I don't know....I just don't know what would have happened if they won that first ring.
Game 6 against Boston in 2012 might have been the single most pressure-filled game for any superstar, ever. Other than Wilt's game 7, NEVER has the face of the league had more of his legacy riding on a single game. And considering how the media had turned Lebron into this massive villain, I'd say that Lebron might have had even more pressure.
That game was unreal. And it wouldn't have happened that way, or meant nearly as much, if they hadn't lost the year before in humiliating fashion.
Hell, who knows if he could pull it out against the Spurs the next year without experiencing 2011 and 2012 first?
They're retarded. Stop being so mean.
That's what I was going to say. How fukking dumb was that.
Even if Lebron was a superman and could have put up a Game 6 (45-15-5 on 70% shooting with half of it long twos!!!) in every fukking game of the 2014 and 2015 Finals, he still might have lost both of them.
Forget that he was putting up 28-8-4 on 60% shooting against the Spurs and still getting blown out because EVERY Spur was shooting 60% from the field and 50% from three. What was he supposed to do...guard their entire fukking team? Take all the shots? The rest of his team played like shyt on offense and defense against a team that could not miss.
Forget that Lebron DID channel that Game 6 mentality in the 2015 Finals, averaged a still-insane-sounding 35-13-9 for the series against one of the best defensive teams in the league, and still lost because the Warriors had 9 players better than his 2nd-best player.
Arguably the toughest conference of all time.
Remind me - who was the BEST team the Lakers beat in that 3-year run. The single best team. I'm waiting...
What was their GREATEST performance in a series? What great winning team at full strength did they beat to show that they were really an all-time great team?
They managed to get out of a conference that had a lot of parity in the upper half with no dominant teams. I remember a Houston team whose best player was Ron Artest (second best player was Aaron Brooks!) stretching them to 7 games....maybe would have won if it hadn't been the Artest ejection. Then they take Artest for themselves and make him the FIFTH best player on their own team.
I remember when a Utah team whose best three players were D-Will, Boozer, and Mehmut Okur was the #4 team in that conference in back-to-back years...conference strength looking mighty suspect in the light. Lakers barely crawled past the Jazz with an overtime win in game 4 and a 3-point win in game 6.
The Spurs (with Ginobli injured), Suns, and Nuggets were the Lakers' three Conference Finals opponents.
The Rockets (with McGrady and Yao hurt), Jazz, and Hornets were their three Conference SemiFinals opponents.
Lost more games than you won against the Celtics...wouldn't have a championship at all if it hadn't been for Garnett getting hurt in 2009 then Perkins going out in 2010.
You needed a fukking Ron Artest buzzer-beater just to get past the aging Suns AND a lucky Pau Gasol put-back to beat a Celtics team who had just lost Perkins.
What a run!!!