There are a lot of reasons the 4-6 argument is silly but I wouldn’t use MLB fans as a baseline for what a healthy fanbase does. After all, they watch MLB.
this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
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Baseball is way more of a crapshoot. Teams typically hang divisional banners outside of their stadium and nobody bats an eye.
rank the best players he played against in the ECF from 2012-2018
The Joker, Tony Shalhoub, wait no sorry I’m listing those suspected of murdering Batman’s parents.
I think a part of the reason that the West had so much more star talent at this time was because players did not want to go to the East to try to build a team that could compete with Lebron's; they'd rather take their chances in the wild west. So while there are other factors, you could argue that Lebron's competition in the East was weak BECAUSE of how good he was.
It really felt like as soon as lebron went to the west , all of a sudden there was an influx of star talent to the east. Lebron had the east Gm’s thinking it was pointless to take big risks because he was gonna smoke them anyways so they waited him out .
which players do you honestly think thought about going to the East, but then stopped because of Bron?
The GMs in the East were probably hesitant to make risky win-now moves. I’m not convinced that the players themselves were especially concerned.
To be fair the East went almost 10 years without a true superstar being drafted after the 03 draft class. After wade and Lebron it wasn’t until Embid or Giannis that a true superstar developed in the East. If Rose had lasted longer I think Lebron would not have had such an easy time getting to the finals every year.
Dwight was drafted in '04
Because the National and American leagues were separate entities for a very long time and the level of interleague play MLB has today is relatively new. There was and still is a lot of pride winning your league.
NBA Basketball is all one league with no history separating the conferences. The goal has always been the finals.
We definitely give teams credit for getting to the Finals. It's a major accomplishment. Years from now, people will still remember how the Heat made it after barely getting into the playoffs.
The problem comes when a team has higher expectations than just making it to the Finals. If they are the one seed or even the two seed in the conference, they may have a legitimate expectation of winning it all. And at that point losing in the Finals is a disappointment.
In baseball, for example, I don't think the Yankees have ever been proud of losing in the World Series, because they've won it all so often that just making it there isn't a big deal. Of course, its better than missing the playoffs entirely, but it's still not part of Yankees lore.
I'm probably online too much but I've seen "Jimmy Butler hasn't won anything" as a take without a hint of irony numerous times. "Anything" only includes the finals in the discourse.
Years from now, people will still remember how the Heat made it after barely getting into the playoffs.
I feel like it's the opposite because media members and people on here (and get highly upvoted) are still claiming the Heat are either going to miss the playoffs or not make it past the play in despite their performance between 2020-2023. People are claiming the Sixers, Cavs, and Knicks are in a better position than the Heat lol despite the Sixers being incapable of making it out of the second round AND the dysfunction they're currently dealing with.
If anything, I think the discourse surrounding the Heat proves the question OP is asking; there was no respect when they made they run (most of their performance chalked up to "fool's gold, lucky shooting, and Giannis was injured and tatum's ankle!" while ignoring that they lost Herro to an injury for the whole post season and that despite Giannis being out for a game and a half, the Bucks still won the only game Giannis was completely out of -- and lost the games he played, including when he triple doubled and with an insane performance by Brook Lopez. Same for the Celtics- lots of "but tatum's ankle!! while conveniently overlooking that Celtics dropped 3 games with a perfectly healthy Tatum --2 of which were at home). They were gentleman swept by the Nuggets but very little props given for beating Denver at home--something literally not one team in the post season accomplished.
Well for lebron it wasn't impressive when he was on super teams in a mainly garbage east.
Historically, the AL and NL were two separate leagues. There was little to no inter-league play, so the World Series was almost like an exhibition - something extra played after the seasons ended. People didn’t really think of the AL/NL pennants as conference championships.
Interleague play was first introduced during the 1997 Major League Baseball season. Prior to that, matchups between AL teams and NL teams occurred only during spring training, the All-Star Game, other exhibition games (such as the Hall of Fame Game in Cooperstown, New York), and the World Series.
people were okay with this? baseball is so weird
Makes you wonder why MLB’s popularity is declining among youth. It’s a sport catering to boomers.
They've been making changes the last few years to speed up the game and its worked, this past year attendance went up throughout the league.
The WBC has been a success and baseball will be in the 2028 Olympics. So hopefully all this helps bring back it's popularity.
Yeah this is the best answer. It’s really more that baseball is the outlier in the way they care about pennants. Nobody is all that excited about being an NFC Champion or whatever it is that hockey does. NBA is more aligned to the other sports.
In baseball teams in the two leagues/conferences literally never played games against eachother in the regular season until ~1998.
Because the strength of the conference is relevant to the discussion?
Because you don't get a pennant if you win the East or West.
One thing to consider is that Lebron’s legacy is not over. While many would consider him #2 all-time right now - where would you rank him if he won one more?
Let’s be honest (and I am not a Lakers fan) that Los Angeles has a pretty damn good and deep team that will be in the running this year and next.
Players have created the narrative that it's ring or bust. It started with Jordan, then continued with LeBron. Now, star players demand trades one year into a new contract because the ring is the only thing that matters
Allen Iverson’s legacy has a stamp of approval largely due making it to the finals in a pretty weak eastern conference. For good reason too. Those superstar runs to the final are very memorable.
Why is there very little significance in winning the East or West pennant?
It should be North vs South or Coasts vs Middle America if they really want to get people fired up.
Because to go to the World Series, you have to win a league.
Baseball still treats as if the leagues are separate. Remember how much hype Aaron Judge was getting for breaking the AL record for single season home runs? You would never hear about someone breaking Western Conference record. Not to mention their individual awards such as MVP and ROY are rewarded separate by league.
What I find more weird and cringey is how MLB players celebrate every playoff series win as if they won the World Series.
“Win First round! break out the champagne!”
The significance could increase as the talent continues to spread out. Its hard to get excited about conference champ and playoff rivalries when its the same 4 teams every year.
Im hoping some of the current NBA/NCAA patterns continue and become trends. When you start to have playoffs where bottom seeds have a realistic chance of beating top seeds, where every game is a hyper-competitive grind and actually matters, then the importance of making it to certain levels of success within those tournys will be acknowledged, accepted, and way more appreciated.
You don’t think the Warriors get props for making the Finals 6 of 8 years? I mean - weren’t all the non-Warrior fans totally sick of them?
making the finals seems to be the only thing that matters other than winning a chip
Because the East is trash. If Lebron’s teams played in the West he would have barely ever made the playoffs.
The major difference is that basketball fans call “the pennant” “the conference finals championship.” Probably because basketball is an actual sport, unlike quidditch or whatever you’re on about.
It’s really only on this sub that the majority do not enjoy the game.
When I talk basketball outside, they may not know the smaller details down to the statistics but it’s more fun and casual.
You can say stupid shit and agree to disagree and still have a good time.
Over here, you’re either right or you’re wrong, and either way you’re losing because this is a toxic environment that we all love to be a part of because we’re all so fucked up oh my god I need help.
let the Grizzlies win the WCF, we throwing a parade
Two leagues for longer than pro basketball has existed.
If the NBA and ABA never merged, and the ABA grew to be an NBA equal, pro basketball in the US/NA would be completely different.
Because most of the time it's pretty easy to predict who the conference winner will be, outside of random years like the Heat winning last year. Just look at lebron's competition in the east in those years. It's really not surprising or impressive that he made it lol
It changed maybe 10-12 years ago.
Where older people got scared that someone may actually be better than MJ, so they had to make up ways to create LeBron slander.