a sweep, the majority were split between a 5/6 game series.

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/page/playoffs15206459/experts-predictions-east-round-1

Hawks vs. Cavs —lots of 6/7 game predictions, but after the fact, it was, “Oh of course it was gonna be easy” disregarding the fact that it was a sweep because the Cavs put on one of the greatest shooting display ever in that series.

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/page/ATLCLE-15445136/experts-predictions-cavaliers-hawks

2017—just more of the same

Raptors vs. Cavs: http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/...ert-predictions-conference-semifinal-matchups

Pacers vs Cavs: http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/...fs-eastern-conference-predictions-first-round[/quote]

2018–Cavs vs Toronto ZERO PERCENT chance that Cavs win in 4 or 5 against Toronto according to statistical models but it’s just, “LOOL, TORONTO. THEY WERE SCARED.” Toronto had a superior team in every way and so much so that forecasting models literally gave the Cavs zero chance to win in 4 or even 5. After they win, oh, of course. Also, notice that other 59 win teams with a +7 SRS, nearly +8 NET rating are treated much, much differently.

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/23364079/espn-forecast-nba-playoffs-predicting-makes-east-finals

[NO-KG-AI]

P weak.

[RCM88x]

It was pretty underwhelming from like '12 to maybe '15 & '17, but outside of that I think the gap is pretty overstated.

[Jaivl]

Pretty weak, especially on the mid 10s. Good think we have human brains, math and ability to parse context to adjust for that.

[Colbinii]

Pretty weak, especially on the mid 10s. Good think we have human brains, math and ability to parse context to adjust for that.

Speak for yourself

[mikejames23]

Pretty weak. I think Paul George or Korver type teams had the best challenge. LeBron could just sort of rollercoast through that era. Crazy.

[70sFan]

I think people underestimate 2012-14 Pacers a lot. They were legitimately among the best teams in the league.