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SALT LAKE CITY — LeBron James won his third NBA title on Sunday night in a pivotal Game 7 on the road against the Golden State Warriors. Legacies were on the line as the 73-win Warriors team was looking to cement itself as the greatest single-season team of all time, and the Cavaliers were looking to become the first team to win a Finals series after falling behind 3-1.
James still has a losing record in his seven Finals appearances, having won three and lost four. Despite the record, James' most recent Finals win places him in the pantheon of the NBA’s all-time greatest players.
While James' Finals performance deserves most of the credit for the historic championship, specifically during the final three games of the series when he averaged a staggering 36.3 points, 11.7 rebounds, 9.7 assists, three blocks and three steals, this legacy-defining series was strongly aided by storylines with Utah ties.
First, a brief history on how these teams were built.
The Warriors team that won the championship last season and set a record with 73 wins during this past regular season fully took shape when Golden State acquired Andre Iguodala in a trade made possible by the Utah Jazz. The Warriors had hoped to sign Iguodala in July of 2013 but lacked the cap space to bring him on board.
To clear room, the Warriors agreed to a sign and trade with the Denver Nuggets to bring on the eventual Finals MVP, but needed a third team to take on bloated salaries to make the deal possible. The Jazz stepped in, and in exchange for several future draft picks, the Jazz took on the salaries of Andris Biedrins, Brandon Rush and Richard Jefferson. Without the Jazz, this deal likely never gets made, and the Warriors never realize their true potential without Iguodala.
The Jazz nearly changed the shape of the Cleveland Cavaliers as well. The Cavs' current superstar trio, consisting of James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, was reportedly nearly made up of James, Irving and current Jazzman Derrick Favors. In the summer of 2014, the year James decided to rejoin the Cavs, Cleveland had won the NBA draft lottery, giving them the top overall pick.
Reportedly, the Jazz were close to acquiring the top pick in a deal that included Favors and future draft picks, ironically likely including those acquired in the previous trade with the Golden State Warriors. Instead, the Cavaliers traded the pick to the MInnesota Timberwolves for Love. And though his series performance has been rightfully criticized, he played a pivotal supporting role in the Game 7 victory.
Two players with local ties played an enormous role in their emergence, and absence from this Finals series. After Kevin Love sustained a concussion in Game 2 of the Finals, Cavs coach Tyronn Lue turned to former Jazzman Richard Jefferson to fill the void. Jefferson started Game 3 — the Cavs' first victory of the series — and played an important role defensively the rest of the series, giving Cleveland the ability to match Golden State’s small lineup approach.
Jefferson averaged 5.7 points and 5.3 rebounds in 24 minutes per game during the series, up from 5.5 points, 1.7 rebounds in 18 minutes per game during the regular season. Jefferson announced his retirement following the championship win, the first of his career. Jefferson was a favorite among media members during his time in Utah, as an eloquent and generous voice in the locker room.
More pressing than the emergence of Jefferson, however, was the absence of former University of Utah big man, and No. 1 overall draft pick Andrew Bogut. Bogut sprained his knee in Game 5 of the Finals and missed the final two games of the series. Though Bogut rarely played big-minute totals for the Warriors, his defense was a tone setter early in games and an important balance for Golden State’s smaller lineups. The Warriors were 3-1 in the series when Bogut played 10 minutes or more, and 0-3 when he played fewer than 10 minutes or missed the game entirely.
The ties don’t end there.
The Cavaliers' regular backup point guard Matthew Dellavedova had a miserable Finals, as the Cavs were outscored by 55 points in the 45 minutes he was on the floor in the series. Former Jazz second round draft pick Mo WIlliams wrestled away the backup point guard minutes during the series, and though the Cavs were still outscored by nine in the 29 minutes he was on the floor, it was a drastic improvement on what Cleveland got from Dellavedova.
Dahntay Jones, who is best known for making a paltry $8,819 in salary this year for the Cavaliers having played just one regular season this year, jump-started his career with the Utah Jazz last season. After falling out of the league during the 2012-13 season, Jones signed a preseason contract with the Jazz in 2014, and was among the last players waived by the team before the season started.
Over the final three games of the series, the Warriors’ Harrison Barnes missed 27 of his 32 shot attempts. Barnes will carry a lot of the burden for the Warriors' collapse, though he was almost never a Warrior at all. Barnes was selected with the seventh pick in the 2012 NBA draft.
The Warriors owed the Jazz their first round pick in 2012 via the Brooklyn Nets as a part of the trade that sent Deron Williams to Brooklyn. The Warriors finished the 2012 season tied with the Toronto Raptors for the seventh-worst record in the NBA, but a random tiebreaker gave Golden State the seventh overall pick — a pick that would have been conveyed to the Jazz had it been eighth or lower.
There were minor ties as well.
Unanimous league MVP Stephen Curry’s NBA destiny may have started in Utah, as his father Dell Curry was drafted by the Jazz, where he played the first of his 16 year NBA career.
Three former Jazzmen found themselves on the wrong side of history Sunday night. Brandon Rush spent one season with the Jazz before rejoining the Warriors for the past two seasons. Ian Clark started his career in Utah, where he appeared in 23 games as a rookie. Warriors assistant coach Jarron Collins played 480 of his 542 career games with the Jazz.
Though the Jazz will continue to try to build their roster on Thursday in the NBA draft, several players with ties to the team, and the state of Utah made history on Sunday night in what will be remembered as the crowning achievement in the brilliant career of LeBron James.
