2003-2018
15 years in The East, Bron went to 10 East Finals, including 8 consecutive ('11 to '18), 9 in 10 years ('09 to '18), and 10 in 12 years ('07 to '18). So for a dozen years, 12 of his 15 years there, he was pretty much a lock for The Final Four...
The East, and the entire league by proxy, was spotted his first 3 years that he was learning to be a great pro, and he lapped everyone. To this day, no one besides Russell has ever executed this kind of dominance as a #1, and I know how yall feel about Russell's era
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LeBron in his East career, went 35-10 in total playoff series. That broke down into a 3-6 Finals record vs a 32-4 East record---->which itself broke down to 9-1 in the ECF; 10-3 in the Semis; and 13-0 in Rd1...
Why hasn't any player done this? I'm the last 26 years, why hasn't anyone else run this inferior conference to this degree?
•Chauncey Billups was a "star" in the sense he was the face of a franchise, but he was never on anyone's level. Still, he was the leader of a team that went to 5 consecutive ECFs in this period. His 13-4 (12-3 vs East teams) playoff record from 2004-08 is the closest thing comparable to Bron's 35-10 record...
•T-Wade went 22-10 in these 15 years; 19-8 vs East teams. His playoff record without LeBron in this time frame is pitiful---->homeboy was 14-2 with Bron as a teammate, undefeated vs The East (12-0), but just 8-8 without Bron, 8-7 vs The East. He definitely wasn't dominating the conference and some of you nikkas say he was better than Kobe at some point...
Just for reference in this same period of time that Wade was 8-8 without Bron, Bron was 21-8 without Wade...
•the Garnett/Pierce/Allen C's went 11-5 in 6 years, 2-2 to LeBron (2-3 including the Nets year), 10-4 vs the East. They were really good for 6 years but they weren't dominant outside of 2 years...
Pierce in particular spent his whole career out East so his East record on this frame of time was 13-9...
•Dwight was 6-6 overall, 6-5 in the East. But we know you guys value that one series his better team beat Bron's
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•Rose was 3-5 overall...
•Paul George was 5-6 overall...
•DeRozan and Lowry were 4-5...
And Melo never even made the ECF, so that speaks for itself...
If you add up all the stars total record in that 15 years, they had a 67-41 playoff record (.620) vs Bron's 35-10; they were a combined 4-12 vs Bron, but 63-29 vs The Field...
So we've established guys in this current post-Bron East can't dominate ut even though it's the inferior conference...
Guys in Bron's 2003-2018 East were terrible vs him and weren't dominating unless they were playing with him...
And guys before him, 1998-2003, in the weakest East ever, let Jason fukking Kidd run off two Finals in the same conference and era that had Iverson and McGrady abd Allen in their primes...
Time to kill the talking point that dominating a weak conference is something you could roll out of bed doing. Nobody else did it, nobody else is doing it....
