Jerry West suggests LeBron should want to 'strangle' media critics

Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James enters Sunday’s Game 2 of the NBA Finals already down 0-1, with nary an NBA observer giving his Cavs a great chance at overcoming a Warriors team working with home court advantage in the weeks following GSW’s record-setting 73-9 regular season run.

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An expected Finals loss would run James’ career NBA Finals record to 2-5, a seemingly unacceptable record for a generation that grew up with Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls peeling off a 6-0 record in the NBA championship round. To many columnists, soulless cable TV types and social media tough guys, this is further proof of James’ apparently lacking worth as an all-time player.

To Hall of Famer Jerry West, who currently works as part of the front office in Golden State, this is all a load of hooey. From a discussion with reporters during Saturday’s media availability session:

Yet another LeBron loss in the Finals will disappointment, but outside of an iffy performance down the stretch of his Miami Heat’s run to the 2011 final round, when has LeBron himself actually disappointed?

In 2007 James and his Cavaliers emerged from the East, topping the favored Detroit Pistons along the way, to fall in the face of the San Antonio Spurs in the Finals. Daniel Gibson played the second-most minutes on the Cavaliers during that series, Sasha Pavlovic was right behind him, and Drew Gooden was Cleveland’s second-leading scorer. The Cavaliers shouldn’t have even taken a single quarter from San Antonio, let alone a game or a championship.

James shouldn’t be allowed the same excuses for his play down the stretch of his final games during the 2009, 2010 and 2011 playoffs. Working against at the very worst equally-talented clubs from Orlando, Boston and Dallas, his Cavalier and Heat teams looked uncertain as James was figuratively elbowed out of the action at the worst possible moments.

That Dallas loss, in the Finals, is still regarded as a Miami choke job, although Mavericks owner Mark Cuban (rightfully) disagrees with such an assertion. The Mavs outplayed Miami.

LeBron went on to lead the Heat to two titles in 2012 and 2013, both in dominant turns, before fading in the presence of a deeper and, let’s be honest, much better San Antonio Spurs squad in 2014. In 2015 James averaged a monstrous 35.8 points, 13.3 rebounds, 8.8 assists and a combined 1.8 blocks/steals in a ridiculous 45.7 minutes a game in Golden State’s six-game defeat of the Cavaliers.

The guy, with perhaps one noticeable exception against a championship-worthy Dallas Mavericks team five years ago, has his stuff together.

Jerry West would understand. Working in a Western Conference that had anywhere between five and nine teams working within its confines, West made nine NBA Finals yet only won one in his storied career. For a goodly chunk of the decades that followed, West was considered a bit of a Boston Red Sox-styled tear-jerker story, despite his ubiquity as the model for the NBA’s logo, and his time spent running the five-time champion Los Angeles Lakers of the Magic Johnson era.

It took far too long for members of the media to stop reminding West of his image as the hard-luck superstar. Outside of the occasional gentle nudge on, say, Roy Firestone’s congenial afternoon talk show on ESPN, West didn’t have to hear nearly as much as LeBron has to work through, daily, in James’ era. West was never called a choker, and the embarrassment that stemmed from the Laker guard being voted as the 1969 NBA Finals MVP as a member of the losing team helped save LeBron James from the indignity of having to accept the same award – an award he no doubt deserved – in losing last season.

Michael Jordan never lost an NBA Finals series, but he also didn’t make it out of the first round until his fourth NBA season, he didn’t make it to the Finals until his seventh season, and his Bulls barely eked out wins against the Knicks in 1992 and 1993, and the Pacers in 1998. The Western Conference during his era, despite all the star power in retrospect, was a bit of a breeze during the Finals – especially in comparison to the ferocious Knicks teams Jordan’s Bulls had to battle through.

Magic Johnson lost three NBA Finals. Larry Bird lost two, Julius Erving lost two, as did Kobe Bryant. Wilt Chamberlain went 2-5. Shaquille O’Neal went 4-2, but he was a second-tier star in his final ring chase in Miami, working alongside Dwyane Wade (who has also lost twice in the Finals).

Yes, Jordan and Bill Russell combined to go 17-1, with Russell’s lone Finals loss coming while working on one leg and paired up against a 50-point dropping Bob Pettit in the 1958 Finals. Their Bulls and Celtics teams were dominant, to be sure, but their exemplary records weren’t devoid of good luck and sound fortune in their favor.

Outside of a letdown in 2011, James hasn’t had the same buffer. Jerry West, who gave all despite a miserable winning percentage in the NBA’s championship round, knows this better than anyone.

And he knows that you probably shouldn’t have a job writing and/or talking about the NBA, or even a self-appointed online amateur position doing as much, if you think what very well could be a 2-5 all-time Finals record is somehow a telling statistic that fully describes LeBron James’ supposed shortcomings as a player.

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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops