I'm at a total loss in explaining the LeBron James phenomenon. Look, let's be real, the guy is talented, seriously talented beyond belief. If we watch sports in general, and basketball in particular, to see athletes perform physically arduous tasks that challenge the limits of what the human frame can accomplish (and this is a large part of why we do watch sports), then LeBron James is the NBA's best player, possibly basketball's best player ever. As we have said over and over again on this blog: he is a point guard in Karl Malone's body. He has amazing dexterity and some of the most impressive and emphatic power of anyone who has ever left the ground. He dunks with impunity, getting to the basket as quickly and ferociously as a lion riding a freight train. It is impossible to write about him without resorting to these hoary cliches, because the words "amazing," "lion," "unbelievable," and "power" really describe him. And yet, impressive as his raw athleticism is, he is more than a jumping, running, dunking machine. He is a seriously good passer, finding his teammates in the right spots and at the right times with precision. He plays some of the best defense in the world (he completely shut down the league's MVP Derrick Rose in the last few minutes of game 5 against the Bulls). He has a high basketball IQ, is capable of getting himself different looks, running the pick and roll on both ends, and navigating everything, be it a fast break or a solid, Boston Celtics defense. He can also hit impossible big shots and put his team on his back (as he did in 2009 to pull one away from the Magic and in 2007 to heroically spark a comeback and take his ragtag group to the finals, respectively). He is capable of all this and more, and it is, in sum total, the most complete set of basketball skills anyone has ever possessed. It is why hard nosed folk like Larry Bird say that when all is said and done there will just be LeBron.
But you already know all that. And here we are. Even with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, homecourt advantage, and the pressure considerably lifted off of his shoulders, LeBron James has given us another inexplicable performance. The Dallas Mavericks are the champions and LeBron had a +/- of negative 24 points. If only they had played James Jones, maybe they could have won this thing.
I joke because I do not understand. How could someone with these talents play like LeBron did in this series? Is there something about LeBron's talents that precludes him from using them all at once? Is the pressure to hard for him to bear? That certainly doesn't seem to be the case. He is able to laugh and joke with Dwyane Wade, and dig himself deeper into a hole. But when game time comes, Wade focuses. He may turn unpleasant, angry, rude. But he pushes himself as hard as he can, straining until his body gives out and frustration sets in. LeBron seems not to notice the lights and cameras. He seems to be thinking of his elementary school classmates, or counting in the fibonacci sequence, or giggling at Dirk's accent. The attention makes him more absent-minded, more unaware that he is onstage in front of the world, more dreamily caught in his own head and far away from reality. And in his stupor he performs at a sub-All Star level.
This drives me crazy. It perplexes me and gives me no satisfaction. I wanted the Heat to loose this series. But I wanted them to be beaten. It is thoroughly disheartening that LeBron seems not so much demolished but distracted. I would far rather see him win than what we got. I like LeBron personally, and don't hold it against him as a man. But as a basketball player, this is totally unacceptable.
Don't get me wrong, Dallas winning was a great event. The series was really enjoyable and we got some great basketball and a pretty good narrative out of it. Overall, I'm glad the Heat lost. They deserved to for missing 13 free throws. But I hope that LeBron James gets a Ridlin prescription, or at least the means to explain himself. Until that happens, it seems more and more that the man Bird declared king, is frustratingly blank. The person who best exemplifies the godlike zeniths the human body can reach, he who makes Wade, Bryant, Paul, Rose, and Anthony look like so many kindergartners playing against a 12 year-old, seems more and more utterly inhuman in all the other ways that matter to us. And the other ways we have of being human -- defeat, victory, pain, suffering, anger, weakness, humor, and beneficence (all the things Shakespeare wrote about) -- is what we really watch sports for. I know that this is a bit overblown and unfair to LeBron who has already been goaded, perhaps against his better judgment and full understanding, into moving to Miami and declaring himself "serious" at every opportunity. He keeps saying that each game is the most important of his career and so on and so forth. But until he plays like that -- until he approaches the game like Dwyane Wade does -- his words are noises devoid of meaning. So are his skills; they might as well be the gestures of a man alone in a blizzard, performed subconsciously. They exist more in theory than in tangible reality. If LeBron can understand that (I'm not so sure that he can), then there's one thing he can do about it: win. Until then, I don't think anyone can answer this post's question: Who was that?
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