Can Anyone Explain This To Me?

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?

Easy Caricatures Becoming Reality Before Our Very Eyes

I can think of no better way to lose the American public than by telling them that race has something to do with their dislike of you. America is a country in which Race is a hugely touchy subject. Many white Americans realize that we have had racial problems in the past... and that it is therefore a very bad thing to be called racist. If you ever have a discussion in which you mention that they might see particular individuals as belonging to ethnic or other groups with certain negative characteristics, well, they'll flip they're shit. You can tell how unacceptable it is to be a racist because even the most extreme of characters will begin sentences "I'm no racist, but..." I think people put way too strong a point on this and that staunchly defending yourself from charges of racism is actually pretty counterproductive and leads to more racism and talking past one another, but it's the world we live in.

So when LeBron says things like this, I grimace. Right or wrong, that is something that many in this country will not abide (many think it is unfair that minorities can blame things that don't go their way on race, it's all in my forthcoming book Wu-Tang References, White America, Dinosaur Shaped Persons, and You). I don't blame LeBron too much, he made a stupid decision, both in terms of basketball and in terms of how he announced his stupid decision, but he's also a victim of ridiculous expectations and the slow news cycle of midsummer. What makes me grimace, however, is that all the silly caricatures of LeBron that began this summer -- in which he's a villain and what not -- are likely going to come true now. Making this race comment is a pretty sure fire way to continue the enmity with which LeBron has been met, and I can easily envision that going forward LeBron will view this bitterly. He'll think he gave them the winning team they thought they wanted, and they spat on him; so, why not become the villain they say he is? And he likely will. I can see it now, just like North Korea eventually became the 1950s American Caricature of itself.

Of course one day, if he wins, LeBron will be forgiven. You just have to look at the fawning coverage "folk" are giving to Vick while offering their dogs up for him to sign to know that LeBron will also one day enjoy more fawning. This is America, land of comebacks (and overly loud protest to accusations of racism, again, read my book). But I'm pretty sure that said fawning will come too late; LeBron will already have been the villain for too long, his mind irredeemably warped. Which is too bad. As we've seen with Rodman and Artest, the villain can be a fun guy to watch, but in the end his story is pretty sad. At least my evil LeBron James Halloween costume will make some sense this year, but not as much as it will make next year, and the year after that.

The Face of Evil

See that grainy, America's Most Wanted style picture? Good, now memorize it. If you ever see this man punch him in the gut. Spit in his face. He is all that is wrong with sports journalism. A shameless provacateur, a mock-outrage anger junkie. A man who writes highly opinionated, less than brilliant takedowns of the disgusting news media's fawning over LeBron and intersperses them with fawning bullshit coverage. This man is the enemy and I hate him with everything I'm worth. Either that or it's the most boring part of the year for followers of the NBA, post free agency excitement, post draft, pre warm up camps, and pre International Basketball contest that will determine which country has the best role players (all the stars are too busy to play at the FIBA 2010 World Championship, including the stars from other countries). In the absence of actual coverage, I propose we turn on each other. Why not? We've already turned on LeBron.

But some of us, Wojnarowski included, turned on LeBron way back when the season was still happening, well before the Decision, a remarkably stupid and respect burning event (in all eyes, but Miami's) in which LeBron announced his decision to leave Cleveland for tax free South Florida. While the decision was stupid and dropped the real LBJ's credibility (but not to a point he can't recover from), it does make sense if we follow the twisted path of one story line. This path was pursued by many fans, including self-proclaimed, "Hey I'm a fucking FAN, OK?" Bill Simmons. The story is that LeBron James doesn't care about winning (and he's probably un-American). Followers of this storyline insist that Jordan, Bird, and Magic all cared so much about winning, which is what makes them great, and that all LeBron cares about is dunks, which makes him less than great. It would seem beyond obvious that the aforementioned dudes played on teams that featured ridiculous talent and that LeBron didn't. Nonetheless, as these pricks have taken to the airwaves to proclaim that they would never, ever, do what LeBron did, I guess it needs to be pointed out. So here goes: Michael Jordan played with Scottie Pippin. Remember him? He took the Bulls to 50 plus wins and a barn-burning second round of the playoffs on his own. Jordan also had one of the best coaches, if not the best coach (but you should all know my opinion on the matter: he's not) in Phil Jackson. It wasn't Jordan who taught Rodman how to rebound. Indeed, Rodman had already logged 3 of the top 5 rebounding seasons of all time when he joined the Bulls. Not to mention the countless other All-Stars, 3 Point Contest Winners, all NBA defensive players, and all NBA team players who played with Jordan. I'm pretty sure Magic and Bird had similar, if not quite as many, gifts on their respective teams (Jabar, Riley, McHale, and Parish), but I wasn't paying very close attention to Basketball in the years before I was born. None of these guys were made good by Magic, Bird, or Jordan. They were already good. They may have been given the chance to shine on a bigger stage, maybe they were even made slightly better, but without the fad three, those teams were all very good.

Now, take the case of the Cavs. LeBron played with Mo Williams and Big Z. Very arguably, these two guys owe their status as having been All-Stars to his play. Similarly, fired coach Mike Brown, who won Coach of the year in 2009, almost certainly owed that to LeBron. And... that's pretty much it. The Cavs for the last two years were a 60 plus win team. If you want to measure LeBron against Michael Jordan you can measure how much each man's presence swung their team's abilities. When his airness returned, the Bulls gained 17 wins over the year he had been totally absent, and set the NBA record for the best season ever at 72-10. If the Cavs drop by less than this from their 66 ('08-'09), 61 ('09-'10, a season LeBron sat out the last half dozen games of) win heights, then we will have decisively proved Jordan better than LeBron. If they don't, however, I'm sure there will be some new excuse for the King's inferiority.

The point of this isn't that LeBron didn't break a lot of hearts and disgust a lot of people (me included) when he announced that he was going to Miami. The point is that if you were breathing down LeBron's neck in May for not wanting to win enough, for not being enough of a competitive asshole, then you should have cheered this new Miami team on. If, on the other hand, you hated him then and you hate him even more now (I'm looking at you Simmons, Wojnarowski), then I suspect that you were just looking for an excuse to tear him down. And that makes you a Michael Jordan level asshole, but with no chance of winning the NBA Finals.

Hey Dan Gilbert, Go Fuck Yourself!

Well, that didn't take long. The shameful, poorly reasoned, and grammatically incorrect screed from Cavs owner Dan Gilbert has already retroactively made Lebron's decision look like the height of class. In said screed, Gilbert threatens LeBron's Heat with the fact that, "I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WILL WIN AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER 'KING' WINS ONE" (his mentally unhinged caps). Adding, "You can take that to the bank." That's just the kind of brilliance you should expect from the guy who had seven years to try and keep King James and could only come up with Mo Williams as an incentive. I was quite disgruntled by the way James left and wish he had stayed, but that speaks more to my own perverse desires for sports figures to follow codes of "loyalty" and other nonsense than it does to any logically reasoned argument on my part (I'm just spitballing here, but there seems to be a really sick element to sports fandom in which we want a bunch of huge guys we'll never meet to live as personifications of our poorly fleshed out heroic ideals, ideals we ourselves don't ever approach; the fact that we then turn our collective scorn and vitriol on them as soon as they act human makes us crueler than the Romans were to the Gladiators, more like the Aztecs). If I had grown up in Cleveland I couldn't have waited to get out. Dude gave them seven years and they immediately commence to spit in his face? Fuck that. Fuck Gilbert, fuck jersey burning "fans," and fuck Ohio: there's probably a reason everybody not too fat to get out leaves. Go NAFTA and, in the relatively rare cases in which they play the Cavs, Go Heat!

One Quick Note

I just wanted to say, before we watch LeBron's decision and begin to read all the negative columns that will immediately follow on its heels, that LeBron may have lost me. I have been a LeBron defender for a number of years (I may yet post some e-mails between a friend and myself, arguing Kobe vs. the real LBJ, to prove it -- or because there will be no other basketball news). But the King's shameful, tone-deaf to the degree of a third world dictator (one who insists on conducting the symphony, if you prefer your metaphors a little unmixed) decision to announce where he'll sign in primetime television has even me a little outraged. The only thing that will justify this reality TV show (and by justify I mean make it in poor-taste but still well meaning, instead of psychotically cruel) is for James to re-sign with the Cavs. That's a nice sports story about a man who loyally stayed with his home town, rather than going for wins and self-serving fame. Sure, it will still be the act of an egotistical man, but a man to whom some stuff matters. If, on the other hand, LeBron signs with Miami -- as all reports indicate he will -- it will stand as the act of a scared, out-of-touch, and disastrously arrogant man. One who doesn't seem to understand how basketball teams work (even if the Heat succeed, which I doubt, how can anyone argue they will succeed as a team and not three egos?), and one who is scared to shoulder responsibility alone. It will mark him not as a leader, but as a follower, and a follower of poor decisions at that. I won't be hating LeBron as much as I do hate Kobe (he'll probably have to mess with my family for that), but I don't think I'll ever be able to love him again (not even with sports love, which is little more than a passing admiration and respect in all but the most ardently felt cases).

It's important to note, however, how we got here. Less than a year ago we all saw a different LeBron James. With the release of the documentary about his high school days and the book he co-authored with Buzz Bissinger, LeBron gave a flurry of media interviews, some of which I listened to or watched. In those interviews he does not at all come off as the conceited man he now appears to be. He instead seems to be very much like the nice, popular kid in high school. A kid aware of his privilege -- albeit, not entirely -- who keeps a foot in every social group. He could geek out, if ever so slightly, with the nerds, joke around with the jocks, revel in good fortune with the rich, and bring some heft and respect to his discussions with everyone else. He seemed aware of who he was and not without respect for others. He was a golden boy, liked by everyone, who liked everyone back. Although this may have been as much artifice as today's capital D "Decision," I doubt it. LeBron, as he is proving this summer, does not have the political instinct. His mishandling of this situation, complete with smug donation to the Boys and Girls Club, seems to confirm that he's not a very good actor and bad at intuiting what people want to hear. So I believe the other Lebron, the one from last year and before, was the real James.

So what happened? I think that the media, in its much maligned minute by minute news-cycle (but you can't really blame the media, or at least I can't, as I spent much of today refreshing various wepages and reading all I could about LeBron's choice; where there's demand, supply will follow) has hyped and hyped and inflated and inflated this free-agent class to the point that it distorted LeBron's own understanding of it and of his own worth. He, the boy who seemed able to handle (at least decently) the acclaim poured on him since high school, became more and more narcissistic as he entered onto the World Stage. After being told so many times that July 1, 2010 was the most important date in NBA History, he started to believe it. I think that LeBron's crew is mostly filled with sycophantic cronies and high school buddies. Dudes who may mean well, but can't advise him what to do while on the top. No one can ever help anyone else in this position, because being on the top necessarily means being alone. When faced with the situation, some people stand tall and prove their momentous worth; these people ascend to godhood. Others crumble. And many achieve heroic heights and then tragically crumble later (Michael Jordan is the best b-ball example, but history's pages are littered with people who fit that story). Thankfully most of us will never have to know how we would fare when looking down from the peak (likely, many of us would weaken and collapse). Unfortunately for James, he does have to face this challenge. And all reports seem to indicate he will run scared. Humanly understandable, but not the kind of thing one would expect from the once and future king.

In Trade All Over The Place

Since sports reporting is several light years behind political reporting, we're forced to turn to other sources for information during this momentous time; namely, the free market. I trust the fine folks betting their money to do the job of finding out information on LeBron a lot more than I trust the half-assed reporting of Chris Broussard. So what is the free-market saying (in the fine form of intrade.com)? Basically it's all over the place. When I started writing this post, it was 50-50 for LeBron staying in Cleveland, which is pretty good, considering its automatic plurality status. Now it's reporting a 30% chance LeBron stays which is considerably less, but still may be a plurality. What does this tell us? Probably that not too many people are trading on LeBron and therefore there's not that much information out there. People are panicky and acting with little to no reason. All of which is a long waste of saying, if you're coming here for information (I C you Johnston), you'll likely be disappointed.

The Shape of Rings to Come

Like every earth-shattering sporting event, it came as a surprise. I wasn't shocked that Lebron James lost to the Celtics; I was shocked how pathetically he made his exit. He wasn't hustling. He played sloppy. He lacked aggression and settled for difficult jump shots. He reduced his best-record Cavaliers to a shell of themselves, a one-star flash in the pan like Reggie Miller's Pacers or Allen Iverson's Sixers. Lebron didn't look like the king - he looked liked a mid-level player on a small market team, not ready for the moment. Boston looked like they had ten times as much talent - they remind me of that Payton-Bryant-Malone-O'Neal mutant Laker team, only with chemistry.

Full disclosure: I don't know much about basketball, especially it's history. Saying that, last night was a watershed moment, on par with the Yankees loss of the 1964 World Series, or Dwight Clark's "The Catch" in the 1981 NFC Championship. King James is off his throne - call it the Glorious Revolution. As crazy as this summer was going to be anyway, throw in the fact that we now know Lebron will play in different colors next year, and it's off the charts. Over the next 10 years, the four best players in the NBA will be Kevin Durant, Dwayne Wade, Lebron James and Derek Rose. Two of those players will change teams this summer, along with Joe Johnson, Chris Bosh and, in all likelihood, Amare Stoudemire. And believe this: no one's moving an inch til the King decides.

Nobody better think for an instant this guy is staying in Northeast Ohio. He's lived there his whole life - he probably wants to see the world, the ocean, the piles of money, the fans like Spike Lee and Jay-Z who know about building empires. He does not need more of this:

Lebron James structured his contract to create this bidding war. And now his time has come. Be careful what you wish for, because you just might be playing in a steel cage for a Russian madman. And James Bond always save chicks before dicks.

Chop Dwight Howard's Fucking Head Off!

Hats off to the Celtics. I saw the Cavs going all the way this year, but I was wrong. This Celtics team is a different kind of basketball featuring nine guys who can give you 18 points. LeBronless they may be, but they are literally the Wu-Tang Clan.



As Zuckerman put it in two separate texts, "k (text one) fucking g (text two)." Let's hope Superman and whatever Kobe calls himself are next. Beat your own fucking skulls America!

Hi Readers! Lebron Sucks and Always Will

It's time for a change on True Greatness - someone not named Johnston is gonna drop some blanket statements that have little or no information to back them up. Gotta get this out in the ether before tonight's game 5, which no one will watch because LOST is on.

Maybe I've been listening to Ric Bucher on the B.S. Report too much (who knows? Maybe that's the only source of basketball knowledge I have), or Maybe Lebron James is the Peyton Manning of Basketball. Yeah, he's great, and stuff, but ultimately he's a pure finesse player with none of the intangibles necessary to climb the mountain. I was discussing this with one of the other contributors to this site, who seemed to think Manning had won three or four rings. An outside observer of basketball might think something similar about Lebron, what with all the puppets and commercials that splice him with the likes of Bird, Magic and KG.

Remember that speech? It was informative - it informed us that Michael Jordan was an asshole. Not just any asshole, the biggest asshole of all time - such a huge asshole he couldn't enjoy himself for a minute - unless he was gambling or whoring. Does that sound like Lebron James to you? Not at all. Lebron James might stay in Cleveland because he is "beloved"(more beloved than this guy?). You know who was beloved? Shaq in Orlando. You know who wasn't surrounded by good players in Orlando (except the immortal Horace Grant)? Shaq in Orlando. Now he's got four rings. Unfortunately, I don't see a fifth in the near future.

And don't give me this "he's still young" song and dance. Lebron has been in the Association for 7 years - that should have been long enough to wax Dwight Howard and Hedo Terkoglu (or whatever) last year. The problem is, unlike many superstars across the major sports, Lebron doesn't make anybody around him better. In this way, he isn't even Manning. In 2006, Dwayne Wade took a ragtag bunch with an aging O'Neal to the promised land. You tell me who the better 2010 free agent is.

Lebron Dunk

So I know it's been bouncing around for a while but now that the footage of Jordan Crawford dunking on Lebron has finally surfaced I figured I'd give it a mention. Does anyone else think that the most embarrassing part of all this is actually the ensuing possession when James looks more like a wounded crab as he drives the lane and completes some sort of strange, odom-like assist? Personally, I don't mind the slow rotation or the dunk so much. I mean, the guy who dunked on him is a great athelete not some middle-aged ceo... John Rodgers anyone? But hey, you be the judge. I'm still not sure what the big deal was about any of this. Like Jordan said, we all get embarrassed sometimes.