Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian Swartz
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.
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They were not better in that last year. Scottie's back was shot by the time the Finals rolled around and Rodman was completely washed up. They probably should have lost to the Pacers if Jordan didn't play out of his mind.
Lebron also lost in the playoffs with more talented teams than his opponent. Did the Bulls ever lose to a team in the playoffs that had less talent than them? The East was really good back in the day.