With the Cavaliers’ brutal evisceration of Chicago in Game 6 on Thursday night, LeBron James has beaten the Bulls all four times he’s faced them in a postseason series, and his record in those series is 16-5. Is it going too far to say that he “owns” the Bulls? Not for one enterprising Wikipedia editor after the Cavs’ win:
https://twitter.com/SportsNation/status/599040323507998721
The Bulls’ page has long since been corrected, but the message was sent. As it turns out, Wikipedia can be a good venue for trash talk. Of course, so is Twitter:
Derrick Rose
2010- Lost to Lebron
2011- Lost to Lebron
2012- Out
2013- Out (Lost to Lebron)
2014 – out
2015- Lost to Lebron— John Ledesma (@JohnnyNBA) May 15, 2015
That’s pretty harsh. To be fair, LeBron hasn’t lost a playoff series to anyone in the Eastern Conference since 2009, so singling out the Bulls doesn’t paint the whole picture. Then again, since LeBron took his talents to South Beach, the Bulls have consistently been considered his biggest obstacle in the East (with the necessary caveat of Derrick Rose’s health). Rose and his crew are now staring down the barrel of an offseason in which Jimmy Butler is a restricted free agent (and looks likely to command a max contract), and Joakim Noah is coming off a season in which he looked sp banged up, it’s fair to worry if he’ll ever return to his 2013-14 DPOY form.
Plus, who knows if Tom Thibodeau is likely to return? Even with two years and almost $9 million left on his contract, Thibs said after last night’s loss, “Yeah, until they tell me I’m not [coming back], I expect to be here.”
Chicago has a lot of work to do to dispel the notion that LeBron owns them, and it will take more than vigilance over their Wikipedia page to accomplish it.
(H/T Washington Post)