Basketball is a simple game — the team that is better at placing a rubber ball through a circular hoop wins. Over the course of an entire season, the team that does that better than anyone else wins a championship, and for the last four years, no team has done that as well as the Golden State Warriors.
In three of those four years, the Warriors have vanquished the same foe to achieve championship glory: LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. There was one time when the tables were turned and James came out on top, but over the last four years, the Warriors have been the toast of the league. Entering 2018-19, they might be even more well-equipped to do this than ever before, as Golden State added All-NBA center DeMarcus Cousins to the fold.
Sure, it’s totally plausible that Cousins never does much for the Warriors. He’s a big man coming off of a ruptured Achilles, an injury that has caused irreversible harm to the careers of other centers. Even if he does come back, it might not be until late in the regular season. But the one place where Cousins is healthy is in NBA 2K19, where the Warriors are a juggernaut. For those trying to play MyLeague, taking down Golden State in year one will almost certainly be a trying task.
Which brings us back to James, who is the subject of today’s experiment. He has shown to be the metaphorical thorn in the side of the Warriors — even in the three series Golden State has won over James and the Cavaliers, James has managed to get his, sometimes even keeping Cleveland in games when the rest of the roster was having an off night. Which got us to wondering: What would happen if James never had to worry about the rest of the roster, because everyone was exactly the same as him?
Here’s how we tried to achieve this:
- The original James was traded back to the Eastern Conference. I randomly picked a team and chose the Knicks, so if you are a Knicks fan who has long dreamed of James playing at MSG, congratulations! You’re getting five of him.
- All of the created players — Lerbon Janes, Larbon Jams, Jebron Lames, and Evan Kalikow (named after a friend of mine from college) — are exactly the same as the four-time MVP.
- The bench for the Knicks went mostly untouched, but that’s partly because all five starters are playing 48 minutes a night. To compensate for this, fatigue has been turned off. Additionally, team chemistry is off, the difficulty is set on the hardest level (Hall of Fame), and injuries are all turned off, because this is an idyllic experiment, and in an ideal world, no one feels physical or emotional pain.
- I simulate straight through the entire season. It must end with the Knicks and the Warriors meeting in the Finals. If that does not happen, I restart the season. If it does, and the Warriors win, I restart again. We’re going until The LeBrons are champions.
Let us begin.
ATTEMPT 1
The most arduous attempt of them all, as this one required making four exact replicas of LeBron James (you’ll never believe this, but it was a gigantic pain in the neck) and getting them all on the Knicks. It was easy enough to acquire James, as the ability to override trades was turned on. This meant New York and Los Angeles agreed to a deal sending Tim Hardaway Jr. to Los Angeles for the game’s cover athlete.
To clear cap space from there, the Knicks sent Enes Kanter, Joakim Noah, and Courtney Lee to Atlanta for Omari Spellman, Tyler Dorsey, and DeAndre Bembry. Kristaps Porzingis and Mario Hezonja were then sent to Orlando for Melvin Frazier and a second-round pick.
Then, it was time to build four clones of the best basketball player on earth. Fortunately, I was able to important James’ player DNA, thus making it so Janes, Jams, Lames, and Kalikow were easily born into the 2K universe. I was originally doing all of this manually, so immediately upon learning I could just import this stuff, I started dancing to the song that was playing via the game’s soundtrack. (“Finesse” by Bruno Mars, which I learned is a great song to play loudly and dance to, especially in front of a window in your apartment that people walk by.)
An issue arose right away: All of these created players wanted to be compensated exactly the same as James. This made sense, because, uh, they’re all LeBron James. But after some adjusting to the game’s various MyLeague settings for contracts, I was able to make it work. Suddenly, the Knicks were a juggernaut, consisting entirely of variations of LeBron James. I also cut someone and signed Dwyane Wade, because even though he will never play, it felt right.
The lineup was Jams-Janes-James-Kalikow-Lames. This lineup was then replicated in every on the fly lineup the Knicks had. This was the final step — aside from a few minor tweaks to things like “how much do you want to use your bench” (never) and saving, which if I didn’t do would have sent me into a blind rage because it would have made me do all this dumb stuff again — before the Knicks could play some dang basketball.
Through the month of November, the Knicks were a juggernaut, going 22-1. This record included a 126-118 victory over the Warriors at Madison Square Garden — Jams had a triple-double (20 points, 12 rebounds, 10 assists), while Kalikow (33 points, 10 assists, eight rebounds) and James (19 points, nine rebounds, eight assists) came close. The LeBrons got most of the run, and beyond them, Mitchell Robinson played the most, appearing in 24 minutes over the 23 games played. Isaiah Hicks played in five games, the most of any non-James player. As for how the James clones were doing, well …
The All-Star game came and went. Larbon Jams was the captain for the Eastern Conference team and was able to get Kalikow, James, and Janes on his squad. All five LeBrons made it to the league’s mid-winter showcase, with Lames suiting up for Team Steph. The game’s high scorer was Kyrie Irving, because of course it was.
The Knicks sat comfortably at 54-4 at the break, looking like a threat to set a new high-water mark for excellence over the course of a season. Two of their three losses were more outliers than anything — a loss to the Pistons in Detroit and a loss to the Hawks in Atlanta. The one that caught my eye, though, was a 17-point loss to the Warriors in Oakland, one in which Steph Curry and Kevin Durant combined to score 70 points while the LeBrons only hit eight of a possible 28 attempts from deep.
At the very least, it made the prospect of a finals matchup between the two teams a little more interesting, as the Knicks were a juggernaut that otherwise mowed through teams. Through this point of the year, New York averaged 127.2 points per game (the best mark in the league) and allowed 102.1 points a night (second-best in the NBA). Their point differential of 25.1 points per game was startlingly good.
The Knicks continued to obliterate opponents, ending the season with a record-setting mark of 75-7. Lames won league MVP honors with 27.5 points, 10 assists, and 9.9 rebounds per game. He was joined by Jams on the All-NBA first-team, while James and Kalikow earned second-team honors and Janes made the third-team.
But all that mattered was the postseason.
The Knicks demolished Brooklyn, then Milwaukee, then Toronto in the East, en route to winning a championship in five games. The issue: The Championship did not happen against the Warriors. It instead occurred against the Thunder, as Golden State was bounced in the conference semifinals.
It was a reminder that all men, even the best collection of talent in NBA history, are flawed. As we grow and look internally, we see all these flaws as a series of defining characteristics, ones through which we continuously evolve as people. The Warriors’ flaw was that they could not beat the Utah Jazz, and as such, I had to confront one of my many flaws, namely the fact that I had too much time on my hands and decided to take on this experiment. Therefore, I backed out and started over.
ATTEMPT 2
Our second attempt featured much of the same. The Knicks were a juggernaut led by the LeBrons, and although part of me wondered if the bench should be more involved, I decided against it, because who cares. The team lost three games into the season — a 128-110 loss to the Boston Celtics to fall to 2-1 on the year — then rolled through the rest of the league en route to a 57-1 mark at the All-Star break.
The All-Star game once more pitted Curry against a James, only this time, it was the original LeBron. Curry managed to get the other four LeBrons and came out on top, 119-112. Through the break, every LeBron was within striking distance of averaging a triple-double.
A March 12 loss to the Pacers and a loss to Toronto a week later aside, the Knicks were flawless during the second half of the season, improving on the first simulation’s attempt and registering a 79-3 record for the season. Kalikow took home league MVP honors. Jams joined him on the first-team All-NBA squad. Lames and James were second teamers and Janes made the third-team.
Again, all of it came down to the postseason. This time, the Warriors held up their end of the bargain, losing three games all postseason and making the Finals. But the LeBrons were unable to get out of the Eastern Conference, falling in seven games to the Raptors in the conference finals. Ultimately, Toronto won a championship, beating Golden State in seven games as Kawhi Leonard took home Finals MVP honors.
For years, the Raptors have run into LeBron James in the playoffs only to fall short, so there is something poetic about Toronto finally getting over the hump by beating five exact replicas of the man who has tortured them for so long. The poetry was lost on me, however, as I indignantly tried this again.
ATTEMPT 3
Once more, the Knicks fall in the third game of the year to Boston. This team also seemed to be the most mortal version, as it lost three times before the simulation reached the halfway point in November. In addition to the Celtics, losses to the Pacers and Hawks popped up on the schedule. This team even had a losing streak, dropping back-to-back games to the Suns and the Sixers.
Perhaps by facing this mortality, the artificial intelligence determining the outcomes of this Knicks squad would be able to overcome some type of adversity come playoff time. New York took a 51-7 mark into the All-Star break, and for the first time, in three attempts, it was unable to set the single-season record for wins in a year. Instead, it fell one game short of tying the mark set by the 2015-16 Warriors, going 72-10 on the year. The original version of James was league MVP, though, and once more, every LeBron earned All-NBA plaudits.
What mattered was still the postseason, and once more, the teams did not meet up when the Finals occurred. The Knicks made it, the Warriors didn’t (they fell to the Rockets in five games), and I let out a series of expletives. New York won a ring in five games. I cracked open a seltzer and tried again, praying to every God that we might be done with this stupid exercise on a fourth attempt.
ATTEMPT 4
At the start of the fourth attempt, it dawned on me that Golden State and New York had achieved the one-seeds each of the first three times through these simulations. It gave me optimism that the general premise was not faulty — over a large enough sample size, these are, indeed, the two best basketball teams that could be assembled. It was a silver lining that went around an otherwise dark cloud, one that gave just enough of a shred of optimism that made me continue going despite hitting the 2,000-word mark a few words ago.
New York was 54-4 at the All-Star break and finished the season 78-4. Janes won MVP, everyone made All-NBA squads, you know the drill. The postseason is all the matters. Or, more specifically, nothing matters. We are all wholly irrelevant in the grand, majestic eyes of the universe, here for but a fleeting moment in the perplexing existence we share with one another. I eat a cracker and start simulating the playoffs.
The Knicks and the Warriors make the conference finals once more, and for the first time, they meet in the Finals. It’s a brief moment of optimism, as there is still one final hurdle left, but a moment of optimism nonetheless. The Finals broke down like this:
Game 1: Knicks 112, Warriors 104
Game 2: Knicks 129, Warriors 114
Game 3: Knicks 122, Warriors 102
Game 4: Knicks 132, Warriors 106
In all four games, no one other than the LeBrons took the floor. It’s fitting, in a way — James has been the ultimate trump card when it comes to the postseason, rarely (if ever) heading to the bench during games against Golden State with a championship on the line. This experiment brought that to its illogical extreme, one in which LeBron James is cloned four times and has to take down the Warriors under the most absurd of circumstances.
There will never be another player quite like James, let alone four of them. If that does ever happen, there is no chance they will team up to take down a collection of talent like what NBA 2K19 believes the 2018-19 Warriors possess. However, this experiment taught us something: As is the case in real life, in one in four circumstances, LeBron James will face Golden State in the Finals, and ultimately, he will come out on top. Sometimes, as this shows, the absurdities of reality are inescapable.
