In leading the Cleveland Cavaliers back to the NBA Finals, LeBron James enters into one of the most random elite clubs in league history. It will be the fifth straight Finals appearance for James, equaling a mark set by various Celtics from their '60s dynasty including Bill Russell, Sam Jones and Bob Cousy. LeBron, along with erstwhile sidekick James Jones, will be the first to get there with two different teams.
LeBron James conquers the East. Again.
In making his fifth consecutive Finals appearance, LeBron proves yet again that he is without peer in the East.
This odd little footnote in history is just the latest bit of evidence that LeBron runs the Eastern Conference, and has for the past decade. From 2007 when he first took Cleveland to the Finals as a 22-year-old through the present day, only two teams have knocked King James from his throne. The 2008 Celtics survived a bitter seven-game series en route to a title and did so again in 2010 during LeBron's final season in Cleveland before he left for Miami. In between, Dwight Howard's Magic did the same.
LeBron took the fall for those losses as we all remember. With the benefit of hindsight, we'd all do well to remember that those Cavs teams had only one other NBA All-Star during that run: Mo Williams in 2009. Once James joined forces with other star-caliber teammates it was all over for the rest of the East. This postseason has been a mix of the two dynamics with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love on-hand, but either limited or out completely due to injuries.
We take LeBron’s dominance of the lesser conference for granted because it lacks the top-to-bottom depth we find out West. The details are once again in the fine print. His teams had home court advantage only twice in the last five years and the East has generally had two or three strong teams that could compete with anyone else. Since 2011, James has conquered them all, compiling a 60-18 record against his conference in the postseason.
The Bulls had the league's best record and the Most Valuable Player in Derrick Rose in 2011. Miami beat them in the conference finals and a 56-win Celtics team in the second round. When the Bulls were slowed by injuries, the Pacers picked up the mantle of the tough Midwestern team and battled LeBron for three consecutive years, including an epic seven-game series in 2013. This season, of course, saw James lead a ragtag collection of new teammates to a series sweep over the 60-win Atlanta Hawks.
The Hawks that appeared in late May were not the same team that ran roughshod over the league in December and January. The cracks were evident long before their bodies started breaking down, but if you’re going to discount them as an opponent you also have to account for how thoroughly Cleveland beat them with what it had left on its roster.
The Cavs are getting by on seven or eight rotation players depending on whether Irving has been available. Two were acquired in midseason from the woebegone Knicks and another arrived from the wayward Nuggets. Their second-best player in the series was Tristan Thompson, a backup big man who averaged eight points a game during the regular season. Their emergency point guard is an undrafted free agent with a Player Efficiency Rating of 8.5.
These Cavs did work against the Hawks, particularly on the defensive end where they turned Atlanta’s vaunted pace-and-space attack into a congested mess of missed shots and hurried jumpers. These Cavs hit open threes and pounded the boards, recording a pair of blowouts on Atlanta’s home floor when the Hawks still had five healthy starters.
Take LeBron out of the equation and replace him with a garden variety all-star and they might have been a decent sixth-seed in the East. Add him to the mix and you get a team going to the NBA Finals. In the four games against the Hawks, he averaged 30 points, 11 rebounds and almost 10 assists. Had Game 4 been even remotely close James would have surely improved upon those gaudy numbers.
He’s 30 years old now, a year older than when Michael Jordan retired for the first time, and a year younger than Magic Johnson when he retired prematurely in 1991 after contracting HIV. He’s the same age as Larry Bird was when the Celtics made their last Finals appearance of that era. More than ever, LeBron is paying for history and he’s reaching uncharted territory.
It’s still too early to place his career in historic context because there is still so much more for him to achieve. Bringing a long-awaited championship to Cleveland would be his crowning moment, especially in his first season back with the team without one of its key players.
You can debate LeBron’s standing in the pantheon all you want, but it’s well past the point when he’s acknowledged as the dominant player of his generation. In his conference he is without peer or rival, and he has made the competition seem far more ordinary than it otherwise might have been without his presence.
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