Quick takes on LeBron’s first ring
The finals are over. LeBron finally has his ring. The Big 3 prove they can work (somehow making the finals in their first year together wasn’t enough) There are so many great narratives, I can’t really make a cohesive post out of all them. As such I’ll just run down some finals thoughts with some numbers dropped in. Sound fun?
Bron finally gets a ring
LeBron is one of “only” 12 players with multiple MVP awards. Here’s a break down of players that have multiple MVP trophies on their shelves and their age when they took their first title. Ages taken from Basketball-Reference and I believe are age of player at the start of the season.
- Karl Malone – N/A
- Steve Nash – N/A
- Wilt Chamberlain – 30
- LeBron James – 27
- Moses Malone – 27
- Michael Jordan – 27
- Bob Pettit – 25
- Larry Bird – 24
- Kareem Abdul Jabbar – 23
- Bill Russell – 22
- Tim Duncan – 22
- Magic Johnson – 20
As we can see Bron is indeed near the top of the list but at 27 it’s not like he was an embarrassment. At 27 he’s the same age that both Jordan and Malone were when they took their first title. We’ll see whose footsteps he follows in.
LeBron James the rightful MVPer
A cool thing about this season is that LeBron was voted regular season MVP and Finals MVP. The really cool part is that the numbers agree with him!
Top NBA players based on regular season totals. Numbers from Nerd Numbers, which have different position adjustments than the NBA Geek.
| Player | Team | Minutes | WP48 | Wins Produced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LeBron James | Miami Heat | 2326.2 | 0.335 | 16.2 |
| Chris Paul | Los Angeles Clippers | 2180.4 | 0.323 | 14.7 |
| Tyson Chandler | New York Knicks | 2060.5 | 0.305 | 13.1 |
| Joakim Noah | Chicago Bulls | 1944.8 | 0.288 | 11.7 |
| Andre Iguodala | Philadelphia 76ers | 2209.1 | 0.252 | 11.6 |
| Kevin Durant | Oklahoma City Thunder | 2546.3 | 0.208 | 11.0 |
Top NBA players based on playoff totals
| Player | Team | Minutes | WP48 | Wins Produced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LeBron James | Miami Heat | 983.3 | 0.249 | 5.1 |
| Rajon Rondo | Boston Celtics | 810.4 | 0.267 | 4.5 |
| Kevin Durant | Oklahoma City Thunder | 837.0 | 0.220 | 3.8 |
| Dwyane Wade | Miami Heat | 906.9 | 0.156 | 2.9 |
| James Harden | Oklahoma City Thunder | 629.8 | 0.193 | 2.5 |
On a per-minute basis LeBron was actually playing as well as Rondo heading into the finals. Let’s do a quick overview of the finals now.
Final Thoughts
| Player | Pos | G | MP | WP48 | WP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LeBron James | 3.9 | 5 | 220.5 | 0.186 | 0.85 |
| Shane Battier | 2.9 | 5 | 187.2 | 0.213 | 0.83 |
| Dwyane Wade | 1.9 | 5 | 203.2 | 0.111 | 0.47 |
| Mike Miller | 2.6 | 5 | 44.5 | 0.440 | 0.41 |
| Mario Chalmers | 1.0 | 5 | 182.6 | 0.098 | 0.37 |
| Chris Bosh | 5.0 | 5 | 182.8 | 0.078 | 0.30 |
| James Jones | 2.7 | 4 | 42.8 | 0.134 | 0.12 |
| Terrel Harris | 2.0 | 1 | 3.0 | 0.862 | 0.05 |
| Ronny Turiaf | 5.0 | 1 | 3.0 | 0.127 | 0.01 |
| Udonis Haslem | 4.6 | 5 | 81.3 | -0.001 | -0.00 |
| Joel Anthony | 5.0 | 1 | 2.1 | -0.138 | -0.01 |
| Juwan Howard | 5.0 | 1 | 3.0 | -0.747 | -0.05 |
| Norris Cole | 1.2 | 4 | 44.0 | -0.234 | -0.21 |
Oklahoma City Thunder 2012 Finals Totals
| Player | Pos | G | MP | WP48 | WP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kevin Durant | 3.7 | 5 | 213.0 | 0.131 | 0.58 |
| Russell Westbrook | 1.5 | 5 | 211.4 | 0.084 | 0.37 |
| Nick Collison | 4.7 | 5 | 83.2 | 0.138 | 0.24 |
| Derek Fisher | 1.0 | 5 | 128.2 | 0.071 | 0.19 |
| James Harden | 2.6 | 5 | 163.8 | 0.050 | 0.17 |
| Serge Ibaka | 4.5 | 5 | 131.7 | 0.051 | 0.14 |
| Royal Ivey | 2.0 | 1 | 3.0 | 1.923 | 0.12 |
| Kendrick Perkins | 5.0 | 5 | 115.8 | 0.019 | 0.05 |
| Cole Aldrich | 5.0 | 1 | 4.7 | 0.302 | 0.03 |
| Thabo Sefolosha | 2.5 | 5 | 129.6 | 0.006 | 0.02 |
| Lazar Hayward | 3.0 | 1 | 4.7 | 0.042 | 0.00 |
| Daequan Cook | 2.0 | 3 | 10.6 | -0.306 | -0.07 |
- The finals pulled down everyone’s averages, which isn’t a surprise as the competition should be the top level.
- LeBron’s triple double (which somehow wasn’t the best Heat performance, more on that in a second) gave him just enough to keep Shane Battier from being the “rightful Finals MVP”.
- Durant still played alright, Westbrook played close to his normal levels. Ibaka, Harden and Sefolosha disapeared.
- Shane Battier and Mike Miller in game five were two huge surprises for the Heat.
- Playing Perkins was still a mistake. Aldrich and Collison and Ibaka were all played far too few minutes.
I’m sure we’ll have at least another finals post or two before all is said and done. Hope you enjoyed my first glance at the finals.
-Dre