Just kidding.
I understand how mainstream narrative works. People want easily digested stories that they can consume before moving on with their day. And that’s exactly what all of the LeBron meltdown stories have been since he was shut down Tuesday night and followed it up with a game below expectations last night. Everything about this admittedly excellent NBA Finals has focused on what LeBron James did or didn’t do; say or didn’t say; is or isn’t historically. It’s 24 hour tabloid coverage that has conveniently ignored three truths about these NBA Finals.
First, Dallas is the better team and should be ahead three games to two returning to Miami, as they are.
Second, LeBron, for all of his alleged greatness, plays small forward, the least important position on the basketball court, and accordingly, the most difficult position from which one can make an impact on the outcome of any particular game.
Most importantly, this series doesn’t just have one guy. It has three of the five best players in the league this year and interesting supporting casts on both sides.
So forgive me for being a bit disenchanted with LeBron being all the news, all the time, when to me he is only an increasingly small part of what’s interesting about this particular series.
The reasons LeBron dominates the rhetoric behind this NBA Finals have nothing to do with basketball. LeBron was handed “next Jordan” expectations before he ever stepped foot on an NBA court, in a manner far beyond what Penny Hardaway, Grant Hill, and Harold Minor (!) went through. He has an inordinate number of endorsements, creating a cycle of fame that doesn’t fit his accomplishments (fame to endorsements to fame). He was drafted by his hometown club, then “abandoned” them to go to a better team. None of this has very much to do with basketball.
I know I sound like a seventy year man whining about "star systems" and the reduction of team play. I’m far from that. When I go to an NBA game I go because “Chris Paul is in town,” or “Kevin Durant is in town.” I get that this league, above all others in team sports, is a league where stars put asses in seats. But when a star player, even one as polarizing and interesting to the mainstream consumer as LeBron, dwarfs a series with many stars and subplots, it reeks of corporate influence in the media. If you think about the basketball aspects of LeBron dominating everything even on a fairly rudimentary historical level, it’s never really happened before. Even if he was as great as we all think he can or should be, it wouldn’t necessarily make that much of a difference because of his position on the basketball court. Much like Julius Erving, Dominique Wilkins, and Charles Barkley, LeBron James is not an elite guard, and he is not an elite center. He is a small forward, and he is a damn good one.
In the history of the NBA, three players have been the best player on their team and won championships while playing small forward. John Havlicek did it in 1969 and 1973 with the Celtics, Rick Barry did it in 1975 with Golden State, and Larry Bird obviously did it three times in the 80s. Maybe the reason this is never discussed is a racial one (as all three of these guys are white), but that’s incredibly stupid and I’d like to think in 2011 we’re past that. I think the reason is ignorance towards the game of basketball. The point I’m trying to make here is that we’re asking LeBron to do something that hasn’t been done in a really long time, against a very strong team that deserves a title, and we’re asking him to look really good while doing it for reasons that have nothing to do with basketball. It’s one of the reasons I bristle when people compare LeBron to Scottie Pippen and do so as if that were an insult. If LeBron ends up having a better career than Pippen, why would you say his career wasn’t a success?
Not to mention, LeBron has much better hair.
The desire to deify LeBron in the post-Jordan era has led us down this road to perdition, this need to tear down a player who is rated on a scale different from any other player that has ever played the game. This, sadly, belittles everything else going on in a very good NBA Finals. Dallas should be the team with the interesting subplots much like the Celtics’ Big Three did in 2008. You remember that team, right? That team played LeBron too. Dirk, Kidd, Marion, even Tyson Chandler, are all players that have given great contributions to this league and are all championship-level basketball players. Unlike the Celtics’ Big Three, the window is closed. If they don’t win either Game 6 or 7, none of them will win a championship. The pressure should be all on them. How is THAT not more compelling than LeBron James? That is as dramatic as a basketball situation can be. Does Miami have anything similar to offer? Juwan Howard can finally be the first member of the Michigan Fab Five to have ever won anything at all. You know why that’s getting no play? Because no one outside of Michigan gives a shit about the Fab Five. It’s true.
It's a basketball hoop, not a toilet, Chris.
And why exactly did people think LeBron was going to be able to do something Kobe couldn’t do in round two, and Durant couldn’t do in round three? Dallas has traditionally been a high scoring team that couldn’t defend well, so the national consciousness is conditioned to say Kobe choked, Durant choked, and LeBron choked. How about this pearl of wisdom? Dallas shuts down perimeter players about as well as any team I’ve watched since the current hand check rules took effect. Shawn Marion and DeShawn Stevenson have looked like taller NY Jets corners all throughout the playoffs. These guys have been as important to Dallas’ playoff run as Dirk’s brilliant offense. This is the story. Not LeBron.
Different jerseys, but the exact same story.
When LeBron first exploded onto the scene in 2003, I was a college sophomore. I’m two months older than LeBron. He should be my favorite player. He’s a non-stop highlight reel, he plays defense, he never takes a play off, and he cares about winning. He’s the greatest athlete in the history of American sports, a 6’8” Bo Jackson. I think people want to see him fail because there’s no way anyone else could be him, not because he ditched a bad Cleveland organization to play for an extremely flawed “Super Best Friends” team in Miami. But he’s not the story I care about. It’s Dallas’ time. They’ve been an underdog all four series! How are they not the story? I thought Americans loved underdogs!
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