"[LeBron James] won me and everyone else back during the 2007 playoffs... submitting an ESPN Classic performance in Game 5 at Detroit: scoring twenty-nine of Cleveland's last thirty points, overpowering the Pistons and hushing their fans like nobody since Jordan. Along with so many other sports junkies, I watch thousands of hours of games every year hoping something special will happen, whether it's a sixty-point game, a no-hitter, a seven-run comeback, a back-and-forth NFL game, a boxing pay-per-view or whatever else. Occasionally, it pays off."
-Bill Simmons, The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to The Sports Guy
In the summer of 2009 I was reading Bill Simmons' Book of Basketball, and the above excerpt really weighed heavily on me. LeBron was set to become free agent in the near future, and for some reason I was almost sure he was going to leave Cleveland. I didn't have any insider information or anything, I just kind of felt it.
LeBron the Cavalier was my favorite player of all-time. I remember having the SLAM magazine cover with LeBron and Sebastian Telfair—still in high school at the time—on the wall of my bedroom. I owned a deck of unauthorized LeBron James playing cards. I all of a sudden became a fan of Cleveland sports. I had long been a sports fanatic, and this guy had become my favorite athlete in no time. I was all-in on the King.
And so, in the summer of '09, almost certain he was going to leave Cleveland, Simmons' take on LeBron hit hard. James seemed like a player who could put a not-so-talented team on his back and win (heck, Simmons outright compared him to Jordan), and yet the rumors were he was going to team up with 2 of the 15 best players in the league and create a super team. He was a player I loved, and yet he was going to take the easy way out. It didn't sit well with me. And this was all before "The Decision", probably the single most detestable thing LeBron has done. Famously (infamously?), LeBron decided to take his talents to South Beach. I had to watch one of my favorite athletes in history morph into a villain. The sports fan in me started to turn on LeBron.
Things got worse, quickly. There was the whole "celebrating our glory before we have played a single game" thing (still one of the most ridiculous things I've seen). There was the not 5, not 6, not 7 championships thing. There was the Heat's poor start to the 2010-11 season. There were even LeBron trade rumors. Just a few months earlier I was rooting for LeBron's Cavs in the playoffs. Now I was relishing in the Heat's pain, actively cheering for the team to lose and for LeBron to struggle.
So, the 2010-11 NBA Finals was one of my favorite series of all time. Dirk and the Mavs shredded the Heat, and LeBron seemingly shrunk under the pressure. Dwayne Wade and LeBron mocked Nowitzki's illness, despite the fact that Dirk was burying Miami. LeBron struggled mightily in that series, disappearing in key moments. The Heat really had played the villain role well all season, and seeing them lose to Dallas—a team I have never liked, by the way—was fantastic. The LeBron jokes started circulating. I was happy.
The weirdest part about that series was how my view of LeBron changed. When he was with the Cavs, I thought he could bring a so-so team with him to the top. Now, after just one season with his new Heat teammates, I thought he was a choker. Irrational? Definitely. But that's what sports fandom does. Heading into the off-season, LeBron was a guy who came up short when it was all on the line, and that was fine with me.
But the 2011-12 NBA Season changed the narrative in a major way. Sure, the Heat still were villain-ing it up a bit, but LeBron's game was different. He took over the team, and proved that he was the best player on the planet. The Heat seemed to be able to play at a level way above the rest of the league, and LeBron started taking over in crunch time. That regular season, LeBron truly arrived.
But there was still the Simmons' question. After disappearing in the previous years' playoffs, was LeBron still the player described above? Was he still a player that could put a team on his back and win a championship? I hoped he wasn't. And then Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals happened. My hopes proved dead wrong. In that one game, LeBron took his game to a level never before seen. He was amazing, scoring 45 points (on 19-of-26 shooting) to go with 15 rebounds and 5 assists. It just might be the greatest single-game performance I've ever seen in the NBA Playoffs. The Heat won that series, and then beat the Thunder in the NBA Finals. LeBron won both the regular season and Finals MVP awards.
LeBron's narrative changed after that. Media members who crushed him the year before (*cough* Skip Bayless) for falling short when it mattered, could no longer deny his greatness. Basketball writers became infatuated, not just with his level of play at the time, but with what he could do with his game in the future. It was clearly LeBron's NBA at that point, as it remains now. I just couldn't jump on board with it all. I was still the kid spurned by LeBron's move.
Which brings us to this season. So far, LeBron has been otherworldly. Currently, James has a 5-game streak scoring at least 30 points while shooting at least 60% from the floor, just the third player in NBA history to reach those levels (he's actually shooting an unheard of 71.4% over that span). Read those stats again. Just insane. No one doubts that the Heat can win a championship anymore. In fact, even though they have struggled at times this season, the thinking is that Miami can step their game up at any point and beat anyone, mainly because of LBJ. They could be floating around .500 right now, and they'd still probably be the Las Vegas favorite to win the title. LeBron is just that good. He's only 28 years old, and yet he's already and all-time great, playing at a level that hasn't been seen in years.
But where does that leave me? I know how great LBJ is. Every night he does something amazing. He's made himself increasingly more difficult to hate, sure. But I still do. To me, it's all about what could have been. Yes, he is now a champion. And surely no one doubts that he could put a below-average team on his back and win anymore. But every time I see him do something amazing, I again think back to that Simmons excerpt. In my mind—fair or not—LeBron James will always be a guy who was willing to team up with other greats, rather than a guy who wanted to beat the best. And it's because of that that I just can't reconcile with him.
There's a chance that LeBron, his contract expired, leaves the Heat a few off-seasons from now. He could even sign with a team that lacks a ton of talent, and bring them a title. Even if that happens, though, he'll just never be the same to me. Blame it on being a passionate sports fan. The grudge I hold against LeBron won't fade. Sports can make people irrational at times, and this is definitely an example of that: I know what I'm seeing is amazing, and can respect that, but I never truly like watching LeBron be LeBron.
I guess the dilemma for me hinges on the fact that I know he's a once-in-a-generation player. I should happily sit back in awe, and just let LeBron do spectacular things. But instead, my inner sports fan keeps chiming in. That guy won't let me forget that LeBron burned me in the past. Even though I have no connection to Cleveland or the Cavs, I took LeBron's move personally. He was my guy, and I wanted him to do it on his own. Heck, he could have done it on his own. But he didn't. Even though he was easily the best player on the court in last years' title run, you can't say he won the championship on his own; he still had two other fantastic players in the lineup. I'm certain he's a great enough player to do it solo, and the fact that we may never see that is really disappointing to me.
But the NBA world will go on, and LeBron will still be on the Heat (for the foreseeable future at least). He'll set records, he'll reach heights unseen before, he'll blow us all away. And even though a big part of me doesn't want to, I'll hate him at every step.
agree in every way. lebron is a guttersnipe
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