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? 

Jay's NBA Finals Preview

If you guys can remember back to November, I said this (edited for space):

"2 Good Teams

Miami Heat

I don't care - not even a little bit - about the collapse in the playoffs/finals. If anything, that will help the Heat this season.. bear with me. Now, we have definitive evidence that this team belongs to Dwyane Wade. Lebron James is the best basketball player on the planet, yes, but this is Wade's team when they need a leader. There goes their biggest problem from last season. Prepare for domination, as long as Lebron has been reading everyone's tweets over the summer and accepts his role. 

With the size down low they can match up with any team in the NBA and overpower them. It's all on Lebron (sort of, because what I mean by this is that it's actually all on DWade). 

Oklahoma City Thunder

If I'm right, then the Heat will meet the Thunder in the NBA Finals. The Thunder's core is in a prime spot to overthrow Kobe, Dirk, Steve Nash, Tim Duncan, and the rest of the Western Division. Despite a pretty lackluster draft, the Thunder still have a phenomenal starting 5: Russell Westbrook, Thabo Sefolosha/James Harden, Kevin Durant, Serge Ibaka, and Kendrick Perkins. Top to bottom, they can guard any team in the NBA (except Dirk) and outscore any team (except the re-invigorated Heat). 

NBA Finals Prediction: Heat over Thunder, 5 Games"

And really, I only got like one thing wrong:

• LeBron was far and away the best player on the Heat. Dwyane Wade was maybe even the third most valuable player. Oops.
• The Heat's (lack of) size was one of their major flaws. Oops. 
• The Thunder swept Dirk's Mavericks. Oops.

But, I did get that LeBron was going to be the most influential player on the Heat's success and that OKC couldn't guard Dirk all that well (25-31-17-34 points per game, 41.8 JPoint) and that these teams would meet each other in the Finals. Ergo I think you can lock down Miami winning in five. 

Maybe don't quite lock that down. Because I think that enough people want the Thunder to win (OKC could wear white jerseys and Miami could wear black jerseys every single game and nobody would care. Create kind of a hero-villain atmosphere, how do you feel about that David Stern?) and they really feed off support. Couple that with the fact that it seems that LeBron can't handle being unloved and the crowds/America could actually be a pretty huge factor.

Normally I'd break down the backcourt comparisons (advantage Thunder), small forward comparisons (advantage Heat), and frontcout comparisons (advantage Miami), team chemistry comparisons (advantage Thunder). But I just did that in one sentence so let's just throw it all out the window because I have absolutely no clue how the next week or two are going to play out. 

Part of me hopes that Oklahoma City wins so LeBron doesn't get a ring and the glimmer of hope in Cleveland fans' eyes stays alive that they can win a title before LeBron. Kevin Durant goes about everything perfectly - his game, his podium game, his fashion game - and Westbrook is (for me) the most intriguing player in the NBA (more on that in another post, maybe). Plus they have Derek Fisher, which has to count for at least one late-game-three-pointer-dagger. 

But part of me wants LeBron to shine on the game's biggest stage, win the first of many rings, and silence the haters. He's so gifted physically. He's so un-gifted emotionally and personality-ly. He needs to hire someone (I'm available) as a PR rep. Because I'm absolutely sure that he doesn't currently have one. It's not possible. We're getting off track. This is going to be a telling series for LeBron. If he can shoulder the load (but still have Bosh and Wade) then he'll probably win and go down a path of championship-winning. If he can't win with this team, he will probably never win one. And then the whole Cleveland thing may just come true. Dan Gilbert will be a prophet. And LeBron's hair will continue to retreat. 

But fuck it, I'm sticking with my Heat in 5 games prediction that I made in November (that's seven months ago).