Many expected the Heat to three-peat, a feat that hasn't been completed since the 2002 Lakers. Others believed that the Heat were simply too tired and banged up to pull it off, but expected LeBron and co. to go out with a bang. Instead, the 2014 Miami Heat went out with a whimper and were on the losing end on one of the most lopsided Finals of all time. By Game 5, the Big Three had ceased to exist; LBJ himself acknowledged this pre-game, telling the Heat in their huddle to "follow his lead." Sure enough, LeBron led with 31 points, but Bosh and Wade lagged behind, adding 13 and 11 points, respectively.
Of course, LeBron is no stranger to carrying an entire team on his back; he did it essentially during his entire tenure in Cleveland. As the 2014 playoffs wore on, Bosh and Wade faded into the background, and by the end of their beatdown at the hands of the Spurs, the two were essentially nonfactors, leaving LeBron to carry the struggling Heat.
Of course, LeBron is no stranger to carrying an entire team on his back; he did it essentially during his entire tenure in Cleveland. As the 2014 playoffs wore on, Bosh and Wade faded into the background, and by the end of their beatdown at the hands of the Spurs, the two were essentially nonfactors, leaving LeBron to carry the struggling Heat.
Back to 2007?
Even during the regular season, we knew the Heat were tired coming off of three straight NBA finals. They slipped out of the top 10 in defensive efficiency for the first time in the Big Three era; perhaps more noticeably, Dwyane Wade missed 28 games, more than a quarter of the season, nursing his aging knees. With Wade no longer a consistent member of the starting lineup and Bosh attempting the fewest field goals per game since his rookie season, LeBron essentially was the team's only consistent scoring threat. It wasn't supposed to be this way, of course; Michael Beasley, who had proved he could score in the past, was brought in, as was Greg Oden, who was never a high-volume scorer but more offensively gifted than current bigs Birdman or Udonis Haslem. Both experiments didn't really pan out, and LeBron was left as the team's primary offensive option.
LeBron's situation in 2014 was similar to his situation in 2007, another year in which he essentially willed his team to the Finals (also against the Spurs, in which the Spurs dominated) in a weak Eastern Conference. The chart below shows the Player Efficiency Ratings for the six most-used players on each team (the 2014 Miami Heat and the 2007 Cleveland Cavaliers), comparing the PERs for each team's counterpart.
Aside from LeBron clearly being better now than he was in 2007 (it's crazy to think about, but he was only 22 when he dragged Drew Gooden and co. to the Finals), Dwyane Wade's PER is much higher than Larry Hughes' was. However, Hughes, also a shooting guard, played in 70 of the Cavs' 82 regular season games, while Dwyane Wade played in just 54. That's not to suggest that 2007 Larry Hughes, who sported a .400/.333/.676 shooting line, was better than 2014 Dwyane Wade, but the difference between the two is much smaller than the chart displays. Other than that difference, most of the players on the two teams had pretty comparable seasons - Bosh and Big Z were both good, but not great by PER standards, while Gooden and Varejao both outplayed Chalmers and Allen, respectively.
LeBron's situation in 2014 was similar to his situation in 2007, another year in which he essentially willed his team to the Finals (also against the Spurs, in which the Spurs dominated) in a weak Eastern Conference. The chart below shows the Player Efficiency Ratings for the six most-used players on each team (the 2014 Miami Heat and the 2007 Cleveland Cavaliers), comparing the PERs for each team's counterpart.
Aside from LeBron clearly being better now than he was in 2007 (it's crazy to think about, but he was only 22 when he dragged Drew Gooden and co. to the Finals), Dwyane Wade's PER is much higher than Larry Hughes' was. However, Hughes, also a shooting guard, played in 70 of the Cavs' 82 regular season games, while Dwyane Wade played in just 54. That's not to suggest that 2007 Larry Hughes, who sported a .400/.333/.676 shooting line, was better than 2014 Dwyane Wade, but the difference between the two is much smaller than the chart displays. Other than that difference, most of the players on the two teams had pretty comparable seasons - Bosh and Big Z were both good, but not great by PER standards, while Gooden and Varejao both outplayed Chalmers and Allen, respectively.
So, by these metrics, LeBron's teammates this year were about as effective as his teammates in 2007, a year in which everyone expected the Spurs to walk all over his team. Two things, however: while it provides a nice, even baseline by which to evaluate players, PER is far from perfect, and is not the end-all statistic for evaluating players' effectiveness. Second, this is not to say LeBron's 2014 teammates are as good of players as his 2007 teammates. As I talked about earlier, this Heat team, a relatively old team, has played more minutes in the past four seasons than any other team by a large margin, and they're tired. If the 2007 Cavaliers and 2014 Miami Heat were both fully rested, I have no doubts that the 2014 Miami Heat would run the Cavs out of the building.
In the lead-up to this year's Finals, maybe we should have treated the Heat more like the 2007 Cavs, and expected a dominant performance from the Spurs. Then again, hindsight is 20-20.
In the lead-up to this year's Finals, maybe we should have treated the Heat more like the 2007 Cavs, and expected a dominant performance from the Spurs. Then again, hindsight is 20-20.