I feel constrained to remind fans now celebrating this Heat championship – like farmers counting their chickens before they’re hatched – that all Dallas has to do is ‘steal’ one in Miami and hold home court to rain of their premature parade. Game two is scheduled for tonight in Miami.
(LeBron and Heat look invincible, The iPINIONS Journal, June 2, 2011)
This isn’t “I told you so”, but pretty damn close. Because the Dallas Mavericks did not steal just one, but two in Miami. The second of course was last night’s 105-95 win in Game 6, which ended this best of seven championship series 4-2.
But far more instructive than the caution I issued to Miami fans a couple of weeks ago (when LeBron and the Heat looked destined to sweep the Mavericks for this year’s championship) is the caution I issued to LeBron a year ago (when he announced he was taking his talents to Miami):
What made winning a championship so sweet for Dr. J and Michael has to have been finally winning on a team with which they suffered so many years of playoff frustration. Not to mention the unbridled pride and joy they brought to longsuffering fans in cities that, in the case of Philadelphia, had not won an NBA championship in almost two decades, and in the case of Chicago, had never won at all. By contrast, I fear that winning for LeBron will be bitter sweet. Not least because instead of being hailed as a basketball savior in Miami, where the Heat won a championship just years ago (in 2006), he’ll be regarded as nothing more than a hired gun who was brought in to help them win a few more….
Then, of course, there’s the inevitable conflict that will arise when some sports writers and commentators begin referring to the Heat as LeBron’s team while others continue referring to it as D-Wade’s. Because even though a domineering triumvirate seems an indispensable component of all championship teams, there’s always one player who must be treated like the undisputed star – as Kobe Bryant of the reigning NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers will readily attest.
My sense is that LeBron’s plumed ego will make it difficult for him to cope with being treated like a courtier instead of worshipped like a king. Yet, that he was quite happy to go to Miami, instead of using his unprecedented and unparalleled clout to bring D-Wade and Bosh to Cleveland, indicates how naïve he is about what it takes to assume the mantle of team (and league) leadership.
(LeBron abandons Cleveland for Miami, The iPINIONS Journal, July 13, 2010)
No doubt LeBron would give almost anything to be savoring the bitter-sweet taste of victory this morning after shooting his way to his first NBA championship. Unfortunately, he shot blanks, which for a hired gun is clearly a firing offense.
Specifically, instead of taking over games in the fourth quarter like all superstars do, LeBron scored only two points or less in the all-important fourth quarter in four of the six games in this series. Hell, there were times when he seemed too spooked to even pull the trigger.
By contrast, Dirk Nowitzki displayed all of the stuff of which franchise players and superstars is made, most notably, rising to the occasion in the all-important fourth quarter of each game (drilling 10 points last night).
Then there’s the legend-making fact that, instead of shopping around the league for a championship, he emulated Dr. J and Michael by sticking it out with his original team (for 13 years in his case) and finally delivering his city, Dallas, its first NBA title in the team’s 31-year history. (Hey, that’s 13 backwards. It was clearly meant to be….)
Now LeBron is facing the embarrassing and untenable prospect of trying to reassure not just disillusioned Miami fans, but disappointed teammates that he’s worthy of all the hype that attended his arrival. I fear however that his confidence is even more shattered than Tiger’s, which will make his ability to deliver a championship for Miami about as likely at this point as, well, Sarah Palin winning the presidency.
At least when his Cleveland Cavaliers came up short in the 2007 NBA finals against the San Antonio Spurs, his heroism was never in doubt and he could take solace in the undying and unconditional adoration of hometown fans. He will find no such solace in Miami.
I pretty much don’t listen to what everybody has to say about me or my game. All the people that were rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems they had today. I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that. So they can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal. But they got to get back to the real world at some point.
(Sports Illustrated CNN, June 13, 2011)
Sure LeBron; and he must know by now that all the money in the world can’t buy you happiness (or an NBA ring or shield you from public ridicule). In fact, this sad and patently false bravado of a clearly emotionally wrought LeBron constrains me to repeat this warning I issued in the July 13, 2010 commentary cited above:
God help him if the Heat does not win the NBA championship next year. Because failing to do so will turn his new “dream team” into a living nightmare.
To be honest, I don’t see how LeBron recovers from this. For even if he leads the Heat to an undefeated season and into the championship finals again next year, the abiding fear (among fans and teammates alike) will be that he will choke (again) when it comes time to really pull the trigger.
Meanwhile, all of this makes a mockery of his bold promise to deliver to Miami:
..not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven and hey I’m not just up here blowing smoke at none of these fans … I’m about business and we believe we can win multiple championships….
(Heat’s welcome party for LeBron, YouTube, July 10, 2010)
But, as unimpressed as I was with LeBron’s move to Miami, I was even less so with the way the Heat promoted it:
The moniker “Dream Team” is usually reserved for the group of NBA players who join forces every four years to guarantee Olympic gold in basketball for the United States. Therefore, it’s an indication of their arrogance and disrespect for what this moniker represents that Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, and LeBron James co-opted it when they joined forces last year to guarantee an NBA championship for the Miami Heat.
(Miami Heat on cold streak, The iPINIONS Journal, March 7, 2011)
That said, let me hasten to clarify that I don’t share the visceral hate so many fans of the game developed for LeBron after he abandoned Cleveland. In my original commentary on this topic, I made it clear that I thought it was a cowardly thing to do, but that he had every right to do so; so no schadenfreude for me.
On the other hand, given the way fans of the Cleveland Cavaliers were celebrating last night, you’d think it was their team that actually won. But this only goes to show how much celebrating one’s own victory and reveling in the defeat of an arrogant SOB have in common.
It might be unseemly, but given the way LeBron dumped them (with such pomp and circumstance), I don’t blame these fans for celebrating this Mavs’ victory over LeBron’s new team as if it were their own.
Related commentary:
Miam Heat on cold streak
LeBron and Heat look ‘invincible’
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