MJ's record is not 6-0, its 6-15

[LouisLitt]

I never understood how losing in the Finals is way worse than losing in the 1st, 2nd round or the Conference Finals. Especially in team sports.

Often the same thing with clutch stats. A player can go 5 for 20 in the first 47 minutes and 59 seconds, hits a winning shot in the last second, and 'Man, he's so clutch, what a performance!'. No, they needed a lucky shot, a hail marry because he had missed 15 shots prior.

Focusing on just one particular stat which is in favor of a particular player, while blatantly ignoring stats that would be in favor of the other player, is such a hater thing to do.

When two players are as close as Lebron and MJ are, people will nitpick.

When was going undefeated in the finals ever a thing until people felt the need to defend Jordan?

Lebron's only finals disappointment is 2011.

I'm supposed to believe MJ with his second best player being Kevin Love at age 34 (turning 35) would beat a team with a healthy and in their prime: Curry, Klay, Durant, and Draymond?

There's literally zero percent chance that happens.

Well we don't know what those Cavs would look like with MJ because the team would not make the same free agent/trade decisions that they did to build a roster around Lebron in 2014. The draft that year could go differently too.

See this is what I'm talking about.

He would have lost, why is it that hard to admit?

[gigantes]

MJ's record is not 6-0, its 6-15.

...The real question for LeBron and Jordan should be, how many titles did they win when they were on legitimate title level teams? LeBron has one feather in his cap, getting his team to a finals that had no business ever being there, despite getting whipped, that's a big positive IMO...

Neither guy should be penalized by getting beat by far more dominant teams. It doesn't really matter if they met them in the finals or in the 2nd round to me, but when you run into something like the Pistons, the Celtics(for both guys), the Warriors etc, and you don't have the firepower to fight back, all you can ask is for the star to carry his end of the bargain and put up the best fight he can. Both guys generally did.

Nice points all around, and I'd argue that LeBron carried a team that arguably had no business being in the finals not just once, but twice (his first and last finals with the Cavs).

He also took a Cavs team (2014-15) without the #2 and #3 players and made a legit series of it, winning two games with a pretty mediocre cast against a dynasty-level team.

He also used an underwhelming (even bratty) performance in the 2010-2011 finals to reinvent himself upon being a better leader and playoff performer. That's not just impressive to see sports-wise, but also a cool storyline that makes him all the more interesting and relatable.

So the guy still gets ragged on for his team losing six finals, but he was a monster in five of them, and I think really only deserves a harsh critique for his first MIA finals. It's ridiculous, and to me just indicates how many people place personal belief over facts & reality.

Also, going back to the OP, the tendency for people to compare Bill Russell's finals record to Jordan and Lebron's is beyond disingenuous. Russell was a great player for his day and the consistent MVP of his team IMO, but he played in a microscopic league with team after team of HOFers built by Auerbach's genius for talent and willingness to give plenty of African-American players opportunities.

The sheer numbers are nice, but the comparison with Jordan and LeBron's situations never made much sense to me.

[Danny1616]

Well let's examine it critically:

We can wash out his last two years as a Wizard when he returned to the league after being retired for 4 years at 39 years old.

He was hurt for 70 games in his sophomore season. In 1995 he returned after a 1.5 year lay-off at the end of the season.

So Jordan is essentially 6-12...which is pretty damn good.

Lebron is 4-17.

[pontius]

MJ is actually 6/58. He has only six rings in 58 years, while LeBron is 4/36. Clearly LBJ>MJ.

[DrPampiloni]

Guys stop using "-" instead of "/". MJ did not play 21 seasons, neither did Lebron (yet)... It's getting discomforting

[OdomFan]

When two players are as close as Lebron and MJ are, people will nitpick.

When was going undefeated in the finals ever a thing until people felt the need to defend Jordan?

Lebron's only finals disappointment is 2011.

I'm supposed to believe MJ with his second best player being Kevin Love at age 34 (turning 35) would beat a team with a healthy and in their prime: Curry, Klay, Durant, and Draymond?

There's literally zero percent chance that happens.

Well we don't know what those Cavs would look like with MJ because the team would not make the same free agent/trade decisions that they did to build a roster around Lebron in 2014. The draft that year could go differently too.

See this is what I'm talking about.

He would have lost, why is it that hard to admit?

I think you just like the idea of MJ losing, but in reality again, none of us knows what the team with MJ would look or play like so there's nothing to admit.

[Pg81]

6/15 is still better than 4/17.

Is it though?

yes. you people need to start taking some math classes and learn about percentages, fractions, and numbers being greater than or less than other numbers

also op, 11/13 isn't perfect either. that would be "near-perfect". so you're praising bill russell for a false hood. 10/10 would be perfect, 100%.

Ah yes the typical simplistic non-argument "muh prucentägez!". As if that is everthing or particularly meaningful.

[G35]

Nice points all around, and I'd argue that LeBron carried a team that arguably had no business being in the finals not just once, but twice (his first and last finals with the Cavs).

He also took a Cavs team (2014-15) without the #2 and #3 players and made a legit series of it, winning two games with a pretty mediocre cast against a dynasty-level team.

He also used an underwhelming (even bratty) performance in the 2010-2011 finals to reinvent himself upon being a better leader and playoff performer. That's not just impressive to see sports-wise, but also a cool storyline that makes him all the more interesting and relatable.

So the guy still gets ragged on for his team losing six finals, but he was a monster in five of them, and I think really only deserves a harsh critique for his first MIA finals. It's ridiculous, and to me just indicates how many people place personal belief over facts & reality.

Also, going back to the OP, the tendency for people to compare Bill Russell's finals record to Jordan and Lebron's is beyond disingenuous. Russell was a great player for his day and the consistent MVP of his team IMO, but he played in a microscopic league with team after team of HOFers built by Auerbach's genius for talent and willingness to give plenty of African-American players opportunities.

The sheer numbers are nice, but the comparison with Jordan and LeBron's situations never made much sense to me.

Uber-fans always want to apply context to their favorite player in order to frame the argument in their favor.

For example the common arguments against Bill Russell:
- small eight team league
- level of athleticism is lower i.e. "too many short, slow white guys"
- the Celtics were stacked

These may be legitimate arguments against Russell, but you never hear the other side of the argument:
- player movement was controlled by the owners...you could not do what Lebron is doing now
- the level of nutrition, player development, training development was still in its infancy
- the level of racism Russell, Chamberlain, Oscar had to deal with are levels above anything experienced now
- the shoes, the ball, the rims, the arenas, the transportation, the uniforms are all far better now than in Russell's day

Does anyone remember this?




Then let's talk about Lebron's finals appearances...the biggest narrative that his stans tend leave out is the level of competition. If you want to complain that the competition was lower in Russell's era, then you must acknowledge that the East has been the JV league for the last 20 years. The only way Lebron could have gone to so many finals is the lack of competition.

If you want to make the argument against Russell playing with a stacked team in a sub-par league, you can make the same argument against Lebron playing on stacked teams in Miami and Cleveland in a sub-par conference.

Who was Lebron's competition from 2007 to 2018?

I can tell you the competition in the West:

Duncan
Kobe
Dirk
Nash
Shaq
Garnett
Amare
Curry
Klay
Kawhi
Harden
CP3
Durant
Westbrook
Pau
Ginobli

Then the great teams that you had to go through in the Spurs, Lakers, Warriors...these are ATG level teams...who did Lebron ever have to beat to get to the finals? Then Lebron's record is indicative of just how good his teams are:

If you have a losing record at the highest level, then maybe your competition was not that good.

The difference is when Michael was at his best, his teams were at their best. There is no doubt that when the Bulls were winning they were the best team. Michael is known for stopping some of the best players of all time from getting rings:

Karl Malone
Charles Barkley
John Stockton
Patrick Ewing
Gary Payton
Shawn Kemp

Who did Lebron ever stop from winning rings in his time? They are handing rings out like candy in the Lebron-era.

Kawhi got two
Durant got two
Curry got three

All directly against Lebron...so when we talk about context, fans only want to show one side...which is typical of people that want to suppress ideas, they don't want to hear the other side...it hurts their feelings.....

[gigantes]

For example the common arguments against Bill Russell:
- small eight team league
- level of athleticism is lower i.e. "too many short, slow white guys"
- the Celtics were stacked

These may be legitimate arguments against Russell, but you never hear the other side of the argument:
- player movement was controlled by the owners...you could not do what Lebron is doing now

I'm sort of with you and not with you here. Your arguments are perfectly rational IMO, but are based on some odd presumptions here and there.

For example, I didn't mention anything about athleticism being lower or the overall skill / technique / practices being understandably more dated back in the day. Those are common factors which tend to scale up proportionally as one moves forward in time IMO. So the state of the art of the game is always improving, and the best team from Russell's era would no doubt struggle against plenty of modern HS and lower division college teams. None of that is a legit argument against Bill's accomplishments IMO.

Where Russell had an undeniable advantage is that there were simply less teams to get past in order to win a champion. So any of the eight or nine teams from his era would mathematically have a higher chance to win a championship. Or to make an extreme example-- a team that won 11 championships in 13 years in a two-team league would be far less impressive than a team that did the same in a 100-team league. Or do you disagree?

But the other major factor as I see it is that Auerbach had a knack for assembling talent that was a notch above his GM peers. As I said, I believe a good portion of that was because he was less overtly racist, or prone to that influence, significantly opening up the talent pool available to him. Not to mention, when you're able to draft from an ethnic pool that historically represents the most gifted athletes of all to play a sport in question, I don't think it's a stretch that such is yet another significant advantage. It would be like being able to draft Canadians to play hockey when your peers were unwilling or unable to do so.

I don't know if the unusually high proportion of Celts from that era who made the HOF are an exact correlation, but "where there's smoke, there's fire" is at least a reasonable take on the matter IMO.

Finally, the idea that 'getting past the East to make the finals is equally as unimpressive as making the finals in an eight-team league' doesn't make much sense to me. Statistically it's still a greater accomplishment, and what's more, doing so eight times in a row in a full league is something never before remotely accomplished as the leader and best player on one's team. For anyone unable to recognise how incredibly impressive that is, I don't think there's any reason to even waste breath on them.

Now yeah, 'FA Superteams' is a consideration in that, yes, but superteams as a phenomenon arguably go all the way back to the Auerbach teams, maybe even further. So no matter how they were assembled, super-stacked teams were hardly something LeBron came up with. And really-- I personally consider LeBron a pretty mediocre 'backseat GM,' and I think there's a legit argument that his influence on personal-hunting did in fact hurt his teams plenty of times.

Anyway, this is all no doubt a fun, contentious subject, and could go on for ages really, but I'm going to have to head on for now. Feel free to reply and I'll try to take a look later. Peace.

[Danny1616]

lebron has been the clear-cut best player in the finals 8 times and has been to 10 finals with three different teams and systems while jordan made the finals 6 times in the watered down 90s. lebron is the goat and jordan is a mount rushmore player.

2007: Parker or Duncan was the best player.
2011: Dirk was the best player and Wade outplayed Lebron.
2012: Lebron.
2013: Lebron.
2014: Hard to say. Lebron put up numbers but Heat got destroyed.
2015: Lebron.
2016: Lebron.
2017: Durant (Lebron a close #2).
2018: Durant/Steph
2020: Lebron, but could make an argument for AD.

So I have 5 times he was the clear cut best player in the finals, not 8.

He made the finals with 3 different teams because he literally left teams to manufacture his own super teams to give him a better chance to win...

But bringing it back to the main argument.

Jordan was the clear cut best player in the playoffs in 1988, 1989 and 1990...he just couldn't get by the Pistons who won the chip in 89 and 90. Lebron had the benefit of being in a terrible eastern conference. His main threats since 2010 were an aging Celtics team, the George led Pacers, the Raptors with Kyle-Demar and the 60 win Hawks. No way he makes the finals 10 times if he played in the west the last decade.

[G35]

For example the common arguments against Bill Russell:
- small eight team league
- level of athleticism is lower i.e. "too many short, slow white guys"
- the Celtics were stacked

These may be legitimate arguments against Russell, but you never hear the other side of the argument:
- player movement was controlled by the owners...you could not do what Lebron is doing now

I'm sort of with you and not with you here. Your arguments are perfectly rational IMO, but are based on some odd presumptions here and there.

For example, I didn't mention anything about athleticism being lower or the overall skill / technique / practices being understandably more dated back in the day. Those are common factors which tend to scale up proportionally as one moves forward in time IMO. So the state of the art of the game is always improving, and the best team from Russell's era would no doubt struggle against plenty of modern HS and lower division college teams. None of that is a legit argument against Bill's accomplishments IMO.

Where Russell had an undeniable advantage is that there were simply less teams to get past in order to win a champion. So any of the eight or nine teams from his era would mathematically have a higher chance to win a championship. Or to make an extreme example-- a team that won 11 championships in 13 years in a two-team league would be far less impressive than a team that did the same in a 100-team league. Or do you disagree?

But the other major factor as I see it is that Auerbach had a knack for assembling talent that was a notch above his GM peers. As I said, I believe a good portion of that was because he was less overtly racist, or prone to that influence, significantly opening up the talent pool available to him. Not to mention, when you're able to draft from an ethnic pool that historically represents the most gifted athletes of all to play a sport in question, I don't think it's a stretch that such is yet another significant advantage. It would be like being able to draft Canadians to play hockey when your peers were unwilling or unable to do so.

I don't know if the unusually high proportion of Celts from that era who made the HOF are an exact correlation, but "where there's smoke, there's fire" is at least a reasonable take on the matter IMO.

Finally, the idea that 'getting past the East to make the finals is equally as unimpressive as making the finals in an eight-team league' doesn't make much sense to me. Statistically it's still a greater accomplishment, and what's more, doing so eight times in a row in a full league is something never before remotely accomplished as the leader and best player on one's team. For anyone unable to recognise how incredibly impressive that is, I don't think there's any reason to even waste breath on them.

Now yeah, 'FA Superteams' is a consideration in that, yes, but superteams as a phenomenon arguably go all the way back to the Auerbach teams, maybe even further. So no matter how they were assembled, super-stacked teams were hardly something LeBron came up with. And really-- I personally consider LeBron a pretty mediocre 'backseat GM,' and I think there's a legit argument that his influence on personal-hunting did in fact hurt his teams plenty of times.

Anyway, this is all no doubt a fun, contentious subject, and could go on for ages really, but I'm going to have to head on for now. Feel free to reply and I'll try to take a look later. Peace.

You make a reasonable argument and I agree with many of your points:

- everything evolves; in general I would say athletes are improving and are "better" than the athletes of the past just by experience and learning
- I do agree that there is greater chance of winning a tournament with fewer participants
- I think the idea of superteams have been around "forever", fan's imagination of great players teaming up has always been there
- I do agree that Lebron has hurt his teams as a backseat GM than he's helped...but that is not uncommon, many players should stay in their lane and stop trying to be the GM...Michael Jordan gave Jerry Krause bad advice during his time


Now I do agree that athletes have gotten better over time, but I qualify that with the fact that today's athletes have learned from the players from the past. There would be no Lebron without a Jordan who would not be the same without a Magic who would not be who he is without an Erving who would not be who he is without a Baylor and you get my point. Those players in the 60's had to create the game that we love today. We are standing on their shoulders and one of the worst aspects of fans today, is they have little to no appreciation for what came before them. Other countries tend to respect the contributions of the past more than in the US.

Now I do agree that more participants in a tournament will lower your odds of winning and if we continue down that road of thinking, if the Celtics had a greater chance of winning because there were fewer teams, then logically we have to say that the other seven teams had a greater chance of winning as well...correct? That makes what the Celtic did more impressive because they should not have won so many times if the other teams had greater odds to win as well. You would have thought at least one or two of those other teams would have one at least a few times. But Russell won 11 titles in 13 years...what are the odds of that happening in an eight team league? Furthermore, by 1969, the NBA had grown to 14 teams...so those odds have gotten even longer.

I do think that this argument can go back and forth with each side making reasonable points...but that is why I always defer to you can only measure players with how well they did in their era and then compare it relative to others. Essentially, how dominant were you in your own era and then compare it to others in their eras.

This is why you cannot directly compare stats...stats can be manipulated...ultimately stats are useless. How do we compare Wilts statistical domination vs Jordan's vs Lebron's vs Harden vs Curry. They are dominant but ultimately dependent on the rules and goals of the NBA at that time.

The only thing you can ever judge a player on is how much he won. Winning encompasses so many things...the low information fans think rings is just one category...when winning encompasses:

- statistical production
- mental fortitude
- dominance over competition
- consistency
- teamwork

It takes all those things to win a title...and a little bit of luck. In almost, title run I have seen a team got lucky somewhere along the way. Whether avoiding injuries, internal fighting, age, bad calls, social climate etc etc etc.

Last year, Lebron said that winning the title last year was the hardest title ever because of the covid restrictions. That is subjective...but winning is not.

TL;DR you play with the cards you are dealt...everyone has to deal with the circumstances of their era...just win baby

[LouisLitt]

Well we don't know what those Cavs would look like with MJ because the team would not make the same free agent/trade decisions that they did to build a roster around Lebron in 2014. The draft that year could go differently too.

See this is what I'm talking about.

He would have lost, why is it that hard to admit?

I think you just like the idea of MJ losing, but in reality again, none of us knows what the team with MJ would look or play like so there's nothing to admit.

It doesn't bother me if people think that MJ is the goat? What annoys me is ignoring context that doesn't fit the MJ is Jesus narrative.

MJ would have lost in 2018, just like Lebron did. It doesn't mater how the team would play with Lebron or MJ, he was going against an in-prime and healthy: Curry, Klay, KD, and Draymond. He would have lost, it's as close to a fact as you can get.

In this scenario, would you blame MJ? No of course not, that GS team was historic and the best team ever assembled. There's really not much anyone can do when your second best player averages less than 20 a game and is pretty poor defensively.

The problem (and you just did it) is that context is only added to benefit MJ and to discredit Lebron.

What reason do you have to believe that MJ beats that team? Like do you actually have a solid reason behind what would have been different? What trades do they make? What free agents willingly sign with Cleveland after not doing so for decades? If they don't trade for Love, how does Wiggins make the situation any better?

It just becomes ridiculous at a certain point.

MJ was good enough, unnecessary deflection and made-up significance to certain accomplishments aren't needed.

[BallinBug]

Can we clear this up. I don't want to hear about MJ's perfect 6-0 record ever again. You have to include the 5 seasons of his career that he played without Scottie Pippen and never won a playoff series. You have to include all of the 1st round losses he had. The end result is that his record 6-15. Still good, but not perfect like Bill Russell's 11-13.

You do know 6-0 are the Finals appearances for Jordan? Just like LeBron's 4-6 Finals record.

Alternatively, MJ went to the finals six times, LeBron 10 times.

Going to the finals and losing is very bad. I'd rather make the finals 3 times and win all 3 then make it 10 times and win only 3. There are only two teams in the finals which means your odds of winning are 50%, the fact that Lebron under performance the statistical odds so badly is a black mark on his resume.

[LouisLitt]

You do know 6-0 are the Finals appearances for Jordan? Just like LeBron's 4-6 Finals record.

Alternatively, MJ went to the finals six times, LeBron 10 times.

Going to the finals and losing is very bad. I'd rather make the finals 3 times and win all 3 then make it 10 times and win only 3. There are only two teams in the finals which means your odds of winning are 50%, the fact that Lebron under performance the statistical odds so badly is a black mark on his resume.

You multiple the probability of winning each series consecutively, you don't isolate the finals.

[Wonka]

These are the type of posts that should automatically equate to a two-week ban.

[F N 11]

lmaoooo

[BallinBug]

Alternatively, MJ went to the finals six times, LeBron 10 times.

Going to the finals and losing is very bad. I'd rather make the finals 3 times and win all 3 then make it 10 times and win only 3. There are only two teams in the finals which means your odds of winning are 50%, the fact that Lebron under performance the statistical odds so badly is a black mark on his resume.

You multiple the probability of winning each series consecutively, you don't isolate the finals.

The finals is the only series that really matters.

[Warriors Analyst]

This is a bait post, but I think a more interesting record than what OP is looking at individual players' records in playoff series.

Doing the quick math, MJ would be 29-7 in his career.

LeBron would be 39-10 if my math is right.

Curry is 19-4.

KD is 18-7 before 2019. I don't know how to quantify those. He plays the entire LAC series, so 19-7, but then he misses the final games of the WCSF, which the Warriors close out in his absence, misses the WCF and then plays one quarter of Game 5 of the Finals.

[LouisLitt]

Going to the finals and losing is very bad. I'd rather make the finals 3 times and win all 3 then make it 10 times and win only 3. There are only two teams in the finals which means your odds of winning are 50%, the fact that Lebron under performance the statistical odds so badly is a black mark on his resume.

You multiple the probability of winning each series consecutively, you don't isolate the finals.

The finals is the only series that really matters.

Correct.

But the difficulty of winning the finals in compounded by the prior series.

In your scenario (based on the math you used), the only series in the playoffs would be the finals, meaning that you go directly from the regular season to the finals. But then you'd have to include the probability of coming first in your conference (which in your scenario would take you directly to the finals).

Long story short, your math makes no sense in the way you're using it.

[loserX]

I tend to agree. Saying "Jordan is 6-0" is like saying "he's perfect, if you don't count all the times he lost". It's not all that meaningful.

There are plenty of good arguments in favour of Jordan being the GOAT, I'm not even sure I disagree. But "6-0" is not one of them. Reducing everything to one out-of-context number rarely is.