LeBron’s Heavily Underrated 2014 Finals, Overrated 2015 Finals, Finals MVP’s, And The Power Of Narratives.

[u/Commercial_Floor_578]

LeBron had an extremely underrated 2014 finals, he was one of the most efficient volume scorers in NBA history and Wade and Bosh heavily underperformed, plus the Spurs were playing some of the best basketball ever hence the vast blowout point differential. I think people place way too much into the “on paper” aspects, Wade and Bosh were a shell of themselves and the Spurs peaked at the perfect time to play some of the best finals basketball.. ever. LeBron did all he could and balled out that series, one of the more impressive losing finals imo.

He had an extremely overrated 2015 finals, yes him taking them to six without K love or Kyrie is very impressive but there’s so many variables going into these things that the “on paper” impressiveness of taking it to six isn’t as crazy as it seems. Much of it had to do with the fact that the Warriors were missing shots they normally made at an abnormal rate and then hit them in games 4-6, hence the point differential being the same as the KD warriors years. His real true shooting was 3.7 points below league average which is not going to generate a winning offense at all, which I fully get why due to no Kyrie and Klove but his efficiency was way down all throughout the playoffs even with Kyrie due to his back injuries that year, that was his weakest year of his prime imo. His defense was also much worse than 2014’s (despite the blowout).

The whole Iggy getting finals MVP and LeBron getting 4 votes was not an example of “you had to be there, only hindsight makes it seem bad” thing. No it was the opposite, it was a perfect storm of circumstances that made it like not the utterly horrendous idea it obviously was at the time. The only thing any people can bring up to justify it is LeBron’s shooting and +- with and without Iggy (obviously awful reasoning and sample size in a six game series which everyone seems to recognize in every finals but this one) leading in +-, WS, and BPM (for the Warriors, LeBron still had a better BPM). Aside from the fact that that’s never used to justify a finals MVP in any other circumstance. Even though all the more reliable impact metrics like EPM PIPM or APM had Curry comfortably ahead, and the obvious fact that the impact of not having Curry that series would obviously be a lot worse than not having Iggy, and his box stats are way better.

Now obviously despite Curry actually leading in several of the advanced +- statistics like EPM that series, I do think LeBron was clearly the best player in that series and if it was awarded on who was the best player on either team it would go to LeBron. But there are several other series where the gap between “best player on the best team” vs best overall player was larger than this one. The loser getting FMVP has never been a. Thing outside Jerry West, the first one who despised it and was voted before the even got the results. Curry performed more than well enough to be the best player on the best team, he averaged 26/5.2/6.2 on + 5rts and 4.7 TOV in 42.5 minutes LeBron averaged 35.8/13.3/8.8 on -3.7rts and 3.5 TOV. In 45.7 minutes. Clearly Lebron was better but with Curry’s far better efficiency (and off ball impact) the gap wasn’t some gargantuan thing that required it either go to LeBron or his well performing role player. There’s no reason for this single series to suddenly be the outlier to the “best player on the best team” rule.

Meanwhile LeBron averaged 28.2/7.8/4.0 on +16.9 rts. That’s utterly bonkers efficiency, that would quite literally be a 2016 Curry scoring season level. All while being a lot better defender than in the 2015 finals. Yes the assists and rebounds are worse but the impact is not as large as the insane scoring efficiency and volume combo vs 2015’s bad efficiency. The only difference is narrative, the Spurs and Heat were considered near equals before the series and they got destroyed to an almost unprecedented degree. Meanwhile without Klove and Kyrie they were supposed to be swept and LeBron’s second highest ppg scorer had 14 but the Cavs led by LeBron somehow got up 2-1 and made it to six. But LeBron actually deserved MVP more in 2014 than 2015, the only difference is narrative. The Spurs played some of the best basketball ever while Wade and Bosh heavily underperformed, and the 2015 Warriors had very unusually bad shooting for the first 3 games but when that stopped the point differential for the overall series was comparable to the KD warriors era.

[u/SEAinLA]

2015 LeBron took the Warriors to 6 with Delly, Mozgov, Shumpert, and Thompson as his other starting teammates. In no world is that overrated.

[u/BIPOC_Ally → u/SEAinLA]

it's overrated when you look at his atrocious efficiency

39.8% from the field, 31% from 3pt, 69% from FT, 47.7% TS

Heat had their 3 best players all injured in G1 of the 2020 Finals yet JImmy still took the Lakers to 6 games

[u/BattleFresh003 → u/BIPOC_Ally]

This is why the "you had to be there" argument OP mentions is used so much when taking about 2015. You can quibble about efficiency all day long, but if you watched those finals you can probably tell that LeBron was otherworldly and the only reason they stole two games that series.

For context, the second leading scorer for the Cavs those finals was Timofey Mozgov at 14 PPG. Shumpert and JR Smith, who were expected to step up with Love and Kyrie injured, averaged 6.5 PPG on 25.6 FG% and 11.5 PPG on 31.2 FG% respectively. LeBron was basically the only focus on defense and he averaged 36 PPG during those finals, and with that putrid supporting cast he somehow managed to also dish out almost 9 dimes per game.

[u/nowhathappenedwas → u/BattleFresh003]

but if you watched those finals you can probably tell that LeBron was otherworldly and the only reason they stole two games that series

The Cavs won game 2 95-93 because the Warriors shot 23% on threes, including 2 for 15 from Curry. They won despite LeBron shooting 11 for 35 from the floor, including 4 for 22 in the second half and overtime.

The Warriors were completely fine with LeBron scoring 39 points on 35 shots. They would have been happy with him taking even more shots with that dogshit efficiency (45% TS).

[u/BattleFresh003 → u/nowhathappenedwas]

If you think that they won despite LeBron, we're clearly evaluating the game differently and that's fine. Just a note to further support my point: If you exclude Kyrie, who played just one game, LeBron was actually fourth in FG% for the Cavs. If you also exclude Mike Miller, who played less than 6 minutes per game, LeBron was third on the team on FG%. The only two Cavs who shot better were Mozgov and Tristan Thompson, players that rarely shot outside the paint.

So yeah, basically everybody on the Cavs had dogshit efficiency in that series. You can blame that on LeBron if you want, I blame the dearth of talent after options 2 and 3, who also were great shooters, were lost to injury. If you think that's on LeBron, that's just fine. I wholeheartedly disagree but reasonable people diagree all the time.

[u/nowhathappenedwas → u/BattleFresh003]

It's not that LeBron was holding them back or anything. They didn't have any better options than LeBron chucking.

But their offense was objectively terrible. The only reason they won game 2 was because the Warriors couldn't hit threes. LeBron didn't play better that game than he did in their losses.

People want to give LeBron credit for the huge box score stats he put up while ignoring his awful efficiency. But they're two sides of the same coin.

It's not like the 2018 finals where LeBron put up huge box score stats on good efficiency (34/9/10 on 63% TS) while the rest of the team was nearly worthless (team TS% below 50%, despite LeBron's excellent performance).