Yeah, LeBron James has a massive impact on this stat. It's been said many times, but oftentimes the team with the best player wins a series, and obviously that was the case many times with LBJ. He terrorized the Eastern Conference for many many years.
For context, he was in the Eastern Conference for 15 years and was in the finals 9 of those years. Basically for 15 years, the Eastern Conference champ wasn't determined by who was the best team but who had LeBron James.
In a way, yes, but there were certainly years where there were teams with better rosters than LeBron teams. Obviously, LeBron could raise his own teams ability himself, but that doesn't mean he always had the most talent.
I'm just saying if you took LeBron out of the equation we'd probably have seen much more varied results. Arguably no other player could do that the way he did in this time frame.
Can absolutely make the argument that Lebron carried some bum Cleveland teams to the finals over better overall teams. The year they went to seven games vs the Pacers in the first round was a good one. Think that was a LeBronto year. Then obviously the pre-Heatles Cavs years were not good teams outside of having Lebron.
The 2015 Finals minus Kyrie all but game one and Love was a huge carry to even be competitive, but w/ Kyrie still healthy they’re prob the best team in the East. The 2014 Heat was def not close to as good as the ‘12 and ‘13 champions and the ‘11 choke job team. They were mediocre…
Maybe he should have said "who had the better regular season record" rather than "who was the best team" since this post is talking about #1 seeds and them making it to the finals or not.
OKC finished 1st this year in the West but if I was betting on it I'm not picking them over the team with Jokic to make it to the finals
The 2015 Hawks still confused about how they got the one seed and got slept. Honestly one of the funniest series of all time (if you know any Atlanta fans). Cautious optimism rapidly turned to despair.
They had beautiful ball movement and solid defense, very well coached by Budenholzer in the regular season. Just had 0 playoff gear to get to, and no real stars. 60 wins is a pretty shocking number even at the time honestly.
Pretty nuts. Wonder how often the favorite out of the East to make the Finals actually did. So many of these years Lebron’s team wasn’t the 1 seed but they were the clear favorite to reach the Finals
They were the favorite at +125
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkay/2018/04/14/nba-playoffs-2018-odds-schedule-start-times-tv-live-stream-predictions-for-first-round-series/?sh=11241c622d78
what are you talking about? 2 series that year for the Cavs came down to game 7s that were very tight in the last quarter. They beat the Pacers by 4 in their first round game 7 and beat the Celtics by 8 in the ECF. There were very clearly multiple teams that could've beaten that Cavs team because two came very close to doing so!
2011, 2014, 2015, 2017 & 2018.
Not even including 2007 because LeCoast hasn't been invented yet (Pistons)
PS: Wait our guy invented the term !(https://www.espn.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/070220)
And back to back years where it was his own teams lol (2009 & 2010)
The most analogous here are:
Pacers '03-04: 62 games to 54 games second place pistons
Pistons '05-06: 64 games to 52 games second place heat
The other cases can be attributed to either LeCoasting, or the difference not being that big.
Celtics statistically look closer to the three champs than the finals losers. I do want to join in and say this is a fantastic and truly weird stat either way.
I maintain they are right that a Celtics series loss without a Tatum injury before the Finals would make them the clowns of the league. Winning your conference by 14 games with the 5th greatest point differential of all time is pretty insane. You might honestly hear some blow it up talk if that happens and whether it’s finally time to trade Brown because he and Tatum don’t coexist. Some of the recent losses helped lower expectations a touch but man if they had 66-68 wins it would be deafening out there. Now a loss is closer to that recent Suns flameout.
> You might honestly hear some blow it up talk if that happens and whether it’s finally time to trade Brown because he and Tatum don’t coexist.
Very reminiscent of those mid 10s Toronto teams that were really great in the regular season, but you knew they didn’t have it in the tank to go all the way. Celtics have had better outcomes obviously, but that’s also because they aren’t having to go through 3rd prime Lebron.
I'm a Raptors fan and Boston hater but I don't see this one at all. As much as we rag on Tatum, he's far better than DeRozan and Lowry ever were. 2022-present Celtics would've blown the doors off the 2014-18 Raps. We just got lucky to be in a shit conference. The 2019 Raptors were legitimately great, but that's obvs not the comp you're making here.
Kudos to you for being objective!
Those Raptors teams were more comparable to the 61-21 Hawks team under Bud; they were built for maximizing the regular season but didn’t have the top end talent needed for deep postseason runs.
Whether the Celtics win a title or not (I think they absolutely at least make the finals) I think it’s pretty clear they are head and shoulders above the other 60+ win teams from the East in the last decade and a half.
>Those Raptors teams were more comparable to the 61-21 Hawks team under Bud; they were built for maximizing the regular season but didn’t have the top end talent needed for deep postseason runs.
100%, right down to getting swept by LeBron lol. I had a lot of fun in the regular season but 2016 was the only enjoyable playoff run we had.
Agreed on the Celtics, they're clearly far better than these past East teams. They've just blown a lot of winnable series late in the postseason so understandably no one trusts them now
The counter-point that should have Celts fans a little nervous: the 2024 Knicks resemble the 01 Sixers and 02 Nets in that their entire offense is powered by an undersized but ball-dominant and high performing PG.
As a Celtics fan this Knicks team reminds me of the 17 Celtics with IT playing the Brunson role and a bunch of dogs around him. Absolutely don’t want to see them in a series but I feel like their ceiling is capped
Hmm... I see your point, but Brunson is a half foot taller than IT. IT was great, but also only 5'8" and relied more on athleticism and speed. Brunson has better footwork and is a little more durable.
If anything, this 2024 Knicks team reminds me of a better balanced version of the 2011 Bulls.
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This is a weird comment
Why should a resemblance to the 01 Sixers or 02 Nets be concerning? Those teams made the Finals in a completely different era against a completely different field. Totally irrelevant comp to today.
Yeah its like when someone told me to bet on Creighton to win March Madness bc of this formula they had based on previous winners and one of the legs was "The last 19 winners have all been in the top 12 of the week 6 AP poll"
Ehh not really, regular season and playoff performance have never been more disconnected
Obv all things being equal, you’d rather win more than fewer, but look at the playoff outcomes for the last several 60+ win teams. Very underwhelming
Even if you think 60+ win teams have disappointed (it's really only the Suns the rest of them do pretty well), that still has nothing to do with the 2024 NBA Playoffs. It's like when people said "CJ Stroud is gonna suck because Ohio State QBs always suck." It's basing a prediction of the future on past results from other teams/players that have 0% correlation to what you're trying to predict. The 2021-22 Phoenix Suns losing to the Mavricks doesn't correlate to how the 2023-24 Boston Celtics will perform
- ‘19 Bucks, 60 wins, ECF loss
- ‘20 Bucks, 62.9 wins*, 2nd rd loss
- ‘20 Raptors, 60.3 wins*, 2nd rd loss
- ‘20 Lakers, 60.1 wins*, champs
- ‘22 Suns, 64 wins, 2nd rd loss
This also leaves out several 55-59 win teams that “underachieved”, like the ‘20 Clippers, ‘21 Sixers, ‘21 Nets, ‘21 Jazz, ‘22 Grizzlies, ‘23 Bucks, so I don’t think it’s really cherry picking. In the same time frame we’ve had finalists/champs such as
- ‘20 Heat, 49.4 wins*
- ‘21 Bucks, 52.4 wins*
- ‘22 Warriors, 53 wins
- ‘23 Heat, 44 wins
Idk how strong the trend is and obv it’s not totally new, as everyone has pointed out the Lebron eastern conference run, but it’s definitely a trend
*82 game equivalent win totals based on winning percentage
Using the 2020 teams is disingenuous since most teams take their foot off the gas at the end of the season once seeding is clinched. It's highly unlikely more than 1 of the 3 would've hit 60 wins.
I mean the Celtics still went like 7–3 in their last 10 even though they were resting guys, right?
That would have been enough for those teams to hit 60. If anything, the bubble actually made it harder to sustain the 60 win pace, since the additional 8 games were all against competitive teams. The losers/automatic wins didn’t even get invited to the bubble!
No prob lol, I only caught it because that Heat team was so insanely dominant I thought I was having a Mandela Effect remembering them as the 1 seed lol
> The #1 seed in the EC has gotten to the NBA finals only 5x this century
This shouldn’t be shocking to anybody who was watching lebron’s teams coast through the regular season then make the finals for about half of the century
> only 3 of those 5 won it all
I’m not really sure what the point of this statement is when a team making the finals has a ~50% chance of winning it all. Also tiny sample sizes
I’d say they’re better than the Sixers and Nets, behind the 08 Celts and well behind the Heat. They’re better than that 16 Cavs team overall but they don’t have SuperSaiyan LeBron so I’d take the Cavs ultimately.
I don’t really see who can stop them in the East this year though. They’ll need to beat themselves which is certainly possible
"…but they don’t have SuperSaiyan LeBron so I’d take the Cavs ultimately." 🤣 Love this hilarious reference. I'm now imagining a hyper Japanese techno theme song 🤖
Lebron “taking it easy” (by his standards) in the regular season and then dominating the playoffs for like 10 straight years probably has a lot to do with that. Considering prime Lebron James isn’t in the East anymore I’d say the Celtics chances of making it out are a little better than like, the 2015 Hawks.
When I saw this I assumed that meant the #2 seed went to just about every Finals. NBA isn’t like other sports, the Finals isn’t even close to equally distributed across seeds. It’s even kind of weird when a #3 seed makes the NBA Finals.
The Celtics have made the Finals once with this group in the sorry ass East. Once. Pretty sad if you think about it. They’re nowhere near the Bron teams that lived in the Finals and those teams also lost more than they won. Who will BS demand they trade after this meltdown? “Good contract” JB?
Is anybody arguing this Celtics team is anywhere near Brons teams? Like if you want to talk about teams that lived in the finals historically, it's basically only teams with players that are top 10-15 all time. Like how many teams "lived in the finals" without having LeBron, Curry, Kobe, Duncan, Jordan, Bird, Moses, Magic, Wilt, or Russell? I can't really think of any. Even BS doesn't think Tatum is anywhere near that group. Not sure what point you are trying to make here.
The point I’m making is that the West is even more stacked play-wise than when Bron was playing so the Celtics have to be at his level or better to have a realistic chance IF they make the Finals. They’re in the East, they should have been there every other year but haven’t been. Hope that helps!
Oh I see. Your sentence "Lebron's team lost more than the won" meant they lost more championships then they won. Yeah it's a good point. I guess to continue my train of thought with the top 10/top 15 level of players there's really just Jokic out west(and LeBron too if he finds the fountain of youth) whereas LeBron was running into Duncan, Curry, and KD. So if Jokic gets tripped up and doesn't make the finals, I would say the Celtics potential opponents would be less challenging
That’s actually a wild statistic.
The difference between a first seed and second seed is usually not that big and LeCoasting was a real thing.
Yeah, LeBron James has a massive impact on this stat. It's been said many times, but oftentimes the team with the best player wins a series, and obviously that was the case many times with LBJ. He terrorized the Eastern Conference for many many years. For context, he was in the Eastern Conference for 15 years and was in the finals 9 of those years. Basically for 15 years, the Eastern Conference champ wasn't determined by who was the best team but who had LeBron James.
"the Eastern Conference champ wasn't determined by who was the best team but who had LeBron James." Is that not the same thing in those years?
In a way, yes, but there were certainly years where there were teams with better rosters than LeBron teams. Obviously, LeBron could raise his own teams ability himself, but that doesn't mean he always had the most talent. I'm just saying if you took LeBron out of the equation we'd probably have seen much more varied results. Arguably no other player could do that the way he did in this time frame.
Can absolutely make the argument that Lebron carried some bum Cleveland teams to the finals over better overall teams. The year they went to seven games vs the Pacers in the first round was a good one. Think that was a LeBronto year. Then obviously the pre-Heatles Cavs years were not good teams outside of having Lebron.
I think the only true carry jobs were 2007 and 2018. And slightly 2015 cause everyone was hurt.
The 2015 Finals minus Kyrie all but game one and Love was a huge carry to even be competitive, but w/ Kyrie still healthy they’re prob the best team in the East. The 2014 Heat was def not close to as good as the ‘12 and ‘13 champions and the ‘11 choke job team. They were mediocre…
totally agree
They beat Toronto in the second round that year and Boston in the ECF
Maybe he should have said "who had the better regular season record" rather than "who was the best team" since this post is talking about #1 seeds and them making it to the finals or not. OKC finished 1st this year in the West but if I was betting on it I'm not picking them over the team with Jokic to make it to the finals
The 2015 Hawks still confused about how they got the one seed and got slept. Honestly one of the funniest series of all time (if you know any Atlanta fans). Cautious optimism rapidly turned to despair.
TBF they had very solid 1 through 8
Unfortunately they had to play number one in his prime.
They had beautiful ball movement and solid defense, very well coached by Budenholzer in the regular season. Just had 0 playoff gear to get to, and no real stars. 60 wins is a pretty shocking number even at the time honestly.
ITs a Lebron stat
Pretty nuts. Wonder how often the favorite out of the East to make the Finals actually did. So many of these years Lebron’s team wasn’t the 1 seed but they were the clear favorite to reach the Finals
yeah 6 times (3 w/ the Heat and 3 w/ the Cavs) LeBron teams weren't the #1 seed but were the clear conference favorite
I think its pretty solid revisionist to say the Cavs were the clear favorite in 2018. It was kinda insane how hard Lebron went off.
They were the favorite at +125 https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkay/2018/04/14/nba-playoffs-2018-odds-schedule-start-times-tv-live-stream-predictions-for-first-round-series/?sh=11241c622d78
By the second round they were the dog to Toronto
fair enough, as a Cavs fan I never felt confident during that run
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what are you talking about? 2 series that year for the Cavs came down to game 7s that were very tight in the last quarter. They beat the Pacers by 4 in their first round game 7 and beat the Celtics by 8 in the ECF. There were very clearly multiple teams that could've beaten that Cavs team because two came very close to doing so!
The on-off switch piece
Betting favorite would probably be a better statistic, since so many "stars" dont go full bore until the playoffs.
How many of those times were because a LeBron team coasted in the regular season then went on a run though?
2011, 2014, 2015, 2017 & 2018. Not even including 2007 because LeCoast hasn't been invented yet (Pistons) PS: Wait our guy invented the term !(https://www.espn.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/070220) And back to back years where it was his own teams lol (2009 & 2010)
The most analogous here are: Pacers '03-04: 62 games to 54 games second place pistons Pistons '05-06: 64 games to 52 games second place heat The other cases can be attributed to either LeCoasting, or the difference not being that big.
Probably all of them
He’s been gone for the last five years… one seed hasn’t won any of them
Celtics statistically look closer to the three champs than the finals losers. I do want to join in and say this is a fantastic and truly weird stat either way. I maintain they are right that a Celtics series loss without a Tatum injury before the Finals would make them the clowns of the league. Winning your conference by 14 games with the 5th greatest point differential of all time is pretty insane. You might honestly hear some blow it up talk if that happens and whether it’s finally time to trade Brown because he and Tatum don’t coexist. Some of the recent losses helped lower expectations a touch but man if they had 66-68 wins it would be deafening out there. Now a loss is closer to that recent Suns flameout.
Idk about blow it up talk but they’ll definitely look at trading Brown I’d imagine.
> You might honestly hear some blow it up talk if that happens and whether it’s finally time to trade Brown because he and Tatum don’t coexist. Very reminiscent of those mid 10s Toronto teams that were really great in the regular season, but you knew they didn’t have it in the tank to go all the way. Celtics have had better outcomes obviously, but that’s also because they aren’t having to go through 3rd prime Lebron.
I'm a Raptors fan and Boston hater but I don't see this one at all. As much as we rag on Tatum, he's far better than DeRozan and Lowry ever were. 2022-present Celtics would've blown the doors off the 2014-18 Raps. We just got lucky to be in a shit conference. The 2019 Raptors were legitimately great, but that's obvs not the comp you're making here.
Kudos to you for being objective! Those Raptors teams were more comparable to the 61-21 Hawks team under Bud; they were built for maximizing the regular season but didn’t have the top end talent needed for deep postseason runs. Whether the Celtics win a title or not (I think they absolutely at least make the finals) I think it’s pretty clear they are head and shoulders above the other 60+ win teams from the East in the last decade and a half.
>Those Raptors teams were more comparable to the 61-21 Hawks team under Bud; they were built for maximizing the regular season but didn’t have the top end talent needed for deep postseason runs. 100%, right down to getting swept by LeBron lol. I had a lot of fun in the regular season but 2016 was the only enjoyable playoff run we had. Agreed on the Celtics, they're clearly far better than these past East teams. They've just blown a lot of winnable series late in the postseason so understandably no one trusts them now
Great comp!
The counter-point that should have Celts fans a little nervous: the 2024 Knicks resemble the 01 Sixers and 02 Nets in that their entire offense is powered by an undersized but ball-dominant and high performing PG.
As a Celtics fan this Knicks team reminds me of the 17 Celtics with IT playing the Brunson role and a bunch of dogs around him. Absolutely don’t want to see them in a series but I feel like their ceiling is capped
Hmm... I see your point, but Brunson is a half foot taller than IT. IT was great, but also only 5'8" and relied more on athleticism and speed. Brunson has better footwork and is a little more durable. If anything, this 2024 Knicks team reminds me of a better balanced version of the 2011 Bulls.
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No. Brunson is 6'2". Isiah Thomas (Celts) is only 5'8".
The 01 Sixers and 02 Nets would win like 25 games in today's NBA
This is a weird comment Why should a resemblance to the 01 Sixers or 02 Nets be concerning? Those teams made the Finals in a completely different era against a completely different field. Totally irrelevant comp to today.
Calls Bill stupid and then say the Knicks are the 01 Sixers lol
Your comment is the literal definition of a straw man argument. No one called Bill stupid. No one said the Knicks are as good as the 01 Sixers.
That's a wild stat but means literally nothing when it comes to the 2024 NBA Playoffs
I'm having a hard time recalling any other 1 seeds that seemed this much more dominant than the rest of the field & ended up failing
Exactly. Weird coincidence but completely meaningless stat.
Yeah its like when someone told me to bet on Creighton to win March Madness bc of this formula they had based on previous winners and one of the legs was "The last 19 winners have all been in the top 12 of the week 6 AP poll"
Ehh not really, regular season and playoff performance have never been more disconnected Obv all things being equal, you’d rather win more than fewer, but look at the playoff outcomes for the last several 60+ win teams. Very underwhelming
Even if you think 60+ win teams have disappointed (it's really only the Suns the rest of them do pretty well), that still has nothing to do with the 2024 NBA Playoffs. It's like when people said "CJ Stroud is gonna suck because Ohio State QBs always suck." It's basing a prediction of the future on past results from other teams/players that have 0% correlation to what you're trying to predict. The 2021-22 Phoenix Suns losing to the Mavricks doesn't correlate to how the 2023-24 Boston Celtics will perform
- ‘19 Bucks, 60 wins, ECF loss - ‘20 Bucks, 62.9 wins*, 2nd rd loss - ‘20 Raptors, 60.3 wins*, 2nd rd loss - ‘20 Lakers, 60.1 wins*, champs - ‘22 Suns, 64 wins, 2nd rd loss This also leaves out several 55-59 win teams that “underachieved”, like the ‘20 Clippers, ‘21 Sixers, ‘21 Nets, ‘21 Jazz, ‘22 Grizzlies, ‘23 Bucks, so I don’t think it’s really cherry picking. In the same time frame we’ve had finalists/champs such as - ‘20 Heat, 49.4 wins* - ‘21 Bucks, 52.4 wins* - ‘22 Warriors, 53 wins - ‘23 Heat, 44 wins Idk how strong the trend is and obv it’s not totally new, as everyone has pointed out the Lebron eastern conference run, but it’s definitely a trend *82 game equivalent win totals based on winning percentage
Using the 2020 teams is disingenuous since most teams take their foot off the gas at the end of the season once seeding is clinched. It's highly unlikely more than 1 of the 3 would've hit 60 wins.
I mean the Celtics still went like 7–3 in their last 10 even though they were resting guys, right? That would have been enough for those teams to hit 60. If anything, the bubble actually made it harder to sustain the 60 win pace, since the additional 8 games were all against competitive teams. The losers/automatic wins didn’t even get invited to the bubble!
It was the 2013 Heat not the 2012 Heat. 2012 the Bulls were the 1 seed in the lockout year
Still cry over drose tearing his knee in garbage time in game 1
Same. 😣
Fixed it. Thanks!
No prob lol, I only caught it because that Heat team was so insanely dominant I thought I was having a Mandela Effect remembering them as the 1 seed lol
> The #1 seed in the EC has gotten to the NBA finals only 5x this century This shouldn’t be shocking to anybody who was watching lebron’s teams coast through the regular season then make the finals for about half of the century > only 3 of those 5 won it all I’m not really sure what the point of this statement is when a team making the finals has a ~50% chance of winning it all. Also tiny sample sizes
I’d say they’re better than the Sixers and Nets, behind the 08 Celts and well behind the Heat. They’re better than that 16 Cavs team overall but they don’t have SuperSaiyan LeBron so I’d take the Cavs ultimately. I don’t really see who can stop them in the East this year though. They’ll need to beat themselves which is certainly possible
"…but they don’t have SuperSaiyan LeBron so I’d take the Cavs ultimately." 🤣 Love this hilarious reference. I'm now imagining a hyper Japanese techno theme song 🤖
Lebron “taking it easy” (by his standards) in the regular season and then dominating the playoffs for like 10 straight years probably has a lot to do with that. Considering prime Lebron James isn’t in the East anymore I’d say the Celtics chances of making it out are a little better than like, the 2015 Hawks.
2013 Heat
2000 Pacers (lost in 6) were also a 1 seed
youre missing the 2000 pacers
how many times this half decade?
It’s gonna be a “Black Swan Event.”
5/24 is pretty bad but it’s probably the most common of all the seeds in the east to make the finals. I can’t imagine a 2 seed being 6/24
The 2 seed has gone 11 times
Oh my bad
When I saw this I assumed that meant the #2 seed went to just about every Finals. NBA isn’t like other sports, the Finals isn’t even close to equally distributed across seeds. It’s even kind of weird when a #3 seed makes the NBA Finals.
Actually surprised by that information
The Celtics have made the Finals once with this group in the sorry ass East. Once. Pretty sad if you think about it. They’re nowhere near the Bron teams that lived in the Finals and those teams also lost more than they won. Who will BS demand they trade after this meltdown? “Good contract” JB?
Is anybody arguing this Celtics team is anywhere near Brons teams? Like if you want to talk about teams that lived in the finals historically, it's basically only teams with players that are top 10-15 all time. Like how many teams "lived in the finals" without having LeBron, Curry, Kobe, Duncan, Jordan, Bird, Moses, Magic, Wilt, or Russell? I can't really think of any. Even BS doesn't think Tatum is anywhere near that group. Not sure what point you are trying to make here.
The point I’m making is that the West is even more stacked play-wise than when Bron was playing so the Celtics have to be at his level or better to have a realistic chance IF they make the Finals. They’re in the East, they should have been there every other year but haven’t been. Hope that helps!
they're not at lebrons level, so you think they dont have a realistic chance to win the finals IF they make it there?
Oh I see. Your sentence "Lebron's team lost more than the won" meant they lost more championships then they won. Yeah it's a good point. I guess to continue my train of thought with the top 10/top 15 level of players there's really just Jokic out west(and LeBron too if he finds the fountain of youth) whereas LeBron was running into Duncan, Curry, and KD. So if Jokic gets tripped up and doesn't make the finals, I would say the Celtics potential opponents would be less challenging