LeBron’s Unprecedented Run Embodies the 80–20 Rule in the NBA
LeBron has accomplished something ludicrous. He’s taken three franchises — the Cavs, Heat, and Lakers — to an astounding ten finals across a span of fourteen years, winning a total of four NBA championships.
That is bonkers. In the ring-chasing world the NBA is defined by, most hall-of-fame caliber players are satisfied to secure a single championship in their career.
For LeBron to have reached the Finals 70% of the time over 14 years is… so improbable and all the more impressive in a league loaded with the most talent its ever had.
For context, oft-compared all-time greats stack up like this:
- Michael Jordan: 6 rings in 6 final trips across 8 years
- Magic Johnson: 5 rings in 9 finals trip across 12 years
- Larry Bird: 3 rings in 5 finals trips across 7 years
- LeBron James:4 rings in 10 finals trips across 14 years
The 80–20 Rule
Upon reading Richard Koch’s The 80–20 Principle, I’ve felt the urge to find parallels everywhere I can.
The 80–20 Rule (Pareto’s Principle) states that 80% of your outputs will come from 20% of your inputs.
Or alternatively stated, a “minority of causes, inputs, or effort usually lead to a majority of the results, outputs, or rewards.”
For example…
- 80% of your sales revenue for the quarter will come from 20% of your accounts
- 20% of your pantry’s foods will account for 80% of the meals you make
- 80% of product malfunctions arise from 20% of common manufacturing defects
- 1.3% of movies account for 80% of total box office revenue
- 82% of global wealth is owned by the richest 10%*
… the list goes on.
Now when I originally came across this principle, the concept mesmerized and saddened me.
Why?
Assigning a quantitative value to how much of our work directly results in completed deliverables or projects makes you face the wretched truth: most of our workday is filled with busy tasks that aren’t driving real progress.
The same goes for when extrapolating to macro societal distributions such as global income inequality, industrialized-to-developing country ratio, or global consumption of goods.
A lot is concentrated in a little.
Rather than focusing on everything, identify what drives the most impact and double down on investing more energy into those inputs. In the same way we see 80–20 distributions in company profits or common factory defects, we can also apply this framework to team building and talent allocating.
What better way to understand the 80–20 rule than via the lens of LeBron’s consistent success and the template for building a championship-caliber NBA team?
LeBron glossed up the ages-old team-building template
When LeBron shocked the NBA world and formed a super team with Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh in 2010, we all knew in our heart of hearts, it was over. Anger across the NBA kingdom spewed from learning how impossible it would be to beat a team with such concentrated talent.
23.1% of the Miami Heat roster would go on to generate 71% of the team’s points, 67.5% of assists, and 52.7% of total rebounds. This distribution look familiar? 80–20 rule at work.
This production pattern exaggerated an important fact for us all — yes, a sturdy team infrastructure matters. Yes, a team must be complete by balancing role players amongst its stars. Yes, chemistry amongst teammates must be created.
But holes can be plugged as long as superstar talent is assembled.
Since the dawn of the millennium, 16/20 or 75% of NBA champions have boasted at least 2 All-Stars on their team. Only the ‘02-’03 Spurs, ‘03-’04 Pistons, ‘10-’11 Mavs, and ‘13-’14 Spurs had a solo All-Star. Yet, even these four teams had at least one former or future All-Star on the roster to complement the alpha player.
Take a look at the last two decades of NBA champions:
Elite talent is absolutely a prerequisite for being a perennial championship contender in the NBA.
Of the 13 players that suit up every night for a game, at least 2 need to be high-performing, in their prime players who compliment one another on the court.
A LeBron/AD, Tim Duncan/Tony Parker, Kobe/Shaq, or Paul Pierce/Garnet/Ray Allen combination of complimenting great players is necessary to have.
As much as we basketball nerds admire the smooth egalitarian play style of teams like the lovable bubble Denver Nuggets, ‘10-’11 Dallas Mavericks, or 2004 Detroit Pistons, the formula for consistent superiority is contingent upon maximizing production from two to three all-star talents as cited by the list of champions above.
This equates to 16.6% of a roster needing to be in the utmost echelon of talent within a team.
The reason is simple — too many things have to go right when one great player has to be consistently above average, while average players have to be better than what they truly are when all factors are held equal.
A few teams — the Spurs, Raptors, Heat, Mavericks — are respected across the league for having the best coaching and systems to maximize player output. But even they couldn’t win without a pair of superstars or in the Mavs and Raptors case, a singular entity like Dirk and Kawhi catching fire during playoff time.
Four straight years of Warriors-Cavs showcased 80–20 talent distribution to the extreme
In 2015, the battle of Steph/Klay/Draymond vs. LeBron began a four-year slugfest with the Warriors walking away winners 3 out of 4 times.
This inevitable clash every June symbolized the NBA at its core: superstar, hall-of-fame talents all but guaranteeing themselves an annual trip to the final stage because of talent allocation.
Overnight, the Cleveland Cavaliers, resurrected themselves in 2014–15 with the signing of LeBron. They reassembled their roster on the fly to accommodate LeBron’s ball-dominant play style. A perfectly timed trade for a disgruntled Kevin Love, an All-NBA player in his prime, and the Cavs formed a big three with Love, Kyrie, and LeBron.
The Cavs went from laughingstock to four-time Eastern Conference champion in one off-season by adding two players.
In the ‘15-’16 title-winning season, LeBron/Kyrie/Love summed for 58% of Cleveland’s points, 61% of assists, and 46% of the team’s rebounds.
With the stunning addition of Kevin Durant in 2016, Golden State collectively boasted 2 MVPs in Steph and Durant, and two additional All-Stars in Klay and Green every time they stepped on the court.
For the dominant ‘17-’18 Warriors, Durant/Steph/Klay/Green accounted for 70% of Golden State’s points, 69% of assists, and 49% of the team’s rebounds.
See a statistical pattern?
Again — star players importunately driving outcomes. Not only were players like Steph and LeBron instrumental in filling the stat sheet, they made everyone else’s job substantially easier by attracting so much defensive attention.
Superstar wants out? Hit the franchise reset button.
The pesky but painful “I don’t want to play here anymore” statement ignites media fires and nightmares for a team. Most recently, we witnessed it with Anthony Davis hilariously wearing a shirt saying “That’s all, folks!” as he played his last game as a Pelican.
His shirt isn’t lying, most teams are stuck saying “That’s all, folks!” when their star player calls it quits on the franchise. A roster reset takes years; developing and searching for stars can be an excruciating exercise.
Just ask the ‘Process’ trusting 76ers how long its taken them.
A refresher on the Anthony Davis trade:
New Orleans Pelicans received:
Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball, Josh Hart, as well as three 1st-round picks, a future 1st-round pick swap, and cash considerations.
Los Angeles Lakers received:
Anthony Davis.
At the time, the trade felt lopsided and many NBA analysts gave the Pelicans an A+ for their haul of young players and assets. Fast forward a season, and Brandon Ingram remains the sole star with potential to become a 80–20 stat machine for the Pelicans.
On the other hand, the Lakers secured a franchise cornerstone. A guaranteed top-five player in his prime for 5–7 more years if healthy. And they have him paired with a generational talent, albeit in his twilight years, LeBron James for the near future.
There are countless examples of this in the last decade.
The James Harden trade was one of the biggest fleeces in modern NBA history. Chris Paul made the Clippers relevant and created a championship-contending team. Kevin Love fortified a reliable big three for the Cavs across their four finals trips. Kawhi put the Raptors over the top in exchange for a peaked DeMar DeRozan.
Moral of the story: trade away your superstar, and 9/10 times you lose the transaction. In a league defined by stars, every roster-building action needs to prioritize acquiring superstar talent over anything else.
When building teams, build around ‘A’ players
“Basketball is sort of an interesting sport in that the top player on your team makes so much more of an impact than the top player in any other sport.” — Daryl Morey
In the NBA, teams are composed of 15 man rosters with 13 who are suited up every night of which only 8.5 regularly see the court.
Of the 8–9 players receiving consistent playing time, 2 to 3 players drive the bulk of the points, assists, and offensive gusto. That is if you’re a championship-contending team.
‘A’ players are everything. They may only represent 10–30% of your team in size, however, they have an unproportionate impact in dictating net outcomes for your organization.
LeBron does it. Anywhere he goes, value follows. Yes, he just may be crowned GOAT after securing title #4, but the principle echoes across every superstar laden team in the NBA.
Have two to three wonderful players who are top of the line scorers, facilitators, and defenders.
Add supporting adjacent players who compliment the superstar player’s skillset and play their role (step up when they need to).
You have the formula to at least be one of the final four teams in the NBA playoffs, every year.
80–20 rule wins.
*The 80–20 Rule or 80–20 distributions are simply a benchmark. The real numbers are more or less balanced, but the principle asserts that most cases are more likely to be closer to 80–20 rather than 50–50 in output/input relationship.
