LeBron James is no stranger to underperforming on teams in the regular season. Fans of the Los Angeles Lakers will be concerned given how inconsistent their team has been to start the regular season. But James has shown in the past that their form does not matter come playoff time.
One of his former teammates has come out and corroborated that. Kevin Love spoke recently with Bleacher Report about his 2015-16 season with the Cleveland Cavaliers, and how they performed during the regular season.
He noted that the team never concerned themselves with the regular season, and knew they just had to make it to the playoffs in order to reach the pinnacle.
“We didn’t realize exactly what we had, what we had was so special. Like I look back, and I think when you reach the pinnacle, when you’re at the top, you want that, it’s like a drug, you want that, and you want that every single year. So to come from a situation like were to come into that and win a championship, it’s life changing. It’s a life changing experience. We were the most talented, underachieving regular season team of all time, easily. We didn’t care until the playoffs… Honestly we were ‘Days of our Lives’. We had so many storylines; we thrived under chaos, but when it came time, we had fun, and we had the best time.”
The Cavaliers didn’t really struggle in the regular season, as they ended up getting the first seed in the Eastern Conference that season. But they did have a close race with the Toronto Raptors, as they were only one game behind the Cavaliers, and proved to be their biggest test and pushed them during the regular season.
That formula ended up working, as LeBron James and the Cavaliers made it back to the NBA Finals in 2016, and pulled off one of the greatest upsets in NBA history.
The Warriors got a 3-1 lead over the Cavaliers and looked set to defeat them in the NBA Finals. But LeBron and the Cavs went on to win the next 3 games and defeated the Warriors in their home, with Kyrie Irving making an incredible shot, to win the NBA championship.
