An Untitled Post About LeBron James

Game 1 of the Finals is in the books. The Thunder smacked the Heat in the second half and towards the end it looked like the Heat won't ever be able to beat OKC. Cue the LeBron haters on Twitter:

"The loud mouthed clown fails to deliver"

"LeBron take notes"

"Kevin Durant is definitely better than LeBron"

"Good job, good effort"

All of you, shut up.

LeBron had 30-9-4 with 4 steals. That's pretty much standard for him. Even the supporting cast did well (Chalmers with 12-6 and Battier with 16 is pretty much as good as they're gonna do). This loss falls squarely on Wade. But for whatever reason, LeBron shoulders the blame. Should he have shot better than 11-24? I mean, maybe. I guess he has to, if Dwyane Wade is going to continue to be a steaming pile of average on the court.

I want to take a step back from Game 1. Colin Cowherd had a great piece on The Herd this morning where he talked about comparing LeBron to Jordan (he's not the first to do so). Michael Jordan didn't win a title until he was on the same team as Scottie Pippin, Horace Grant, Bill Cartwright, BJ Armstrong, and John Paxson. The only other sure-fire Hall of Famer was Pippen (I think people only know Horace because of the glasses), but they were a team with a lot of rebounders, a lot of role players, and they all bought into winning.

Then you add Toni Kukoc, Ron Harper, Steve Kerr, and Dennis Rodman into the picture and it really seems like it would have been a struggle for the team to not win the title. I don't want to take anything away from MJ (not that I could if I wanted to) because his attitude paved the way for the whole team - much like Tim Duncan has done in San Antonio.

I just want to make it known that I think LeBron James needs better people around him, on the court and off, and he could head and shoulders above everyone else in the NBA. Let's track his mistakes:

• Being from Ohio (not entirely his fault)
• Saying he wanted better players around him in Cleveland but never actually naming any role players that he would have liked to add
• The logistics of The Decision (the start of the "LeBron is a Dickhead" movement)
• The choice he made in The Decision (New York, bro. Come on, Are you stupid?)
• Teaming up with a player who plays literally the exact same style of game as him
• "Not 5, not 6, not 7"
• Shoulder bumping Spoelstra (sets a bad example for the rest of his team)
• Choking in the Finals last year
• That press conference where he told all the poor people that weren't as rich or talented as him to fuck off
• Proposing to his ugly-ass girlfriend (by far the worst-looking of the Big Three WAGs)

But this season (aside from the proposal) he's been pretty much right where he needs to be. He sort of learned how to use his size down low. He stopped shooting from long range so much. He put the team on his back at times. But it's still a shit team. And it's a team that won't ever let him be as good as Jordan. Physically, LeBron is better than MJ. Mentally, Jordan is probably a top-3 person (in any walk of life) ever. LeBron can never match him. 

But in terms of championships (which everyone in the NBA loves to use as a measuring stick), LeBron could surpass Jordan. He won't, because he's stuck in Miami for three more years. Two more years? Whatever, it's that many years that he won't be able to be as dominant as he potentially could. Because emotionally, he's a bitch. And that rubs off on his teammates.

His coach looks like a 25 year old. LeBron looks like a 40 year old. Dwyane Wade is actually 30 years old. They don't respect him because they're two of the ten best players in the NBA (or so I'm told, because watching Wade makes me strongly question that). They play on a team full of dickheads because the leaders of the team act like dickheads. Chris Bosh probably isn't a dickhead but he's like that kid in college orientation that gets in with the scumbag kids and starts acting like a scumbag. I guess you'd call that peer pressure? 

When I sat down to write this post, I had a goal. It was to defend LeBron in the short term and simultaneously bash him in the long term and for what he's done in the past. I honestly have no idea if I've accomplished that. But being saddled to an over-the-hill Dwyane Wade, an injured (maybe?) Chris Bosh, and a bunch of nobodies is 100% not the best place for LeBron to challenge Jordan as the best basketball player of all time. 

But you know, Wade could come out in Game 2 and drop 50 points and dunk right in Kevin Durant's grill and stare into the camera and tell me to fuck myself. 

But seriously. How do you turn down the Knicks when you're in that situation?