Why was James able to lead the team to the finals for eight consecutive years? Is it true that the East is weak? It s far from that

When we talked about the wildness of the west, we put the east side in an opposite direction as if we were stepping on a handful of hand—that is, the east is a weak brigade concentration camp. In the end, this difference between the clouds and muds caused us a stereotype, that is, the east is really weak!

But is this really the case?

Perhaps a detailed look at the teams that have successfully broken through in recent years. From 2018 to the present, the Eastern Conference has produced 6 different champions in seven years, and no team has achieved success in the finals.

From this we can see that the fierce competition ring in the eastern region is also not optimistic.

The 19th Raptors Eastern Conference champion, 2020 Heat, 2021 Bucks won the championship, 2021 Celtics' Finals failed, 2023 Heat Black Eight, 2024 Celtics' Double Tenhua Rises, and this year's Pacers' Magic Reappearance...

In other words, in recent years, 6 different Eastern Conference MVPs have been born in the East (this award was just established last year, and Brown and Siakam were elected this year).

Rather than saying that the team has been upgraded too quickly, it is better to say that there has not been a truly dominant team in the East in recent years, so many heroes competed for the Central Plains.

It is worth mentioning that 2018 years ago, a team won the Eastern Conference championship for 8 consecutive years and successfully entered the finals. During this period, I don’t know how many teams it defeated, so that later generations called this period of Eastern Conference time "eight years of anti-Japan years"!

And this person is James, a man who really ruled the East.

From 2011 to 2018, James led the Heat and the Cavaliers to successfully break through the playoffs for eight consecutive years, and finally led the team to the finals.

If the MVP in the Eastern Conference Finals has existed since ancient times, does it mean that James' eight Eastern Conference Finals trophys are also beyond reach?

Compared with the situation of changing too quickly in recent years, it is obvious that the overall environment of the Eastern Conference is too weak, but because James' personal ability and ability to lead the team to support the team is too strong.

Throughout the NBA history, there are only 8 teams with more than 4 All-Star players in a single season. Since the 11-18 season, James has played against three of them, which are specific. Next -

2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons, the Celtics had four All-Stars, Garnett, Pierce, Ray Allen and Rondo;

2014-15 season Hawks emerged, and the team members Horford, Millsap, Korver and Teague were all selected for the All-Star lineup of the season.

That Hawks scored the best team history 60 wins and 22 losses, and finally won the Eastern Conference championship, and even swept the Cleveland Cavaliers in the regular season.

But when the two teams met in the Eastern Conference Finals in the playoffs, James swept the Hawks 4-0, and was still without Love in the camp.

In addition, the Bulls scored 62 wins and 20 losses in the 2010-11 season, and Ross beat James to be the MVP that year, and became the youngest MVP in history, which was full of energy.

However, when the two Eastern Conference teams met in a narrow road in the playoffs, James led the Heat to eliminate the Bulls 4-1.

Let's talk about the Celtics in 2018. The Celtics' Tatum, Brown and other young talents first showed their strengths, and the Celtics' defensive efficiency of 101.5 is terrifying.

The Celtics won all 10 games at home in the playoffs that year, with an average of 11.7 points in the opponent's goal. This is also so terrifying.

But that year, in the Eastern Conference Final tiebreak, James played for 48 minutes and led the team to break through the Celtics' home court!

Therefore, the Celtics lost in the most important home game, but unfortunately failed to defend their home dignity.

In that game, James carried Morris' layup at the last moment, which was a classic...

In the Eastern Conference Finals series that year, James averaged 33.5 points, Love scored 10.7 points, Hill scored 9 points, and the rest of the Cavaliers averaged single digits per game...

If you can predict the future, after the Raptors were swept by James in the 2018 playoffs, the team stopped the semi-finals early. The game, I believe DeRozan called on the Raptors management to be like this -

"The eight years of the East's fight against James has entered its eighth year, so we will hold on for another year, and I promise to lead the team to win the championship next season..."