I didn't used to hate him, but I've never liked him. I thought it was ridiculous when I saw that a high school player's games were going to be broadcast on ESPN. There is something pure about high school sports to me...where the only footage of high schoolers is really amateur stuff for the school itself. That, to see a high school game, you have to go there in person.
And I didn't really appreciate the fact that this kid (he's a few months younger than me) was getting so much love and attention before he did anything. Because he hadn't. He had potential, but he was getting credit and praise based on potential. He was built up before he'd accomplished anything.
And that wasn't his fault. He was dubbed "King" James before he'd stepped onto an NBA court. There was months of buildup to Cleveland selecting him with the first pick. And then more buildup to his first game.
I'm not going to lie: I rooted against him. I hoped that he was going to be a massive failure, and that the hype would blow up in his face. That all the money he'd been given by sponsors would be a waste, and that LeBron would go down in history with Kwame Brown and Ryan Leaf.
Of course, I was wrong. LeBron instantly made Cleveland a contender, and he started playing like one of the best players in the league almost immediately. And he started appearing everywhere...from commercials to "Saturday Night Live."
And it almost started to seem like a good story. Hometown kid making his city proud. And over in the Eastern Conference, it was hard to really get mad at him. I went to the first game the LeBron played in Dallas, knowing that I'd missed every opportunity to see Michael Jordan play in Dallas. If he was going to be "the next one," I wanted to see him live.
There was also a time when I almost turned around on him. In the 2007 NBA Eastern Conference Finals, I happened to turn on a game to see LeBron go off on a game against Detroit. It was fun to watch him take over a game and lead his team to victory. It made me think of something Jordan would do, and it was cool to see it happen in front of my eyes on live television.
But there were things that kept me from turning around. I didn't really like the way LeBron completely embraced the "king" nickname. I feel like nicknames should be used by fans and broadcasters, and that athletes should show some humility with them. It'd been a few years, and LeBron hadn't done anything. He'd still never won a championship, and he hadn't even been named MVP yet. And he was already declaring himself king, when players like Kobe and Duncan had more reason to be declared royalty (with MVPs *and* championships).
Then came 2010. LeBron was in the last playoffs with Cleveland, a team with the best record in the NBA. He had the strongest core of players around him, including Antawn Jamison, Shaquille O'Neal, and Mo Williams. His team won 61 games and was primed to go deep in the playoffs.
But then something happened. LeBron quit on his team. After knocking out the Bulls in five games, the Cavs played the Celtics. They took a 2-1 series lead and looked primed to head to the Eastern Conference finals. But after losing game four, the "King" of the NBA turned in one of his worst performances. I didn't watch this game, but all accounts of it said that LeBron looked disinterested. LeQuit became a new nickname, one that he was less inclined to embrace.
As he walked off the court in his final game with the Cavaliers, LeBron memorably took off his jersey...symbolizing the end of his career with Cleveland.
Then the sweepstakes begun. It seemed like LeBron wanted out in Cleveland, and people started to speculate where he'd end up. Some people thought he'd follow Jordan's footsteps and try to win in Chicago. Others thought that, if Wade went home to Chicago, LeBron could step in and play in Miami. Then there were the two New York teams, with many people wondering if LeBron needed to go to the number one media market to try and win.
There was even speculation that the Mavs, armed with Dampier's special contract and Mark Cuban's marketing genius, could be in on the LeBron sweepstakes. Ben and Skin even put together a really catchy song to try and lure James to Dallas.
And when I started hearing rumors that Miami was going to try and get LeBron James to come to Miami, I thought it sounded crazy. It'd never happened before, and I couldn't see the two of them getting along. John Hollinger wrote an article breaking down each of the possible destination for LeBron, and how he'd interact with those teams. Hollinger, someone I generally hate, said that LeBron would work the best with Dirk Nowitzki....who's game would compliment LeBron's (and vice versa). The worst combination, he said, was LeBron and Wade.
And the reason was simple. Their games don't compliment each other. Wade dominates games by slashing into the lane and getting to the basket (and/or the free throw line). LeBron does something very similar, but he's more inclined to pass the ball than shoot.
So LeBron could slash through the defense, get to the basket and kick it out to an open Wade....who would then do the exact same thing. Wade doesn't have much of an outside shot, and he wouldn't be able to take advantage of that situation. The same was true of the inverse...Wade could do the same thing and hit a wide-open LeBron...who would have to try driving the lane again himself.
It wasn't going to work. And when I heard that Chris Bosh was also possibly going to Miami, I knew it was crazy. Bosh had said all offseason that he didn't want to be someone else's Robin. In Miami, he was primed to be Batgirl.
But then it started coming together. And then LeBron announced "The Decision" on ESPN.
Now, I was on vacation in LA when this happened so I didn't see any of it. But I did read about the speculation that LeBron was going to go to Miami before the announcement was made. I hoped it wouldn't happen, but then it did.
And by all accounts, "the Decision" was ridiculous. LeBron praising himself and trying to grab all the attention. A one hour special leading up to a one-sentence ending.
It was probably driven by ESPN, but LeBron didn't help himself with any of it. Fans in Cleveland had probably read the news, hinting that LeBron was going to leave them. And LeBron made it worse by dragging out the decision on national TV. They felt like he was rubbing it in their faces for everyone to see.
It was childish. It was selfish. It was immature.
And people hated it. They didn't necessarily hate the idea that LeBron wanted to try and go play with great players and try to win. No one said much when Gary Payton and Karl Malone tried to win with Kobe and Shaq. No one said much when Ray Bourque left his longtime home in Boston to try and win with Colorado.
The difference was that LeBron was in his prime. And instead of finding a Robin to help him win, he was agreeing to *be* Robin to Wade's Batman. Because, let's be honest...the Heat was Wade's team, and he had the ring. Whether or not LeBron was the better player, Wade was the one driving the bus, and LeBron was begging for a ride to the title.
The media interviewed Michael Jordan after "The Decision", and Jordan said that he would've never called up Bird and Magic to try and team up. And the reason was, simply, that he wanted to beat Bird and Magic. He wanted to beat Barkley. He wanted to beat Malone and Stockton. And that's why Jordan is known as the best player in the history of the game - because he played in an era where a lot of great players played...and he beat them all. He had Scottie Pippen to help, but Jordan got all the glory.
LeBron was acknowledging to the world that he couldn't beat Wade. And, if you can't beat him, join him.
From that point on, I declared that any comparisons to Jordan were null and void. If the guy couldn't even be the man on his own team, how could he be the best ever?
And like many people, LeBron became a villain. And it was a role he almost embraced. In his first post-decision ad for Nike, LeBron asked the world "what should I do?" and mentioned his role as a villain. But the fact was that LeBron didn't really care. He wanted to go to Miami so that he could be a champion, and he still wanted to be treated like the best player on his team. He wanted the glory Jordan got without having to work as hard for it.
In a sense, he quit again.
So the 2010-2011 season began, and ESPN latched on to the Heat like it was their lifeforce. Every game was covered heavily by the network, and there was an ongoing article called the "Heat Index" where the Big Three's performance was broken down for each game.
And, for the first few weeks, the Heat struggled. With no post presence at all and very few pieces around the Big Three, teams found a way to beat them. Teams usually win with a strong center and a strong point guard, and the Heat had neither.
Just like with his first game as a Cav in Dallas, I bought tickets to watch LeBron's first game for the Heat in Dallas. And I went, not as much to cheer the Mavs...but to boo the Heat. All LeBron's bandwagon fans showed up to the game, and one guy behind me symbolized exactly what I assumed LeBron fans cared about. Instead of cheering "Let's go Heat", he cheered "Let's go LeBron"
He didn't care about the team. He cared about LeBron. Just like...LeBron himself.
But after the early struggles, the Heat started to play well. Eventually, they rose up to a top four seed and seemed to be rolling into the playoffs. They brushed away Philadelphia, and they handled a weakened Boston team. After that series, LeBron admired himself as he claimed that he joined Wade to beat the Boston beast. That the Celtics' Big Three inspired Wade and LeBron to come up with their own Big Three. That Boston's gambit had started a chain reaction that proved that, to win, one superstar wasn't enough.
And that idea made me mad because I saw it as the end of basketball as I knew it. Forever, each team tried to get a superstar and build around him. The Lakers had Kobe. The Spurs had Duncan. The Heat had Wade. The Magic had Howard. The Mavs had Dirk. You get your guy, and you put role players around him.
Some role players (like Gasol in LA and Parker/Ginobili) were better than others. But there was, still, no denying who The Man was. In Boston and in Miami, there was a debate on who was the best of the Big Three. And all three were legit superstars.
And it didn't stop there. The Knicks were talking about trying to get Chris Paul to come to New York to join Amare and Carmelo Anthony. The Lakers were trying to add Dwight Howard to Kobe and Gasol. The Nets and Bulls were trying the same thing.
Meanwhile, the Suns and Nuggets and Magic and Hornets were getting picked clean. They were losing their superstars, and it started to look like smaller market teams in basketball were going to simply become training grounds for the bigger markets' future stars.
And I hate that. I actually love the idea of parity...and not as much in a "every team is equal" sense...but I love when different teams can win on any year. I love that, in the NFL, teams like the Ravens and Buccaneers and even the Giants have won in an era dominated by the Colts and Patriots. That, any given year, a different team could make a run. Teams that you expect to be good can stumble, and teams you'd never imagined could be good can make a run.
I love that. But in NBA, like Major League Baseball had become, was in danger of becoming a sport of 8-10 dominant teams and 10-15 doormats. I hate that.
So as the playoffs went on, it looked like Dallas and Miami were going to meet up. I feared the Heat, which were now firing on all cylinders. In addition to the Big Three, they'd added Mike Bibby and Mike Miller to the roster...two veteran guys who could definitely play. They even had scrappy players like Udonis Haslem and younger players like Joel Anthony and Mario Chalmers off the bench who had improved by playing with the Big Three.
But it wasn't just my team versus the team I hated the most. It wasn't just Dirk vs. LeBron. It was a team of three people versus a team of twelve. It was old school versus new school. A team built around three superstars versus a team built around one.
If the era of "multiple superstars" was going to be stopped, the Mavericks had to stop them. Dallas had to prove that it was still possible to win with one superstar and a bunch of other players to compliment him.
S0, yes, I was invested because it was my team. But I also was invested because it felt like the soul of the sport was on the line. And if it'd been any other team (yes, even the Spurs), I would've been cheering as loud as I could for whoever was left standing to battle the Heat.
But I knew it'd be rough. Not only were they playing Dwayne Wade...one of the greatest actors/floppers of our time...they were playing against a team that the NBA wanted to win. The network wanted them to win. The announcers even wanted them to win.
And the sad part was that no one seemed to be hiding it. The announcers on the ABC broadcast seemed to be opening cheering for Miami as if they were campaigning for jobs on the Miami broadcast team. Multiple ABC promos surrounded the Big Three, LeBron, and Wade...with almost nothing about Dirk or the Mavs.
It seemed like the world was getting ready for a LeBron championship, and no one seemed all that concerned about Dallas.
Then, the dancing in game two happened. Wade and LeBron mocked the Dallas bench as it looked like Miami was about to take a 2-0 lead. They acted like Durant in the Oklahoma City series...except that Durant had never been on that stage before. Wade and LeBron should've known better than to act that way, but they're both selfish guys who play to the cameras. They're about themselves, and they don't know how to play as a team.
After game one, the Heat players (meaning the Big Three) apparently joked about having two parades after their eventual title - one in Miami and one in Cleveland. I guess to rub it in Cleveland's face one last time.
(Which is funny because the Cleveland fans, summarized by the account CavsForMavs, had united with Dallas fans to try and "defeat pure evil" and eliminate Miami's title hopes).
Then came game four. With Miami trying to take a commanding 3-1 lead over Dallas, Dirk battled a sinus infection and a 102 fever. After Dallas won, the Miami players seemed insulted by the attention Dirk got. Because how dare ABC and ESPN, who were supposed to be the Big Three's private marketing groups, talk about anyone but LeBron and Wade?
And so the two immature guys did what immature guys do....they made fun of the other guy. Walking down the hallway before game 5, Wade and LeBron mocked Dirk's illness by fake coughing to the cameras. They both later claimed that they weren't making fun of Dirk, but they denied it like children deny things..."Nuh uh...I didn't do that! I promise!"
They lied, and they lied terribly.
And what made everything better was that Dallas won game five (in a game I attended), and LeBron kept coming up small. After only 8 points in game four, LeBron missed several shots in the fourth quarter of game five and had a crucial offensive foul that helped give Dallas the game.
And LeBron discovered that all the attention went both ways. Do good, and they're crown you prematurely. Do poorly, and they will rip you apart. And they did...for days and days, the commentators tried to figure out what was wrong with LeBron.
And it turned out the Hollinger was simply right: the two big superstars don't work well together. They don't compliment each other. And they can't win together. They'd won plenty of games against inferior opponents with skill alone...but against a team with one united goal, LeBron and Wade couldn't help each other.
And after another stinker from LeBron in game six, it was over. More criticism for LeBron, and at his press conference, he lashed out at his critics. He basically gave the same speech that Romo gave after getting dismantled by the Eagles to end his season.
At the end of the day, he was still a millionaire. He was still famous. He was still living a great life. And at the end of the day, LeBron's critics were still poor and unhappy. They still had bills they couldn't afford, and they still had to work 60-hour weeks just to get by.
The man is an immature brat, and he deserves nothing but criticism. He's been given ever opportunity to succeed, and he's failed each time. And not because he isn't the best player...because he doesn't have the drive. He doesn't have the work ethic. And he doesn't have the heart.
When the going gets tough, LeBron runs away. He did it against Boston in 2010, and he did it against Dallas in 2011. And he does it all, despite the fact the networks and league wants him to win. They give him all the calls, and they give him all the glory. They desperately want him to be Jordan if he'll just take the damn mantle.
But he won't. Because he can't. Or he doesn't know how.
LeBron has never worked a day in his life. He was born an exceptional athlete, and he's gotten by on pure athleticism his whole life. Meanwhile, players like Kobe Bryant and Dirk Nowitzki...also gifted atheletes...keep working day after day...game after game...season after season...to get better.
LeBron doesn't do that. He doesn't work. He doesn't adjust. He doesn't try and get better. He doesn't accept blame, and he doesn't try to help.
Like a kid, he makes fun. He lashes out. He denies and runs away and cries.
And that's why I hate LeBron. Why I've watched in joy all the videos making fun of LeBron and his failures. Why I've read every article that trashes LeBron's legacy, his personality, his manhood, and his work ethic. Why this title meant so much more than it would've against the Magic or the Bulls or the Celtics.
I hope LeBron never wins. I hope Wade's physical play forces him into an early retirement. I hope Bosh, tired of being ignored, tries to go elsewhere. And all the bad karma that LeBron built up keeps him from ever winning the final game of the season.
I hope that LeBron gets the destiny that Dirk almost got...being a great player that never truly wins. Where he's thrown in with Barkley and Malone...players that were great but never got it done. That never winning keeps him from being named among the game's best.
And I hope that, as he sits and watches basketball after he's retired...that LeBron realizes that he wasted all his talents. That he wasted all the God-given skill. That he could've been the best, but he lacked the heart to do it.
And that's when I hope LeBron feels his lowest. Because he could've been beloved. He could've been great. He could've been the best. But, at the end of the day, he's a kid in a man's body. And he's just too weak and too small and too scared to ever be what the rest of the world seems to want him to be.
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