"Lebron JamesI think LeBron is a tool. I hope the Dallas Mavericks put them down in 7 games. I want it to go down to the wire, and I want the Mavs to take them in Miami. I want the Heat to suffer humiliation on their home court. That said, I think LeBron left Cleveland in EXACTLY the RIGHT way. He went out guns (and ego) blazing. He made himself the bad boy of the NBA, and that is exactly what the NBA needs.
We love the drama, we love to have someone to root for and root against. I love that LeBron finally admitted that he isn't enough of a mature leader to build a championship team in Cleveland, I love that if he wins his championship, it had to be purchased and manufactured for him. I also love that he probably won't even see it that way.
I hate to make Jordan comparisons, because they all fail miserably to make whatever point was trying to be made, that said LeBron has all the talent of a Jordan, but lacks all of the leadership."
Last night's game was very instructive on the mind set of LeBron James. He is not a clutch player, and he quits when the chips are down. The problem is beautifully summed up by Dan Gilbert, owner of the Cleveland Caveliers: “Congrats to Mark C.&entire Mavs org. Mavs NEVER stopped & now entire franchise gets rings. Old Lesson for all:There are NO SHORTCUTS. NONE.”
LeBron mistakenly thought that the name on his jersey and the people around him would deliver him a title, probably because he thinks that they owed him a championship after he told the world "I am bringing my talents to South Beach". He kept his word though, he did bring his talents to South Beach, but he also brought his sense of entitlement. However, when he got to South Beach, he found that same lack of leadership that was absent in Cleveland.
Nobody from the Heat knew who was in charge. Wade tried to keep the team together, and did his job and sent the ball to LeBron so he could 'use his talents" only to be rebuffed when LeBron, with an open eye to the basket, continued to dish the ball off to someone else, that may have been more or less open, but significantly less talented.
LeBron came to Miami looking for someone to do the hard work for him, and as he still doesn't understand that nobody is going to do that work for him.
If LeBron is going to win a championship (of course if he plays in the NBA for 17 years he is likely to stumble into one or two), he is going to have to sit down with his piles of bling and come to grips with the fact that he is going to have to be the go to guy, or he is going to have to sit in the shadows of someone else who will get to take all of the credit, and dole out little pieces of it to his teammates in a championship speech.
The problem is that LeBron has already crowned himself King, and now he probably has to go out and slay the dragon by himself. This means that he is going to have to take hard shots when his team is tired, he is going to have to take the ball, not just ask for it in tough games, and he is going to have to put other great players in HIS shadow, not just in the shadow of his ego sitting atop a big pile of bling, because legacy is always greater than bling, and legacy comes with winning championships.
Update: LeBron's commented this morning about how average fans should be getting back to the real world and stop "hating" on him, where does he think we are all blogging from? We are not blogging from our newest Bentley while crying over our dismal failures, we are not going into a doctors office to get a tattoo removed that says "King I/VIII", we are at work clicking over to email and Excel every time our boss walks by so we don't get caught blogging on work computers. We are taking that risk so that we can get our excitement out there about HIS loss, even if we had never heard of JJ Barea before last night.
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