NBA legends: Who spent the most time in the strongest of the two conferences?

LeBron James has famously reached the NBA Finals 10 times, ranking third in conference titles behind only Bill Russell and Sam Jones. This is a pretty amazing feat considering he has played in a 30-team era where three playoff rounds are required to make the championship series, compared to often just one in the 1960s when Russell and Jones played.

However, there’s a caveat: while Russell played in the toughest conference (or division, as it was called then) in each of his seasons in the league, LeBron has only done so in five of his 21 years as a pro – just 23.81 percent of the time.

Among the greatest players ever, this puts him near the bottom in terms of conference difficulty faced, per HoopsHype research.

In contrast, Dirk Nowitzki spent 19 of his 21 years in the league playing in the strongest conference, the most of any player. That he made all those playoff runs under those circumstances and without All-Star sidekicks says a lot about how underrated his career is.

Below, we’ve ranked the players in our HoopsHype78 based on how frequently they competed in the toughest of the two conferences (defined by the most regular season wins).