My favorite bit: But we want James, along with Bosh and Wade, to be the ******* narcissists that we assumed they would be just over a year ago precisely so we can turn around and call them ******* narcissists. After all, we're not dealing with just any team. This is LeBron's team. This is the man we dubbed the King on the team we decided was Evil, and any amount of goalpost-moving could be justified so long as we could feel safe in saying Lebron and the Heat were doing the Wrong Thing, whatever they were doing. Last night, something happened that usually gives the Doyels of the world a series of full-body orgasms. The best player on the floor passed the ball instead of shooting it. He made the smart play but not the alpha dog play, and today some grumpy people are snarking all over him for doing so. The only thing that's shrunken here is our idea of what a great basketball player should be. http://deadspin.com/5808984/lebron-james-and-the-mistaken-case-of-the-shrinking-superstar
I think of it as more of D-Wade's team, he was there originally, won a championship there, recruited these cats down there, and this year is still their best option when you need a buck, or need to close out the game.... King nothing, pay repsect to Wade, cuz without Wade the Heat arent winning this year.....
because on any team their are leaders....Wade is clearly the leader...therefore it is that mans team...
There doesn't have to be one, singular, static leader. LeBron sure seemed like the "leader" to me in the Chicago series. And I'll agree that if I had to choose, Wade has been leading the team in the Finals more than LeBron. Was Wade the leader in the Chicago series? Was it Wade's team then? But why must we crown one guy THE leader? Who cares? Can't we just agree that Wade and Lebron are both stellar players, capable of leading the Heat to victory on any night?
there is a pecking order in sports, yes there are leader via captaincy, then there are vocal leaders, then there are clubhouse/locker room leaders, all different kinds surely, but Wade is the leader above all of that....
When you get past all the hyperbole and cliches, it doesn't matter if it is Wade's team or LeBron's team - Wade and Bosh played well enough to win and LeBron didn't. He ended with 9 assists and 4 turnovers and I don't think anyone who really watched the game would say that his passing was a huge impact on the game. He had a few nice passes, but it was'nt like he was running the offense and keeping the ball moving to set guys up. He did a TON of standing around. But he also played better playoffs basketball than anyone in years up until this point. So who cares. Wait till the series is over and judge his full body of work. He asked for this attention. This isn't the media hating on him - this is what comes with The Decision. But if he reverts back to his play in the Chicago series he also deserves the credit for playing some of the best basketball I've seen since MJ.
LBJ is in this position with the media, not because of The Decision, but because the media desparately wants him to be something he may not be. They want him to be Michael Jordan. They need somebody to be the new "Jordan". When the Kobe as Jordan thing sort of petered out with his constant whining and unlawful sodomy, the mantle fell to LBJ. LBJ is not Jordan. Nobody is Jordan. Jordan was both the most insanely talented basketball player ever and the biggest d-bag, a-hole you will ever meet. He was so insanely competetive that he got into fist fights with teammates over card games. He is a lunatic. His former teammates don't like him and don't want to be around him (even though they respect the hell out of him). All that craziness went into making him great. LBJ is basically a nice guy. His teammates like him. He's not really interested in scoring 40 points per game or taking 50 shots. I don't even think he really cares about being the best ever. I mean if you're ranked third all time instead of first, is that some kind of slight? All this infuriates the media. He is refusing to adhere to their vision, their narrative. Read Bill Reiter's column today. you will see what I mean. Every great thing LBJ did in the playoffs prior to yesterday has been forgotten. If we had to rely on wade to beat Chicago the Heat would've been fishing for two weeks. Long story short, LBJ is as great a player today as he was yesterday. He gad a crappy game. It happens. Kobe had 11 against the Pistons and shot his way into oblivion. Jordan once shot 5-25 in a Finals game he lost to Portland. Superstars have had below average games in the finals before and it will happen again. Let's see what happens Thursday.
Scottie Pippen, not that this needed any verification, is insane when he says Lebron is better than MJ. We all know what his motives were and it may be unfair to LBJ. But MJ never disappeared in a final series game.
MJ was also never asked to facilitate. Its really an apples to oranges comparison. Magic and Bird have had single-digit games before.
LeBron has a tattoo across his back that says, "Chosen One". He calls himself King James. He took #23 because it was Jordan's number. He is not some innocent bystander. And whether you believe he had much say in The Decision or that the pep rally was meant for Miami only - those things were done to garner attention. That was the point of The Decision - to have all the emphasis on him and make him bigger than life - doing something that no other athlete had done. So he is going to get attention for that - when he plays well it is good, when he plays bad it is bad.
Half the guys in the league have some ridiculous slogan or nickname tatooed on them. Is Chosen One that much dumber or more presumptive than "STAT" or "Starbury". And the King James thing was foisted on him by others. Just like Wade became Flash through no doing of his own. It's just a nickname. And yes, The Decisions was meant to focus on LeBron. However, is that his doing or is it just that there was an overwhelming media/fan interest in where HE was going? I've never seen anything like the frenzy last summer and LBJ had very little to do with it, other than simply existing in the moment. If LBJ had not been a free agent last summer but Wade was I guarantee you there would've been no "Wade Watch" or constant updates/speculation on his future. LBJ is bigger than life because we (fans/the media) wanted him that way. Whether he wanted it for himself is pretty irrelevant to us.
Sorry. It was Seattle. In the clinching Game 6 he was 5 for 19 for 22 points. He made less than 10 FG's in 4 of the 6 games and also threw up a 6 for 19 for 23 stinker in a Game 4 loss. http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/j/jordami01/gamelog/1996/#stats_playoffs None of this is meant to denigrate Jordan. He's the best ever and likely will remain that way for a long, long time. But even the greatest have off nights.
The media hyped it as the greatest free agency class of all time. It was only fitting that it receive an hour long special.
Player X shoots 4 for 13 in Game 3 of the Finals. He scores 11 points. He grabs 3 rebounds, has 5 assists a steal and a block. He turns it over 4 times. Did Player X dissapear and forfeit any right to be considered an all time great, or did he just have a crappy game? http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/200406100DET.html
Desides - you post that everytime someone mentions The Decision. Whether it was LeBron's idea or not, it isn't like someone pointed a gun at his head and made his go through with it. And even if they did, I doubt they made him talk in third person or say, "take my talents..."
Yes, again, LeBron is an innocent bystander, and never said anything like, “If you guys want to go to sleep right now and not wake up until July 1, 2010, then go ahead because it’s going to be a big day.”
I post it every time someone states or implies that LeBron was central in and to The Decision. Despite the fact that it was superficially about what he would do in free agency, The Decision was not actually about LeBron. I will keep posting that link every time someone makes this mistake.
If the discussion is "why is there such media scrutiny on LeBron" then The Decision is a major point of that. Whether he orchestrated the idea or not, he was still the main focus. He could have walked away from it at any point and knew that it was designed to get the attention focused on him. He went through with it - him not doing the leg work or the brainstorming does not absolve him from it.
The point is that it’s entirely a media creation. He’s hated by the media for something the media conceived.
I think it's incredibly naive for people to think that the reaction to LeBron would be much different if he had just had a regular press conference or tweeted out his decision. The media just didn't like his choice, plain and simple. If he had said "NY, Chicago or Cleveland" he gets no negativity at all.
He's an athlete promoting his sport. By any measure, the Decision was an absolute massive success financially for everyone involved. This was a business that was slowly dying, and LeBron is the primary reason why its significantly more popular now than it was a year ago. The Decision got more viewers than some NBA Finals games. So no, I don't think LeBron was an innocent bystander. I think he was the employee of the 9 figure business that figured out how to increase profits by 30%.
I'm not saying Lebron has forfeited his right to be considered an all time great. IMO you have MJ and then you have the rest of the greats. Pippen is off his friggin rocker if he thinks LBJ is better than MJ.
That really has nothing to do with the argument. I said the entire point of The Decision was to make James bigger than any FA ever. To put all eyes on him and make him the focal point. It worked. It was a success for the NBA. And it is why he STILL has so much scrutiny on him. He isn't some innocent bystander in the media frenzy, he helped create the media frenzy. When he plays well, everyone writes articles about how he is better than Jordan, when he plays poorly, they are going to bash him. Heat fans only seem to complain when the coverage is negative, not when the largest sporting network creates a team of reporters with the sole assignment to cover the Heat.
Again, he didn't create it. The media didn't create it. The fans created it. He just made sure it turned a big profit. He didn't make himself bigger than any FA ever. He isn't the one who set up websites begging him to sign with teams. He didn't stage rallies trying to convince himself to sign with a team. The fans did. The fans made him the biggest FA of all time. They created the demand. He was just smart enough to supply what they wanted.
Sorry, I just think this is revisionist history. LeBron is the one that set up his Twitter and webpage in the weeks leading up to the event. He is the one going on 60 minutes during the NBA Finals to talk about his free agency. He has a full marketing COMPANY - to act like they weren't drumming up hype over his FA and The Decision is a bit naive.
Yep. Six championships essentially in a row. He would have had eight in a row if he hadn't taken those two years off to go play baseball
Well the Chosen One did predict in the fireworks and laser party that the heat would win 7 or 8 championships. Since he's so humble and misunderstood that was probably a conservative estimate
