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Originally Posted by CUTiger
Yep. But.
There were many years there where Jordan couldnt get past the Cavs and then the Pistons. Lebron got to the finals before he could win it, unlike Jordan
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Relatedly, there is the fact that Jordan's teams were almost always better than their finals opponents. Phoenix is '93 was the only team with a better record, and Utah in '97 had the same mark as the Bulls; the other four times they had more wins. By comparison, LeBron has had an inferior team at least per regular-season wins in 5 of 6 finals, basically the reverse of Jordan. It would be quite surprising if he didn't lose more often. All of the Bulls title teams won at least 57 regular-season games; 50 and 53 for a couple of LeBron teams. Not that the regular season is a perfect indicator or anything but it does tend to be fairly predictive.
538 did an analysis a couple weeks ago which basically pointed out that there are three men who, over the course of their careers, stand ahead of the rest in terms of sustaining or even exceeding regular-season performance in the playoffs, when everyone is more focused, the competition is better, etc. Two are those mentioned in this thread, and the third is Duncan. Jordan was at the top, but not by much -- and that pretty much echoes the way I see it. At this point.