2015 NBA Finals About to Test the Importance of Experience
After their utter dismantling of the Atlanta Hawks—both in a 118-88 Game 4 victory and throughout the series as a whole—the Cleveland Cavaliers are back in the NBA Finals for the first time since 2007, and they'll be bringing quite a bit of high-level experience to the table.
Well, relatively. LeBron James is the only member of the typical starting five who, prior to this season, had been to even the conference finals during his professional career, but the team's presumptive opponent has spent even less time operating on the sport's biggest stages.
Yes, we're assuming that the Golden State Warriors will be representing the Western Conference.
Even though the Houston Rockets rode some ridiculously hot shooting in Game 4 of their series with the Dubs and avoided elimination for another night, they're simply not going to be the first team to dig out of a three-game hole. Not against the best team in the NBA, one that will likely go down among the greatest squads in this sport's history.
This upcoming and seemingly inevitable battle between the Warriors and Cavaliers will provide plenty of terrific storylines.
We'll have Stephen Curry, this year's MVP, squaring off against James, who may well remain the best player in the world. Two tortured franchises will be attempting to get the proverbial monkeys off their backs. It will be a clash between the regular season's No. 3 offense (Cleveland) and No. 1 defense (Golden State).
But this is also inexperience versus experience.
Curry and the rest of the Warriors will be attempting to prove that an age-old mantra—you have to learn to lose before you can win—doesn't actually apply. They're not playing Chutes and Ladders—moving forward a few steps and then falling back down to a lower level before working in the right direction once more. In fact, they hadn't advanced to the Western Conference Finals since 1976, back when Rick Barry was leading the charge.
If the Warriors are playing a board game, it's Monopoly, and they've just drawn the Chance card that sends them directly to Boardwalk, which remains totally unoccupied and just ripe for the taking.
Not a single player on the Golden State roster has ever had a chance to buy the game's most valuable property compete for a ring. Leandro Barbosa, who has played just 14.3 minutes per game during the Western Conference Finals, is the only one who has even made it to the penultimate stage before, doing so with the Phoenix Suns in 2005, 2006 and 2010.
That's it.
Literally everyone else had peaked in the semifinals—or earlier—prior to this magical season-long run. To top it off, Steve Kerr is a rookie head coach, so by definition, he's breaking new ground each time he steps onto the sidelines of a new postseason round.
Of course, not everyone believes that this will matter in the slightest. Deadspin's Kevin Draper provided one such example just before the playoffs began:
"There is a fiction that people assume is true about the NBA, that eventual champions have to be battle-tested by years of playoff losses before they can win, like they are Republican candidates for president or something. This line of thought is an integral part of the narrative about the Chicago Bulls, that Michael Jordan and co. had to lose to the Pistons for years to 'learn how to win,' but it is entirely bunk.
Michael Jordan's [sic] didn't win a championship until 1991 not because the Bulls didn't have enough playoff 'experience,' but because they weren't a great basketball team yet. The year prior, they had the ninth best margin of victory in the league; the year before that 13th best. They won the championship in 1991 because Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, and other players improved enough to make them the best regular season team in the league, and that team was good enough to win the championship.
"
Nonetheless, the widespread belief persists. It's hard to challenge the status quo, even when there's not much objective evidence that points in a direction favoring a supposed truism.
The Warriors are attempting to become the latest team to debunk the theory, but even if they win a championship, they surely won't prevent other fresh-faced future teams from experiencing similar lines of questioning. And those inquiries are ones that the Cavs—even with Kyrie Irving and, before his injury, Kevin Love making their initial forays into the NBA's second season—won't have to answer.
We'll come back to James, but it's worth noting that the Cleveland bench is littered with players who have advanced to this stage.
James Jones will be making his fifth trip to the NBA Finals after advancing that far during each of his last four years with the Miami Heat. Two of those experiences resulted in rings.
Kendrick Perkins won a title in 2008 with the Boston Celtics, lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in seven games two years later and made another Finals journey with the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Shawn Marion only made it to the Finals once, but when he did get there, he helped the Dallas Mavericks beat the Heat in 2011. Mike Miller was on the losing end that year, though he'd get redemption by winning titles alongside James and the rest of the Miami bunch each of the next two seasons.
That's four veteran presences providing plenty of experience. And then there's James himself.
Before this season, it seemed that a Finals appearance was against the odds for the four-time MVP. He himself admitted it, telling Sports Illustrated's Lee Jenkins in the official announcement of his return to Northeast Ohio, "I'm not promising a championship. I know how hard that is to deliver. We're not ready right now. No way. Of course, I want to win next year, but I'm realistic. It will be a long process, much longer than it was in 2010. My patience will get tested. I know that."
Now, a championship, one that would be the third of his already legendary career, is so close that he can probably imagine the metallic taste of the Larry O'Brien Trophy. And he knows exactly what this experience is like, as two incredible stats can help make clear.
I'm not referring to James' line during the Eastern Conference Finals. By averaging 30.3 points, 11.0 rebounds and 9.3 assists, he nearly posted a triple-double for the series, and that's not even factoring in his defensive impact. That's noteworthy, but it doesn't truly capture just how great this forward has been for years.
It's even more impressive that James will now have five consecutive trips to the NBA Finals under his belt. For perspective, only 55 players—Jones is the 55th—in the history of this league have made five total journeys to the postseason's final series.
And what may be more impressive still is the fact that this is James' sixth appearance in the Finals, making him only the 33rd player in NBA history to tally that many. Of the other 32, every single one spent a significant chunk of their career with either the Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers, San Antonio Spurs or Chicago Bulls.
Essentially, James has become his own dynasty, one that spans two cities and isn't over yet.
That's what the Warriors are now faced with.
Once they finish off the Rockets, they'll presumably enter the next round as the favorites, and deservedly so. This is one of the greatest teams ever, and they've looked the part in the playoffs after winning 67 games during the regular season.
But this is still a new experience, one that will put the favorites against a man who has made the Finals his second home over the last five years.
Note: All stats, unless otherwise indicated, come from Basketball-Reference.com.
Adam Fromal covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @fromal09.
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