Lebron James Was Not Enough

Last night, the Golden State Warriors won their first NBA title since 1975 behind their MVP Stephen Curry. Their opponent was the Cleveland Cavaliers, who were led by the best player in basketball today, Lebron James. So, The Finals showcased the current MVP against the best player. However, the story behind this series, to me, was more about the supporting cast of each team.

Lebron was fantastic throughout the series, averaging nearly 36 points per game, with plenty of assists, steals, and rebounds to support his cause. Curry averaged 26 points per game, again with plenty of other outstanding stats worthy of an MVP. Curry had more help though. In fact, he was not even named the series MVP, an award given to the player that made the biggest difference throughout the series, typically given to a player from the winning team. This year that honor was given to Andre Iguodola, a player that was not even a usual starter for the team throughout the season. He was given the award mainly for his defensive efforts, though he did make a few key shots throughout the series.

The real difference in this best of 7 series, which the Warriors won in 6 games, was the support the Warriors got from the players around their star. Don’t get me wrong, as I said before Lebron and Curry were both great. But the other 4 players on the court for either team are what made the difference for the Warriors. To their credit, the Cavaliers had a few KEY injuries earlier in their playoff run, losing Kevin Love in the first round and Kyrie Irving in Game 1 of the Finals. Would it have made a difference had they had both of those players? I don’t know. Maybe. The Warriors on the other hand were healthy. The Warriors seemed to have more energy late in each of the games, outscoring the Cavs in the 4th Quarters and Overtime Periods on average by 6.5 points per game. They just got more production from more players throughout the series. At times it looked like it was Lebron James trying to do it all by himself.

I always look for paralells in sports to life, and to business. In watching this series it made me think about the value of diversification to an investment portfolio. We cannot build an investment portfolio with 1 amazing holding and think that it will be enough to get us to our end goal. Having that all-star fund, or the MVP stock is great and can certainly help, but it’s the supporting holdings in our portfolio that make a good portfolio great. Putting together a portfolio that includes a complete asset allocation of stocks (large and small cap, domestic and international, growth and value), bonds and alternatives is how we make sure we are diversifying risks and diversifying returns. Steph Curry can have an “off” night and the Warriors can still win because he has good teammates that may perform well when he is struggling. Further, when Steph Curry was “on” and he still had the support of the other players, the team is just that much better. Lebron had very mediocre talent around him, partly due to the key injuries suffered from his would-be supporting players. Even though he was pretty much constantly “on” throughout the series, he did not have a strong enough portfolio of players around him to get him to the goal of the championship.

So, my paralell of this series to life and business is that it’s nice to have All-Stars in our investment portfolio, but its more crucial to have quality support across asset classes to get the most out of our investment strategy. Approaching the market with sound asset allocation strategy, with quality investments in each asset class is a lot like building an NBA team with a Superstar but still putting quality players at the other positions and having a bench that can pick up slack when the starters are resting. That’s a winning combination.

Congrats to the Golden State Warriors and to their fans in the Bay Area.