Would you be more or less impressed if Jordan was 6-2 in the finals?

[mvpshaq32]

Whatever answer discredits Lebron more.

difference is Lebron has a losing record in the Finals

Jordan at 6-2 is still overwhelmingly impressive.

[LakerLegend]

I have a new idea for a poll.

Which is less impressive?

1) Not making the playoffs
2) Making the playoffs, but losing in the 1st round

Somehow I get the feeling that 50% of people wouldn't vote that losing in the first round is less impressive than missing the playoffs. Yet that is essentially what is happening with the OT poll. Good job realgm...

That was my first thought too, but here's why they aren't the same:

Jordan has the invincibility factor going for him right now. At least once he started winning titles. Take that away and you take away a lot of his god-like status.

He goes from a god to a demi-god.

No one else has that where you can say no one beat them when they were winning titles in their prime. Not even Russell who lost a couple of titles in the middle of his run to Pettit and Wilt.


That of course depends on your view of 95, but the "rusty" argument will always be there.

Especially those last 3 titles, it was like if you combined the initial fear and intimidation the Heat had when LeBron and Bosh joined them with the actual dominance of the Warriors these last 3 years(2016 finals nothwithstanding)

[og15]

Yeah less, it's nice to get to the finals alot of times but I'm sorry it loses value when you lose. Being whatever and 0 means every time you went you lead your team to victory and that means more.

It's such an odd way of thinking. It truly doesn't make any sense because we are saying that Jordan getting closer to the ultimate goal more often but losing sometimes in the final matchup would be less impressive than him never losing when he got to the final matchup, but not getting there as often. He's actually winning less in the second scenario, but because of the idea of being "perfect" at something and having that _ - 0 it is elevated higher.

Would lebron have a better legacy if he was 3-0 or 3-4

4-3

[Bergmaniac]

I've never understood why for so many people losing in the finals is supposed to be worse for a superstar's legacy than losing in the previous rounds. Just doesn't make sense to me at all.

[Hankey89]

49 percent of people literally think it is better to lose in the first round, than to get to the finals

Well done CP3 on never progressing far in the playoffs, you're doing it right

[3Diamantidis]

One of the reasons he's the greatest ever is the 6/6.
It showed a mentality that nobody else ever had.
If you are about to pick one player to have in the Finals, the answer will always be him.
GOAT even if he hadn't got 6. That just tops his winning resume.

[BayArea408415]

in 2015 LeBron lost his PF in the first round. He still carried his team to the finals, sweeping a 60 win, 4 all star hawks along the way with his all star PG sitting out most of that series.

Please. 4 all stars? Teague and Korver would never dream of making the all-star team in the West. Even Millsap and Horford would have a tough time. They overachieved during the regular season. When it mattered most, during the playoffs, they struggled past a sub .500 38 win Nets team in 6 games and just barely made it past a Wizards team with Wall sitting multiple games and having a bum wrist. Not to mention, their SRS was worse than 3 teams in the West that year and barely above the 51 win Blazers.

That 60 win Hawks team was trash. As for injuries, Korver was taken out in Game 2. So, the Cavs swept Teague, Millsap and Horford. Are any of these dudes even top 20?

Seriously, man. Context! 60 wins and 4 all-stars doesn't mean jack **** when you look at the relevant numbers. That 60 wins Hawks team was a pretender.

[INKtastic]

in 2015 LeBron lost his PF in the first round. He still carried his team to the finals, sweeping a 60 win, 4 all star hawks along the way with his all star PG sitting out most of that series.

Please. 4 all stars? Teague and Korver would never dream of making the all-star team in the West. Even Millsap and Horford would have a tough time. They overachieved during the regular season. When it mattered most, during the playoffs, they struggled past a sub .500 38 win Nets team in 6 games and just barely made it past a Wizards team with Wall sitting multiple games and having a bum wrist. Not to mention, their SRS was worse than 3 teams in the West that year and barely above the 51 win Blazers.

That 60 win Hawks team was trash. As for injuries, Korver was taken out in Game 2. So, the Cavs swept Teague, Millsap and Horford. Are any of these dudes even top 20?

Seriously, man. Context! 60 wins and 4 all-stars doesn't mean jack **** when you look at the relevant numbers. That 60 wins Hawks team was a pretender.

Nice revisionist history there. Keven love didn't play that series, Kyrie Irving only played 49 minutes because of his knee. The Hawks, on the other hand, drew raves all year. It wasn't until LeBron swept them that they started getting discredited.

[BayArea408415]

Nice revisionist history there. Keven love didn't play that series, Kyrie Irving only played 49 minutes because of his knee. The Hawks, on the other hand, drew raves all year. It wasn't until LeBron swept them that they started getting discredited.

No revisionism here. I never denied that Love wasn't available or that Irving played like a game. I simply stated the "Cavs." Not 100% healthy Cavs. You can reach all you want.

However, even if neither played, LeBron + Jr Smith, Shumpert, Thompson, Mosgov, Delly, etc. is enough to take out the super elite and championship contending trio of Teague, Millsap and Horford. That trio would have struggled to make it out of the 1st round in the West. Oh wait, they struggled to make it out of the 1st round against the sub .500 Nets in the East too. Or would you rather ignore that bit?

Fact: When it really mattered, the Hawks should the entire league how crap they were. No healthy 60 win team should need 6 games to knock out a 38 win Nets team. Against the Wizards, that same Hawks team was down 2-1 to a Wizards team without Wall. They needed 6 games to knock out the Wizards who had Wall miss multiple games and then play with a bum wrist. Ignore these facts all you want. That Hawks team by all metrics was trash when it mattered most.

Korver and Teague are never all-stars in the West. Carroll overachieved that season. The guy is actually god awful and Raptors fans hate him since he's overpaid on top of it. Millsap and Horford are good but nothing special in the West.

[INKtastic]

Nice revisionist history there. Keven love didn't play that series, Kyrie Irving only played 49 minutes because of his knee. The Hawks, on the other hand, drew raves all year. It wasn't until LeBron swept them that they started getting discredited.

No revisionism here. I'm just not a LeBron-stan like yourself. I never denied that Love wasn't available or that Irving played like a game. I simply stated the "Cavs." Not 100% healthy Cavs. You can reach all you want.

However, even if neither played, LeBron + Jr Smith, Shumpert, Thompson, Mosgov, Delly, etc. is enough to take out the super elite and championship contending trio of Teague, Millsap and Horford. That trio would have struggled to make it out of the 1st round in the West. Oh wait, they struggled to make it out of the 1st round against the sub .500 Nets in the East too. Or would you rather ignore that bit?

Fact: When it really mattered, the Hawks should the entire league how crap they were. No healthy 60 win team should need 6 games to knock out a 38 win Nets team. Against the Wizards, that same Hawks team was down 2-1 to a Wizards team without Wall. They needed 6 games to knock out the Wizards who had Wall miss multiple games and then play with a bum wrist. Ignore these facts all you want. That Hawks team by all metrics was trash when it mattered most.

Korver and Teague are never all-stars in the West. Carroll overachieved that season. The guy is actually god awful and Raptors fans hate him since he's overpaid on top of it. Millsap and Horford are good but nothing special in the West.

That 60 win Hawks team was 22-8 vs the west.

[BayArea408415]

That 60 win Hawks team was 22-8 vs the west.

Your point? They were 50-14 against the East. They over-achieved during the RS. That is a fact. Otherwise, explain how they barley made it past the 38 win Nets or a Wizards team with no Wall/bum wrist. You can harp all you want about how LeBron discredited the Hawks. They were discrediting themselves before they even made it to LeBron. Getting swept by the Cavs was just the final nail in the coffin.

What happened to the Hawks the following year and afterwards? They regressed to their regular season norm and then were finally split up due to free agency and trades.

Here are some more facts for you to be in denial of:

1. Ranked 29th in SOS
2. Of every 60 win team of all time (71 teams), they have THE lowest SRS, the 2nd lowest MOV, and t-3rd lowest Ortg-Drtg (of 59 teams where data is available).

[INKtastic]

That 60 win Hawks team was 22-8 vs the west.

Your point? They were 50-14 against the East. They over-achieved during the RS. That is a fact. Otherwise, explain how they barley made it past the 38 win Nets or a Wizards team with no Wall/bum wrist. You can harp all you want about how LeBron discredited the Hawks. They were discrediting themselves before they even made it to LeBron. Getting swept by the Cavs was just the final nail in the coffin.

What happened to the Hawks the following year and afterwards? They regressed to their regular season norm and then were finally split up due to free agency and trades.

By your own definition of "barely making it past", the Warriors overachieved because they barely made it past the cavs. Is that how you want to view your championship?

[BayArea408415]

By your own definition of "barely making it past", the Warriors overachieved because they barely made it past the cavs. Is that how you want to view your championship?

Do not go down this road. You and others keep harping on about beating the "73-9" Warriors when:

1. Draymond Green, a DPOY candidate and the glue who orchestrates the Warriors' offense and anchors the defense, was suspended a game.
2. Bogut went down and LeBron's FG% magically went through the roof. Oh wait, his +/- sucked but let's ignore how Ezeli/Varejao got 20 minutes combined in both Games 6 and 7. Both low IQ buffons.
3. The Finals MVP from the previous year became a cripple in the final 2 games of the series due to back spasms. The Warriors' best 1 vs. 1 LeBron defender and overall wing defender. Those spasms were a death sentence to the Warriors in terms of guarding LeBron. Iggy is 1 of maybe 2-3 players in the entire league that can somewhat guard LeBron 1 vs. 1.
4. Curry had a ligament injury mid playoffs. Even grade 1 ligament injuries don't magically heal 100% in two weeks. After his injury, he was wildly inconsistent throughout the remainder of the playoffs.
5. Harrison Barnes had the worst performance in NBA history on uncontested shots. Was like 5/32 at one point. This is on him of course.

Despite all of that, the Cavs' still barely won in Game 7 off by essentially 1 possession. The LeBron free throw didn't matter. Game was over. But ignore all of that. Keep hyping up how the Cavs beat a 100% healthy 73-9 team with no suspensions to boost LeBron's resume. You want to degrade the Warriors' championship, go ahead. The Cavs' championship last year can be degraded as well.

Fact: When both teams were 100% healthy (if you ignore Curry) with no suspensions, Cavs trailed the series 3-1.

By the way, you're the one that resorted to this piss fest. I pointed out how you were hyping up garbage teams to inflate LeBron's resume and then you resort to crying the 2015 Warriors barely beat the Cavs. You should take a look at that link. Egokiller in that thread is a Cavs' fan from Cleveland. However, he is no homer or LeBron worshipper. He recognizes that both teams beat battered teams in 2015 and 2016. One might have been worse off than the other but still doesn't change that fact. Nor does it take a ring away from either team.

http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showthread.php?t=424128

[INKtastic]

By your own definition of "barely making it past", the Warriors overachieved because they barely made it past the cavs. Is that how you want to view your championship?

Do not go down this road. You and other people keep harping on about beating the "73-9" Warriors when:

1. Draymond Green, a DPOY candidate and the glue who orchestrates the Warriors' offense and anchors the defense, was suspended a game.
2. Bogut went down and LeBron's FG% magically went through the roof. Oh wait, his +/- sucked but let's ignore how Ezeli/Varejao got 20 minutes combined in both Games 6 and 7. Both low IQ buffons.
3. The Finals MVP from the previous year became a cripple in the final 2 games of the series due to back spasms. The Warriors' best 1 vs. 1 LeBron defender and overall wing defender. Those spasms were a death sentence to the Warriors in terms of guarding LeBron. Iggy is 1 of maybe 2-3 players in the entire league that can somewhat guard LeBron 1 vs. 1.
4. Curry had a ligament injury mid playoffs. Even grade 1 ligament injuries don't magically heal 100% in two weeks.
5. Harrison Barnes had the worst performance in NBA history on uncontested shots. Was like 5/32 at one point. This is on him of course.

Despite all of that, the Cavs' still barely won in Game 7 off by essentially 1 possession. LeBron free throw didn't matter. Game was over.
But ignore all that. Keep hyping up how the Cavs beat a 100% healthy 73-9 team with no suspensions. You want to degrade the Warriors' championship, go ahead. The Cavs' championship last year can be degraded as well.

Fact: When both teams were 100% healthy (if you ignore Curry) with no suspensions, Cavs trailed the series 3-1.

This is the road you started. You can't just selectively discredit teams because they were beat. Also, your long list of the issues the Warriors faced last year pales in comparison to what benefited them the prior year.

As for #1 - Draymond got his own idiot self suspended with his own self inflicted accumulation of stupid decisions. All of the time spent talking about how they were arranging for him to be at the assumed celebration after game 5 probably was a bigger factor than his being suspended that game. The whole world assumed they had already won the series, LeBron and Kyrie had different ideas.

[BayArea408415]

This is the road you started. You can't just selectively discredit teams because they were beat. Also, your long list of the issues the Warriors faced last year pales in comparison to what benefited them the prior year.

Perhaps, if you weren't inflating LeBron's resume by spewing bs like LeBron beat a 60 win team with 4 all-stars without context, I wouldn't have to say a word. As for the "long list", nowhere did I equalize it to Irving and Love going down. I even noted one team was more battered than the other. Regardless, people continue to prop up LeBron defeating a 73-9 team while ignoring all the circumstances that led to that. Context matters.

As for #1 - Draymond got his own idiot self suspended with his own self inflicted accumulation of stupid decisions. All of the time spent talking about how they were arranging for him to be at the assumed celebration after game 5 probably was a bigger factor than his being suspended that game. The whole world assumed they had already won the series, LeBron and Kyrie had different ideas.

Hmm, I never pinned the fault on anyone other than Green himself above. It was his foolish reaction that led to the suspension. Regardless, had LeBron not instigated Green, the suspension never happens. LeBron was obviously aware of Green being on thin ice. Unfortunately, Green lost all sight of that after being tea-bagged.

As for the part I bolded, keep repeating that to yourself. Yeah, the pre-celebration plans hurt the Warriors more than losing the guy who runs their offense and anchors their defense. Not to mention that losing Green also required the Warriors to become more dependent on Iggy and Bogut in Game 5. Look how that worked out for them.

[kabstah]

I don't think you are understanding the concept of averages when it comes to evaluating a player. When we evaluate some player X, we take into account accumulated stats as well as averaged stats. Because of the latter, it is not necessarily true that playing more games is necessarily better than playing less games as bad performance can hurt your average stats and thus negatively affect your legacy. Accordingly, it doesn't make sense to compare just the bad performance and no performance.

I understand averages just fine, the problem lies in that using average stats to evaluate Finals performance is just really, really stupid. There is no opportunity cost to playing in the Finals versus not playing in the Finals, therefore it can never, ever be worse to make the Finals versus not making the Finals. Decreased average stats don't matter at all.

Here's a simple thought experiment for you:

If we both start with $0 and someone gave you $20 million today, and gave me $20 million today and $1 tomorrow, that would make you poorer than me. If you tried to argue that you are richer by virtue of having a higher daily income, then you would be both poorer AND stupider than me.

Except this analogy is just irrelevant, because there is nothing subjective about making comparisons between who has more money. However, in terms of evaluating players and their legacies, then subjectivity does creep in. Moreover, I am not using averages to evaluate Finals performance vs no finals performance, I am using averages to compare the entire year's worth of games which may or may not include finals. Moreover, you are discounting the possibility that it is conceivable that a team can proceed further into the playoffs despite a specific player's bad performance in a playoff series. In this case, I look negatively on the player's contributions for that series because it actually made it more difficult for a team to proceed due to his poor performance. I think this is a more nuanced way of looking at this as opposed to having a simplistic point of view of perfectly correlating team's performance with individual's contributions.

You're looking for nuance in a question that leaves no room for nuance. The original question was if Jordan at 6-2 in the Finals is more impressive than Jordan at 6-0 in the Finals, assuming the rest of his career stays the same. At minimum you get 8 additional games of Jordan in the 6-2 scenario therefore his value is objectively greater regardless of how he plays in those additional games.

Now you can do all sorts of mental gymnastics to justify why the objectively less valuable 6-0 Jordan is somehow still more impressive. That's your prerogative, but that's not nuanced. That's just dumb.

[INKtastic]

I understand averages just fine, the problem lies in that using average stats to evaluate Finals performance is just really, really stupid. There is no opportunity cost to playing in the Finals versus not playing in the Finals, therefore it can never, ever be worse to make the Finals versus not making the Finals. Decreased average stats don't matter at all.

Here's a simple thought experiment for you:

If we both start with $0 and someone gave you $20 million today, and gave me $20 million today and $1 tomorrow, that would make you poorer than me. If you tried to argue that you are richer by virtue of having a higher daily income, then you would be both poorer AND stupider than me.

Except this analogy is just irrelevant, because there is nothing subjective about making comparisons between who has more money. However, in terms of evaluating players and their legacies, then subjectivity does creep in. Moreover, I am not using averages to evaluate Finals performance vs no finals performance, I am using averages to compare the entire year's worth of games which may or may not include finals. Moreover, you are discounting the possibility that it is conceivable that a team can proceed further into the playoffs despite a specific player's bad performance in a playoff series. In this case, I look negatively on the player's contributions for that series because it actually made it more difficult for a team to proceed due to his poor performance. I think this is a more nuanced way of looking at this as opposed to having a simplistic point of view of perfectly correlating team's performance with individual's contributions.

You're looking for nuance in a question that leaves no room for nuance. The original question was if Jordan at 6-2 in the Finals is more impressive than Jordan at 6-0 in the Finals, assuming the rest of his career stays the same. At minimum you get 8 additional games of Jordan in the 6-2 scenario therefore his value is objectively greater regardless of how he plays in those additional games.

Now you can do all sorts of mental gymnastics to justify why the objectively less valuable 6-0 Jordan is somehow still more impressive. That's your prerogative, but that's not nuanced. That's just dumb.

Actually, the whole question assumes the rest of his career went better (i.e. he won at least two series he actually lost). That he won at a minimum 3 playoff games than he actually won. More if he doesn't get swept in both of the extra finals.

[OdomFan]

I have a new idea for a poll.

Which is less impressive?

1) Not making the playoffs
2) Making the playoffs, but losing in the 1st round

Somehow I get the feeling that 50% of people wouldn't vote that losing in the first round is less impressive than missing the playoffs. Yet that is essentially what is happening with the OT poll. Good job realgm...

Making the playoffs is much more impressive because it gives the team that got there that motivation to remember that despite everything they got there and can do it again, it also gives them that experience that they can look back on to figure out what went wrong and work that much harder towards doing better the next time around.

The perfect example would be the 2006 Chicago Bulls who lost in the first round to the Miami Heat then they came back 1 season later and not only beat Miami but Swept them.

[MartinToVaught]

49 percent of people literally think it is better to lose in the first round, than to get to the finals

Well done CP3 on never progressing far in the playoffs, you're doing it right

Really helps explain why CP3 is so coddled and protected from criticism on here when this is the mindset. Meanwhile, players who have actually won championships are nitpicked to shreds.

[BayArea408415]

Really helps explain why CP3 is so coddled and protected from criticism on here when this is the mindset. Meanwhile, players who have actually won championships are nitpicked to shreds.

Is he? I thought he's known as a perennial playoff choker. 2nd round CP3.