I want to like you, I want to love you, but you’re making it oh so hard for me.
Yes, the Dallas Mavericks won the NBA Championship and should certainly be given the credit for that. But you’re fooling yourself if you believe that’s the biggest story in these finals. The fall of the Miami Heat, and more importantly the epic collapse of the self-appointed Chosen One will be what are forever remembered.
So I’ll fuel the fire because to be honest, I don’t want to talk about the Mavs. They’re a fantastic team led by the best European to ever play in the NBA and deserve the title. While it’s easy to root against the Heat, it seems pretty damn hard to root against the Mavs. They all seem like nice guys, the kind of guys you want to date your sister (excluding Stevenson, although he quickly became my favorite I’m A Thug For No Reason And Plan On Showing It player).
So let’s talk LeBron. A player who even the haters have to admit has more raw potential than any player in the league right now. A player who has been scrutinized or praised more than any ever to play in the Association. A player who if he wanted it, could be the best ever.
But there in lies the problem, maybe LeBron doesn’t want it.
It’s an idea that fans can’t understand. Why would anybody with that much ability not constantly push themselves to be the best ever? We can’t figure it out because if we had that ability, we would do everything to be the best. As fans, we want to see players live up to their potential because we want to be able to say we saw the best player of all time. It’s why we want Tiger to win so badly or Pujols to continue to hit such unreal numbers. We’re selfish and we can’t ever understand that athletes may not want it like fans do.
Maybe LeBron is perfectly fine with his life. He enjoys his million dollar paychecks, his lush Miami house and cars and doesn’t have the desire to be one of the best ever. We figured out he isn’t Jordan, but now we might be figuring out he isn’t Kobe, Bird, Magic or Duncan either. Oh, add Dirk to that list too.
I do believe LeBron will win a title, but when he does will he show any serious emotion? He didn’t last night after a loss; instead he just insulted everyone less wealthy as him. A good friend of mine always complains when he sees LeBron get hype with the crowd or act tough with an opponent because he thinks it’s an act. He feels LeBron thinks: “oh man MJ would act tough here so I should too.” He wants to be liked so he puts on an act that he wants this title so bad, when in reality he may not.
He showed in Cleveland how easily he could stop caring about a team. It was readily apparent to anyone watching that he was not involved in that game against Boston and was ready to leave the city. But I think the difference in this series was he was legitimately frightened by the stage. He was caught up in a never-ending game of Hot Potato and couldn’t get the ball out of his hands quick enough. So what exactly happened?
Well I’m not ruling out that Rashard Lewis was banging his girlfriend, but I’m more leaning towards the chewing out he received from DWade in Game 3. LeBron has never been coached in his life. He did anything he wanted in high school and then basically ran the team in Cleveland. Spoelstra hasn’t shown the dominance needed so James continued to do as he pleased. Then suddenly the Finals came and James figured out how different it really was. Wade had been there before and knew how flip the switch to play Finals ball. Unfortunately, James didn’t so Wade simply ripped him apart on national television for a solid eight seconds. I think this really shook James because now he was playing for himself and the fear of letting Wade down. Now everything he did was in fear that Wade might get mad at him, so instead of trying to play and help out Wade, he completely subdued himself and became the ultimate passive player. He did nothing to prove himself as the best, while Wade continued to show he would do anything to win.
LeBron ended the speculation of him and MJ, an argument I was trying to fuel for his career. But I think it’s important what everybody said at the beginning of the season: “The Heat need one season to get it together, and then they’ll be the best.” We all knew it in July, but then we fell into the trap in February when they’re we’re playing so well. We thought well maybe they can do this their first year, maybe they are this good.
They need help. They could use a physical player to protect Bosh as well as more consistent point. A healthy Haslem will help as well as a hopefully better Mike Miller. The team will improve, but unfortunately LeBron’s reputation will not.
Unfortunately for James he’s starting to inch closer to the list of Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Dominque Williams, Karl Malone and Elgin Baylor and further away from the list of Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Bill Russell and Magic Johnson.
