On LeBron’s Legacy And What Is The NBA Doing?

The NBA Finals will end either tonight with the LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers winning their first title since 2010, or it will end Wednesday night with the first game seven matchup since the Cavaliers beat Golden State in 2016.

Television ratings are down for the NBA and many have speculated as to why, but it could be just as simple as it is not basketball season. Sports fans have trained themselves throughout the years to watch certain sports at certain times, and sports junkies are watching baseball playoffs and the NFL in October, getting ready for the start of basketball, not viewing the championship series.

If the Lakers win, it will be LeBron James’ fourth title, putting two behind the aura of Michael Jordan. James is also making his 10th appearance in The Finals, and the only two players with more were part of the Celtics’ dynasty of the late 1950’s and 60’s: Bill Russell and Sam Jones, who both appeared in 11.

Would this title erase the “greatest of all time” question for James over Jordan? We wouldn’t be willing to do that personally, although we don’t dismiss the argument as some do. However, an 11th Finals appearance and a fifth championship for James might tilt the discussion for us.

Add in that LeBron very well could wind up his career as the all time leading scorer in professional basketball history, and end up in the top five all time in assists (he is about 1000 shy of Steve Nash for that spot right now), and only someone who thinks the game was better when they were younger could still hold on to the Jordan argument.

Although being 6-0 in The Finals is pretty impressive.

On the other hand, a player who is regarding as someone who thinks pass first becoming the NBA’s all time leading scorer is just as impressive.

Whether you are a “Jordan guy” or a “LeBron guy”, either way, being regarded as the second best player of all time in any sport isn’t an insult. There are only a handful of players who have that status in any sport, and make no doubt, LeBron James is in the conversation.

Now the league in which he plays has an interesting decision to make.

We’ve just said he believe at least part of the issue with the ratings and the overall interest in the sport could be based on the traditional viewing habits of fans, and the date when the league will start the 2020-21 season (or perhaps just the 2021 season) could be important for the future of the league.

It has been rumored the next season may not start until as late as March, four and a half months after the post-season ends, which is close to the normal time period between the end of the playoffs and the start of the next season.

However, the start of that season would be right in the middle of the NCAA conference tournaments and the championship brackets, and the beginning of baseball.

And assuming they would play a standard 82 game schedule, the conference finals and The Finals would wind up competing with the NFL (a behemoth no one wants to compete with), college football, and the World Series.

What would we recommend? The same thing several people have thought. Start around Christmas (when most fans start watching the NBA) and play a shortened 60 game schedule where the playoffs end around the end of June or beginning of July, and then get back on the normal league calendar.

Otherwise, the league may risk a popularity problem. We understand the league may have passed baseball as the #2 viewed sport right now, but thinking it is more popular than it is can be a problem.

An indoor sport competing against outdoor activities? Let’s just say, that could be a problem.

Evaluation Of NBA Players Is Different Today.

With “The Last Dance” airing on ESPN the past two weeks, the age old who’s better, Michael Jordan or LeBron James, has reared up once again.

Our opinion is Jordan, but we don’t dismiss the James argument, as LeBron might be the most gifted athlete to ever play in the NBA. And although Jordan has won six titles, James has been to The Finals nine times.

Only three players have been to more: Bill Russell, Sam Jones, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

What we have thought about is the way evaluating great players has changed in the last 20 years of professional basketball.

Keep in mind, we’ve followed the NBA since the late 1960’s.

Too Much Emphasis On Rings. Ring counting has been en vogue since Jordan started winning them, but it doesn’t seem fair anymore.

First, the player movement is greater than ever particularly among the league’s best talents. Could Oscar Robertson have won more rings had he decided to sign with the Celtics in his prime?

Or let’s say Wilt Chamberlain went to the Royals when they had Oscar and Jerry Lucas. Could they have knocked off the Russell-led Celtics?

This isn’t to criticize today’s players it is just to point out free agency wasn’t available in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s, and it is more prevalent that it was in the 80’s and 90’s.

The other part of the ring debate is the Draymond Green/Charles Barkley argument. Green is a very good player, and a key piece of Golden State’s three titles in four years.

However, there is no universe around where Green is a better player than Barkley. End of discussion.

Besides, how do the ring counters evaluation players like Robert Horry (7 rings) and Steve Kerr (5 rings)?

Style Over Substance. Today’s game seem to be more about the spectacular play rather than the winning play. There is room for both in the game, but since this is professional sports, shouldn’t the emphasis be on team success?

Early this year, we saw repeated replays of Memphis rookie Ja Morant trying to dunk on the Cavs’ Kevin Love.

First, we love Morant’s game, and think he will be a great player in the league for many, many years.

However, A). He missed the dunk, and B). The Grizzlies lost the game.

When was the last time a player on a team with one of the five worst records in the NBA was voted as a starter in the All Star Game? Prior to Trae Young being voted in this season, that is?

There used to be discussion that certain players probably should be in the game, but their teams weren’t any good. And maybe they did get a spot, but they didn’t start.

That’s changed now.

The Past Is Forgotten. Actually, baseball is the only sport where fans embrace the history of the game as much as they should.

So when the subject of the greatest players ever comes up, heck, sometimes even Larry Bird and Magic Johnson get omitted, so guys like Rick Barry, Bob Pettit, West, and Robertson have no chance.

Even ex-players do it. This past week, Kendrick Perkins said Kevin Durant is the greatest player ever to wear a Warriors’ uniform. The same Warriors who once employed Wilt Chamberlain and Barry.

The “It Happened Once” Theory. We find it amusing when fans cite things that happened once to predict the future.

A couple good examples relating to the Cavs were accumulating lottery draft picks worked for Oklahoma City, when they drafted Durant, Russell Westbrook, and James Harden as high picks. Tell me where else it worked?

Also, the Cavs can play Collin Sexton and Darius Garland together because it works for Portland with Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum. Again, tell me other teams having success playing two small guards.

What is sad is so many truly great players are forgotten in today’s day and age. Are the size and physical attributes of today’s players greater? Of course. But the way the game is officiated today is more advantageous to smaller players, and the truly great players would have adjusted, the same as today’s players would have adapted to the way things were.

It’s been a great game for many years, not just since 1995.

Will James Ever Satisfy His Critics?

The Cleveland Cavaliers are going back to the NBA Finals for the fourth straight season.

Allow that to sink in for a moment. Four straight chances to play for the NBA title.

And to think LeBron James is responsible for making this happen. In fact, this is the fifth Finals appearance for the franchise, all with James as the centerpiece, the leader, and the best player on the roster.

James is making his ninth appearance in championship round, and the only players in history to have made more are Bill Russell, Sam Jones, and Kareen Abdul-Jabbar. That’s it.

By contrast, Michael Jordan went to only six Finals. Jerry West? Nine times, same as James. Magic Johnson? Only nine times.

Eight of those appearance by James have come in the last eight seasons, four with the Miami Heat, and of course, the last four with the wine and gold.

When Jordan was getting to the Finals on a yearly basis, outside of the two years he left the sport to play baseball, we recall the media adoring His Airness, appreciating what he was accomplishing.

It seems James gets nothing but criticism about his feat. Yesterday, we read how this season, the Cavaliers avoided the four next best players in the Eastern Conference: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid, and Kyrie Irving, in order to win the conference title.

We also read about the terrible teams James defeated to advance to the title round.

James doesn’t have any control over either of these things. Both the Bucks and Sixers lost to the Celtics in the playoffs, the same Celtics that pushed the Cavs to seven games in the conference finals.

His team got a chance to play Boston, and they won. Would it be better for his legacy to lose this season or any of the other seven seasons? If he did, then the media critics would pound him for that.

Last season, Cleveland defeated the top seeded Celtics to get to the Finals. The year before, the Cavaliers were the top seed, and defeated the second seeded Raptors in six games.

In James’ first return year with the Cavs, the swept the first seed Atlanta Hawks.

And this year, Cleveland knocked off not only the top seeded Raptors, but also the second seeded Celtics.

In LeBron’s four years in Miami, his team was the top seed once, and beat the top seed twice to reach the NBA Championship round.

It is true that James’ record in the Finals is 3-5, but the only time you could claim his team was upset in the Finals was the loss to Dallas in the 2010-11 season. The other four losses came to the sports’ most consistently excellent franchise of the last 25 years, the San Antonio Spurs, and to Golden State.

The criticism gets really insane when the first loss to the Warriors, in which Cleveland was missing all-stars Kyrie Irving (injured in Game 1) and Kevin Love (missed the entire series), and yet the series still went six games.

And after the Cavs’ triumph in 2016, the Warriors fortified their roster by signing the league’s second best player in Kevin Durant.

When Jordan played, his teams were the equivalent to the Warriors, the team regarded as the league’s best. Meanwhile, in the last three seasons, the Cavaliers were considered the underdogs going into The Finals.

Perhaps James will be appreciated more when he retires from the sport, at least nationally. Maybe at that point, when he could be the sport’s all time leading scorer, and rank in the top five in assists, and the top 40 rebounders, we will realize his greatness as a player.

He’s not just a numbers compiler either. His nine conference titles should be proof of that.