Cavs: B/R tweets about LeBron’s postseason points record, which leads one to think about his postseason absence

Two years ago yesterday, LeBron James surpassed Michael Jordan and became the all-time leading scorer in NBA postseason history, and Bleacher Report gave a quick reminder of that in a tweet on Saturday in regards to the best player in the history of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

It feels like an eternity, but it was only two years ago when the best player in the history of the Cleveland Cavaliers, LeBron James, in a closeout Game 5 against the Boston Celtics in the 2017 Eastern Conference Finals, eclipsed Michael Jordan to become the NBA’s all-time postseason leading scorer.

In nine postseason runs with the Cavaliers, James averaged 30.1 points per game on 57.1% true shooting, 9.1 rebounds, 7.1 assists, 1.7 steals, and 1.1 blocks per game (per Basketball reference). In a tweet on Saturday, Bleacher Report reminded us of that special postseason all-time scoring moment, which was cool to see.

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As announcer and former NBA star Chris Webber mentioned in that clip, LeBron had his struggles against the Celtics earlier in his career. It is kind of ironic and it seemed just right that James broke that record in a closeout game against the Celtics after all those memorable battles over the years.

As Bleacher Report mentioned, Jordan did set the previous record in 33 fewer games. One thing that didn’t get mentioned enough is that LeBron took fewer shots, though.

During their playoff careers, LeBron has scored 6,911 total points on an average of 20.9 shot attempts per game,  while Jordan had 5,987 total points on 25.1 shot attempts per game (both per Basketball Reference).

So yes it took LeBron more games, but he took less shots in comparison, while controlling games with his passing more, too.

James obviously has missed the playoffs for the first time since the 2005-2006 season in 2018-19 with the Los Angeles Lakers, and this year will mark the first time since 2010 where the NBA Finals won’t involve him being in it, per as was recently demonstrated by StatsCentre, the statistics Twitter account for TSN’s “SportsCentre.”

With that being the case, it has hurt the league’s television ratings, as was demonstrated by Austin Karp of the Sports Business Journal earlier in the postseason, and also when it comes to the viewership of non-Golden State Warriors games in the large scale, per Sports Media Watch in a more recent tweet (and h/t Bleacher Report’s Howard Beck), and that’s not surprising with the draw of James.

The ratings decrease isn’t a shock considering LeBron is still the league’s most popular player based on jersey sales from the 2018-19 season, per an NBA.com official release,and when your most popular player isn’t in the postseason it’s a given that ratings will be down.

This likely isn’t a problem for the league, as it was hurt the following year in 1999 after Jordan was in his last NBA Finals the year before (as displayed by Forbes’ Adam Zagoria and h/t LeBron Wire’s Brendan Bowers) but eventually the league bounced back and everyone eventually adjusts as a league.

That being said, as we’ve mentioned here at KJG before, James not being in the postseason is a big story and the aforementioned Beck highlighted how Draymond Green hit on what it’s like with LeBron not being in the action.

"“It’s just weird to look over there to know that you’re going to play someone completely different,” Green said."

It’s definitely not the same, because again the league’s biggest star isn’t playing during the most important time of the year. At this time of the year we’re all used to James taking the Cleveland Cavaliers on one of those memorable playoff runs (like the last four seasons before 2018-19), but this year, with no James, it’s completely different.

Just look, the Toronto Raptors just made their first NBA Finals after beating the Milwaukee Bucks in six games. When the Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo was still amid his postseason run, he expressed how the East is “definitely open” sans James, per ESPN’s Malika Andrews (again, h/t Beck).

This isn’t to say the Raptors or Bucks wouldn’t have made it to the Eastern Conference Finals. The East is a lot better than it was even a year ago, as the Raptors didn’t have the superstar services of Kawhi Leonard last year and Giannis took the next step, while the Bucks improved as a team overall and got some key pieces of their own, especially when it comes to shooting.

However, it’s still LeBron and having to go through him on the Cavaliers is a totally different beast. It would’ve been much more difficult for the Bucks and Raptors having to get to the Conference Finals if they had to go through James this year.