NBA At 2: Restoring LeBron’s Legacy
Regular readers of this column know that this writer is none too fond of LeBron James. What is often misunderstood is that my dislike is, most particularly, of LeBron the icon and not LeBron the player. LeBron is a decent enough guy deep down, from what I can tell, but he has been damaged – perhaps irreparably – by the culture we have created around American athletes.
For LeBron it started in high school, when Sports Illustrated labeled him "King James," a moniker that was soon followed by even more ridiculous hype as he entered the NBA. A person who doesn’t follow the NBA would no doubt be convinced that LeBron has replaced Michael Jordan as the best player in the world based upon the hype that surrounds his every move. If LeBron wipes his nose on his sleeve it’s a front page story and sure to be featured on SportsCenter. It’s just that stupid.
But let’s take a step back from the hype for a second. What does all of this have to do with LeBron himself? Other than having an incredibly inflated ego, the direct result of the aforementioned media hype, LeBron has done nothing since being drafted into the NBA but work hard, perform at an elite level, and put himself in a great position to win an NBA championship. His freakish physical gifts make him arguably the best athlete in the game today, and when he gets a head of steam going he is simply unstoppable. You can foul him, try to take a charge, or just get out of the way. Take your pick.
The problem that I have with LeBron the icon is the same problem that most of his detractors have, including fans of the Cleveland Cavaliers. It’s not with LeBron, personally, but rather with the misguided decisions he has made along the way. What must be understood to fully understand my position on this is that LeBron does not make those decisions. They are made for him. Take, for example, the horribly done "Decision" we saw take center stage last summer. In the book Those Guys Have All The Fun, Jim Gray, who hosted the spectacle of supreme idiocy, describes exactly how that idea came about. The following is an outtake from Deadspin.com:
Gray explains in the book that the idea was born at Game 2 of the L.A.-Boston finals, when he spoke to Maverick Carter, CEO of James’s marketing company, and talent agent Ari Emanuel. Gray asked Carter if he could have the first interview with James after he had made The Decision, which at that point was still just a decision. Carter agreed, and Gray’s idea soon took another form:
JIM GRAY:
…by the end of the conversation, I said, ‘Better yet, Maverick, why don’t we do this: Why don’t we go buy an hour of network time, you produce the show, you own the show, I get to do the interview, and you have LeBron make the announcement of where he’s going to go.’ Before I got the last three words out of my mouth, Ari said, ‘That’s a brilliant idea. That’s unbelievable. Maverick, you ought to do that!’ Then Maverick looked at Ari and said, ‘Okay. You want to handle it?’ Ari said, ‘Yeah, that’s great, let’s do this.’ Maverick then said, ‘You know what, we can raise a bunch of money for charity, so that no one will think LeBron is going to profit from this.’ Then Maverick told me to stay in touch with him, And Ari, and that was that.
You see how sleazy this entire process was? This was all about Jim Gray trying to keep himself relevant and the pimps around LeBron trying to make as big a spectacle as possible out of their client. In truth, LeBron was the tool in this massive money-making scheme, and while he made a bunch of money himself, he would have made that money with or without the "Decision." This was Gray, Carter, and Emanuel trying to milk it for all it was worth, even throwing a little money to charity merely as a weapon of mass distraction.
This is a growing problem in the NBA today, and no one illustrates it better than LeBron James. He allows his "people" to sell him out at every turn, even going so far as to sell appearances at bars in the cities Miami visits, all to make a few bucks for these third party leeches. You’d be surprised how many NBA players have financial problems because their entourages are busy spending their money while the athletes themselves are busy working hard to make the most of their careers and try to win championships.
There are two solutions to this problem, though neither is very likely to happen. The first would be for the media to allow players to achieve something significant before loading them down with labels. Is LeBron James really "The King," "The Chosen One," or even one of the best players of all time? Come talk to me after he’s won four championships. That would, at least, put him in the company of Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, and Tim Duncan – this generation’s best players. Until then, let the man accomplish something without the extra weight of labels slowing him down.
Second, it would really be nice if the NBA had a universal program that helped players manage their money. I’m not talking about turning their millions over to Uncle Charlie, I’m talking about a serious investment program that helps protect young players from themselves. What do you expect to happen when an inner city kid who has never had a dollar to his name is suddenly handed hundreds of thousands of dollars or even millions of dollars? Many of them blow it themselves, but there are also people coming out of the woodwork looking for a handout. Long lost relatives, forgotten friends and even fraudulent investment types suck the lifeblood out of these young athletes, often even without their knowledge.
These factors have conspired to make LeBron James the icon a very dislikable figure, and these factors are why he’s so hated in many segments of the NBA. This is a young man who was very gifted and excelled at basketball, grabbed the world’s attention in high school, has become a world class athlete in the NBA, and is fighting for a shot at an NBA championship. If the story were to stop there, it would be very easy to like LeBron.
But the story doesn’t stop there. People are behind the scenes milking LeBron’s name for all it’s worth, and that’s what makes the LeBron icon distasteful.
If the Jim Grays, Maverick Carters and Ari Emanuels were out of the picture, LeBron might just be a respected star across the league. Instead, he is often regarded as a self-serving egomaniac who happens to be good at basketball, and that is unfortunate. It also won’t change until LeBron himself gets tired of it and decides to take control of his own destiny. We can only hope that he’ll come to realize that before his career is over, his money is gone, and his legacy is defined more by stunts like "The Decision" than by his excellence on the basketball court.
Up Close: Kenneth Faried
The 2011 NBA Draft is believed by many to be the weakest draft in over a decade, but what that really means is there aren’t a lot of players in the mix who scouts believe will be star-caliber players in the NBA. That doesn’t mean there aren’t good players available, especially for teams looking to add the intangibles that star players don’t always bring. One such intangible is Morehead State’s Kenneth Faried, who hangs his proverbial hat on defense, hustle, and rebounding . . .things absolutely every NBA team needs. HOOPSWORLD caught up with Faried in Chicago this week and here’s what he had to say.
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The Surprise Contenders?
Up until now we haven’t really talked about the Oklahoma City Thunder in terms of them being contenders. Not just yet. We’ve recognized Kevin Durant as one of the top talents in the NBA, we’ve looked at the growth of players like Russell Westbrook, James Harden and Serge Ibaka and talked about how good the Thunder are going to be in the near future. In all of those conversations, though, the focus has really been on next season, or perhaps the season after. Very rarely have we given the Thunder credit for possibly being contenders this year, but perhaps it’s time to start having that conversation.
{AUTHOR_BOX}The Thunder team we saw in Dallas on Thursday night showed all the signs of being a team that can win a championship. They hung tough through an early Dallas push, came right back swinging, and didn’t buckle under the pressure as the more veteran and playoff-tested Mavericks tried to make a last-ditch run to win the game. It wasn’t just Kevin Durant putting the Thunder on his back, as he has done so many times before, but a complete team effort that ultimately sent Dallas to a 100-106 defeat and allowed the Thunder to steal come court advantage as the series shifts to OKC.
Specifically, three Thunder reserves did the bulk of the damage during the crucial fourth quarter. James Harden, Eric Maynor and Daequan Cook combined to go 8-for-10 from the field in the fourth quarter alone, allowing Russell Westbrook to watch from the sidelines and Kevin Durant to play a supporting role as their teammates pushed ahead in what was a stunning win in enemy territory.
"We play hard; that’s one of the things we do," said Thunder head coach Scott Brooks after the game. "It’s not always pretty, but their effort is usually there every night, every possession, and it was tonight."
Sitting courtside, that one glaring separation between the Mavericks and the Thunder was precisely that. The Thunder played hard on nearly every possession. The Mavericks played hard at first, but then seemed to believe that the Thunder would just give it up and head home. There was little defensive pressure as OKC shot better than 50% throughout and finished at a hair under 56% for the game. If Harden wasn’t wide open behind the three-point arch, Nick Collison was undefended as he drove to the basket. Durant did his share of the damage, scoring 24 on the night, but the complete team effort on both ends of the floor enabled the Thunder to steal home court.
It’s also what makes this team look like a contender.
As Mavericks head coach Rick Carlisle said after the game, a seven-game series is a long series. There is a lot of intrigue, there are lots of plot twists. Just because the Mavericks gave up home court on Thursday night does not, by any means, indicate that they are out of the series. After all, we’re talking about a team that went 28-13 on the road, just one game off of their 29-12 home mark. Still, the Oklahoma City Thunder have taken two major steps forward this season in advancing to the Western Conference Finals. Last night they showed that they are ready to take the next one and make it all the way to the NBA Finals.
The Mavericks had better bring their A Game on Saturday, when this series convenes in OKC.
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