“How does a guy get to 10 finals in damn near 2 decades, but nobody fears him?… Shaq where you been for the last 18 years?” - Shannon Sharpe reacts to Shaquille O’Neal saying LeBron James is not feared
LeBron James might be out for the 21-22 NBA post-season, but is never out of the conversation.
.@stephenasmith thinks LeBron James is respected in the league, but certainly not feared. https://t.co/nGIn4v7YqL
Shaquille O'Neal, on Turner Sports' "The Big Podcast," had this to say about LeBron in their latest episode:
"LeBron is my guy, but nobody was ever scared of LeBron. So, if you're not scared of a guy, you just have much more confidence. That's a dangerous guy to play with. They respect him, but they don't fear him 'cause I can tell, I watched him playing against them, they not scared."
The comment certainly stirred a few pots, and staunch LeBron backer Shannon Sharpe, on FOX Sports' "Skip and Shannon: Undisputed," fired back:
"How does a guy get to 10 finals in damn near two decades, but nobody fears him? They dubbed it "LeBronto". So the Toronto Raptors never feared LeBron James? Is that what Shaq is trying to tell us?"
.@ShannonSharpe on Shaq saying no one "feared" LeBron:
"How does one get to 10 Finals, but no one fears him? The Raptors never feared LeBron? The Celtics wouldn't have traded for KG and Ray Allen if they weren't scared. Why would the Warriors get KD if no one feared him?" https://t.co/ruCQSNdo9l
Sharpe fired shots directly at O'Neal, talking about how LeBron's '07 Cavaliers went past the Detroit Pistons that put an end to O'Neal's tenure with the Lakers:
"In 2007, LeBron James took the Cleveland Cavaliers, a very under-manned Cleveland Cavaliers and beat the Detroit Pistons, and ended their run. Hey Shaq, little info for you, that Detroit Pistons beat you in the finals and ended your run in LA, you don't think they feared him?"
Where do LeBron James' teams rank among themselves, statistically?
LeBron James has taken three different franchises to the promised land, but how do those teams rank against each other? We look at the Cleveland Cavaliers, starting from 2003-04 to 2009-10 and from 2014-15 to 2017-18 (11), the Miami Heat from 2010-11 to 2013-14 (4) and the Los Angeles Lakers from 2018-19 to 2021-22 (4).
The team's overall rating will be measured using fivethirtyeight's ELO ratings, a simple breakdown of which is provided below:
ELO ratings and what they mean:
So, for example, the 2015-16 Philadelphia 76ers, with a 10-72 regular-season record, had an ELO of 1203.
ELO ratings rate teams. So the variable that majorly determines the ELO rating is wins, and which team the win is against (an upset is worth more than a walkover).
For the sake of simplicity, we'll only look at the best five teams LeBron was on, and the worst five teams he was on. We use whichever final rating is available: if a LeBron team doesn't make the playoffs, we use the rating at the end of the regular-season.
Here's what the top-five LeBron teams look like:
And the worst-five:
The team that took down the 73-9 Warriors is without a doubt the best LeBron team, and that needs no further explanation. What's interesting is that of his 4 years in LA, three of those teams have come in the bottom six on the nineteen-team list.
And to top it all off, the 2022 LA Lakers is the worst team LeBron James has ever been on.