The Lebronfather

This guest blog was written by my son Matt, an excellent writer, and brilliant young man who has tied his horse (AKA a six-pack of Corona) to the wrong wagon.  It's 68-63 Bulls, starting the 4th quarter in game 4 as I post this.

There’s a scene in Jurassic Park where Ian Malcolm describes John Hammond’s handiwork:

“I’ll tell you the problem with the…power that you’re using here: it didn’t require any discipline to attain it.  You read what others had done and you took the next step.  You didn’t earn the knowledge yourselves, do you don’t take any responsibility for it.  You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew what you had you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now—you’re selling it—you want to sell it.”

I posit that if Dr. Malcolm is around today watching the NBA, he would have the same problem with the Miami Heat.

As sports fans, we all typically suffer from the same malady: we admire in our favorite players the qualities we hope we would have if God or Darwin blessed us with the same athletic ability.  If we think of ourselves as humble, we admire humility.  If we like to talk shit but feel like we can back it up, we’re more understanding of those players who run their mouths but fire daggers that kill the other team every time.  If we think we would never, ever, ever quit, no matter what, we love players who are still diving for the ball down 20 with 3 minutes left in the game.  If we’ve worked hard for something our whole lives and don’t feel like we’ve quite gotten where we want, we feel for that player who has been around a few times but hasn’t been able to climb the mountain…until maybe now.

Dwyane Wade and LeBron James are two of the best five players in the league.  Each one has been to a championship, and Wade won his with another Hall of Famer.  They are also 29 and 27 years old—not exactly pups.  They work harder at their craft than most people will work at anything their entire lives.  They have likely bled more, figuratively and literally, than most people will bleed for anything their entire lives.  (For the purposes of this story I’m going to just assume that Chris Bosh was not a factor in either the decision or The Decision.)

Am I saying they don’t have the requisite discipline?  Of course not, they’re both very disciplined individuals.  They haven’t put in enough time?  Of course not, they’re about the same age as Michael and Shaq were when they won their first championship, and older than Kobe Bryant, Bill Russell, Magic Johnson, to name just a bare few.  They don’t deserve to do what they want and play what they want?  Of course not, they’re grown-ass men, and have the same rights as everyone else in this country to live and die free.  So what’s the problem? 

Where do Dr. Malcolm and I get off saying the Heat lack discipline for what they did this year? 

If you accept our theory, consider the following:

They read what others (ostensibly, the Celtics) did and took the next step—or experienced it themselves, by getting the shit beat out of them every spring.  They brush off any and all criticism, as is their right, but they package it as simply wanting to do what they’re doing in order to have their best chance to win a championship. 

This is, quite simply, bullshit. 

LeBron and Dwyane could have played for any team they wanted; could have called up literally any team and said “Hi, we’d like to come play for you” and watched that team light itself on fire with the sale they had to get rid of players to get cap space.  Moreover, they could have played for the Chicago Bulls—the same team that is currently one offensive player from beating the Heat and probably winning a few NBA championships—with Joakim Noah and Derrick Rose.  Good Lord almighty, can you imagine?  The rest of the league might as well have taken 10 years off if that happened. 

But they didn’t just want to win. 

They wanted to play with their boys, in South Beach, on their terms, which is fine, except for the last part: before they even knew what they had, they were selling it.  They were holding their championship parade before they had even played a game.  They were talking about winning 6 or 7 championships before they set foot on a basketball court together.  They had never earned a damn thing, and then they complain about all of the haters?  Imagine that, the rest of an ultra-competitive league doesn’t like the fact that you’re bragging about all the championships you haven’t already won.

But they’re a couple of experienced players, who have both paid their dues, right? 

LeBron did carry the Cavs to that championship in 2007 with the 48 special. 

Wade put his body on the line time and time again before 2006 and after, and lost God knows how many games and years off of his career in the process. 

But LeBron’s run in 2007 was pretty much by default, blowing through an Eastern Conference that was less talented than the ACC, except for an old and arrogant Pistons team that was two years past its prime…and getting annihilated by the San Antonio Spurs. 

And Wade’s run…well, let’s just put it this way: from 1999 until 2011, the Lakers or the Spurs represented the Western Conference in the NBA Finals every year but one, winning 9 championships.

The Lakers/Spurs never played a team that clearly had more talent or a better coach; the Lakers lost in 2004 to the Pistons even though they were obviously the better team on paper, because the Shaq/Kobe dynamic was no longer tenable, and to the Celtics in 2008, when the Celtics probably had the better team—although the Lakers got revenge two years later, so you tell me?

Through the years of the Lakers and/or Spurs playing every in every Western Conference Championship Series but one, who did Wade’s Heat play in 2006? 

The Dallas Mavericks of course, who beat a San Antonio Spurs team that had won the title the year before and the year after; a Spurs team that had a gimpy Tim Duncan and still almost made it to the NBA Finals.  The Mavs took two games and a 13 point lead  into game three, and Bennett Salvatore took it from there.  Teams in this era are built to last, so how do you describe the Heat’s 2006 title in two words?

Dumb.  Luck.

Tell me that a healthy Spurs team doesn’t wipe the floor with the Heat? 

Child, please, and don't mention the fact that in the last 30 years, any team that has won an NBA title has won multiple titles (except for the ‘83 76ers and ’04 Pistons, two other dumb-luck teams historically). 

What does this mean?  The NBA is the league of dynasties, and statistically through the last 30 years, solo winners are historical anomalies.

Ok, ok, I’ve laid this grand foundation but what does it prove? 

Again, without diminishing the physical effort both LeBron and Wade put into the effort of playing the game, they were never successful on their own terms.  Their success was wholly dictated by the crappy teams around them.  So they got tired of getting pushed around by the teams they decided to emulate, and quite fairly decided to make a “super team” of their own.  But they never earned it.  They inherited a bunch of money and bought it.  Wade lucked into Shaq and his championship, but past that, neither he nor LeBron ever did anything differently in any year of their career.  Wade averaged 40 wins a year every other year but his championship season.  LeBron never learned to post up or really do anything offensively other than charge down the lane like a runaway freight train.  And the rest of the league passed them both by.  Do you ever get the sense that either of them had their heart broken by the losses they’ve suffered?  I don’t.  Wade won his when he was still young, and LeBron never seemed to give much of a damn about losing either way.  Maybe I’m just a sadist, and want to see a little pain before I can give credit for time served.

None of this should suggest that LeBron or Wade don’t respect or work hard at certain aspects of their craft, but their commensurate lack of discipline with regards to everything that happened from June until now is astonishing.  Not to dwell on the colossal, massive mistake known as The Decision, but LeBron and Wade jerked around not just Cleveland, but New York, New Jersey, and any other team or city or player that courted them for the last two years. 

Were they under any obligation to tell anyone about their future plans? 

Of course not.  But they didn’t exactly endear themselves to anyone in the process.  And LeBron owed the city of Cleveland nothing—let’s be clear about that.  But to do what they did, especially for him to go on television and break a city’s heart was—put in the parlance of our times—a bit of a bitch move.  No athlete has so completely destroyed his image and fan base without 1) committing a crime; 2) committing an offense against the sport (PEDs, gambling); 3) committing an offense against a woman.

Dwyane Wade, the ringleader, is the more fascinating figure in the drama in my opinion.  Shaquille O’Neal compared him to Michael Corleone once (he also compared Kobe to Sonny and Penny Hardaway to Fredo, but that’s neither here nor there.)  You can even extend the Godfather analogy to Pat Riley as the semi-retired Vito Corleone, and Erik Spoelstra as Tom Hagen. 

So who are LeBron and Bosh? 

Everything the Corleones didn’t have before they made their move from New York: the hotels in Vegas; the gambling; all of the other businesses; the national pull.  Just like the Corleones went all-in on their move to Vegas, D-Wade went all in with his move to bring together the big 2 ½ (I refuse to give Chris Bosh the rest of the fraction; his statistical production in this series is a complete statistical anomaly.  Carlos Boozer is making him look like Kevin McHale.)

In short, I have less of a problem with D-Wade.  He’s the mastermind.  Maybe he was just lucky enough to live in South Beach as opposed to Toronto, but somehow I don’t think so.  Somehow I just get the feeling that D-Wade was behind the scenes, pulling all of the strings.

Now LeBron…LeBron.  I’ve enjoyed watching him play as much as I’ve enjoyed watching any player over these last seven years.  He was (and still is) a joy to watch, breathtaking in his command of the game—in areas that he chooses to have command over.  The things I loved about him—his passing, his love for his teammates, the sheer unstoppable-ness of his game when he decides to be unstoppable—are qualities he still possesses, regardless of where he plays.  I don’t hate LeBron; I never did and I never will.  But he became a hell of a lot less easy to root for after his made-for-TV movie last year.

LeBron’s fans (also known as complete fucking bandwagon hoppers and 6,000 residents of Miami) will argue that he had a crappy team pretty much his entire tenure in Cleveland, and it’s almost impossible to debate this point, especially given the horrendous season the team experienced when it lost…only him.  LeBron was good for—literally—40 wins a year for that shit-storm of a franchise.  He played with exactly one current All-Star during his time there: Mo Williams, a perfectly decent player and All-Star replacement who only became an All-Star because he played with LeBron James.  It is undeniable that the team was horrifically mismanaged—they had a chance to make a run at Bibby when he was still alive and just…didn’t.  They had chance to get Shaq the season they lost to Dwight Howard in the playoffs and just…didn’t.  They had a chance to get a real coach and just…didn’t (yes, at one point Mike Brown was the next hot assistant and a defensive specialist, but after several years it should have become evident that the team needed more offensive game than LeBron in isolation over and over again.)  Maybe Danny Ferry thought that it would be enough for LeBron to play close to home, and he would just be content to stay there forever, shitty team or not.  But he wasn’t.

On the other hand…

Isn’t it strange that in LeBron’s whole time in Cleveland, he was never able to attract even one other perennial All-Star to come play with a team that was already getting 60 wins per year? 

Hmm, not able to get even one great shooting guard who would be happy to stand on the wing and average 25 points a game just because of the sheer happenstance that he was the recipient of kicks from LeBron’s drives?  Not one low-post player that would have wanted to take endless lobs from LeBron’s superlative passing?  No?  Is it possibly…potentially…maybe because LeBron would never commit to the team?  Would never commit to building the franchise past his second contract? 

You say chicken, I say egg, but it’s undeniable that LeBron had the better team than either Wade or Bosh at the beginning of their grand experiment, with not appreciably worse talent around him.  Of course, neither LeBron nor Bosh had South Beach, or no state taxes.

Leaving everything aside, the decision, the preseason championship parade, all of it, there is no excuse for the way LeBron quit on the Cavaliers last year.  None.  That’s the real reason I don’t think I could ever root for the guy again.  He had that Celtics team dominated in game two, and then he just decided he’d had enough—and then when people called him out on it he chalked it up to people expecting too much of him.  Like we’re so stupid that we don’t know.  In game six he looked like a guy who smoked a bowl and was trying to find his keys so he could drive to Circle K and get some Funyuns.  Kevin Durant and Derrick Rose might not have as many reps in the NBA as LeBron does, they might not have as many years under their belt or have acquired the same discipline that I so readily demand from him, but hell, at least they’re humble kids who work hard, praise their teammates, and accept criticism. 

And enough of all the hater bullshit. 

LeBron doesn’t owe me or anyone anything, but like Chuck said, at the very least he needs to suck it up and stop whining when people call him on his stupid crap.  All that really matters to me though is that I just can’t accept the fact that someone who would dick over that city the way he did should be able to just waltz into his championship the very next year.  Everything in me as a sports fan rebels against the idea.

Or maybe I need to suck it up and stop whining?  After all, LeBron’s “failures” are nothing more than the projection of my own thoughts onto someone else.  LeBron is our mirror—the ultimate scale against which we can all judge ourselves.  Sure I’m unemployed/beat my wife/ignore my kids/steal from my church…but I would never do that to Cleveland.  If I could ball like LeBron, I would ball until my legs gave out, until my lungs collapsed, like Eminem says.  And if I had the opportunity, I would never, ever quit like he did.

And it’s all bullshit, really.  We quit things all the time, we change jobs, we don’t give a damn about how the things we do affect anyone but a select few people around us—the people we choose to make a part of our lives.  And that’s what LeBron did.  He’s always been a guy who chose to play with friends—his boys—over the supposed best team that he could play for.  He could have played for any high school in the country, but he stayed home for St. Vincent-St. Mary’s, balled with Maverick Carter and the rest of the current LeBrontourage, and went #1 to the (not-hometown) Cleveland Cavaliers.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Nevertheless, if I’m given the choice, I’m going to root for young guns like Derrick Rose and Kevin Durant, and the old soldier Dirk Nowitzki—at least until they give me a reason not to.  Why?  Because that’s the choice I’m making.  They’re the people I choose to identify myself with now, and like so many relationships, you give people a chance until they fuck up.  If they relationship is strong enough, you get through it.  If it’s not or if they fuck up too badly, you don’t.  Well LeBron, I don’t think we ever really meant that much to each other.  Besides, I’ve met someone new—say hi to Mr. Rose.  You should be well acquainted with him at this point.

It doesn’t seem like either Rose or Durant are quite ready, though.  Like the ubiquitous not-ready-for-primetime players found on Saturday Night Live, they need to get a few more reps in before they make the jump to movies and carrying comedies that no one watches on NBC.  But Nowitzki?  Now there’s a guy who’s had his heart broken.  2006?  Up 2 ½ and lose the series?  2007?  The only MVP to get knocked out of the playoffs before being handed the trophy?  Yeesh.  Not to mention he could carry that collection of lost and ancient toys known as the Dallas Mavericks with him to a title.  It’s a great story.

Before the playoffs started, I didn’t give the Mavs too much credit to get very far.  I mentally counted them out of every series.  Well, as fate would have it, in this generational era of NBA dynasties it looks like the flash-in-the-NBA-pan city is going to get its heart broken by the other flash-in-the-pan city…again.  I was pretty sure I had all the answers—that the Lakers were going to win, that the Heat were going to lose, etc. etc. 

John Hammond thought he had all the answers too; he thought that by making all the dinosaurs female, he could control the population on the island by preventing them from breeding.  But I’m hardly ever as smart as I think, and Hammond wasn’t as smart as he thought.  Maybe Dr. Malcolm’s advice to John Hammond is the advice that every Mavs fan should take to heart right now:

“Life finds a way.”

Go get ‘em Dirk.  You need it, the city needs it, and the country needs it.  Soon, we will all be Mavs fans.  Don’t ask about those old legs, the lack of another superstar, the snake bitten coach, the history of ineptitude followed by soul-crushing playoff defeat. 

Life finds a way.  And a little discipline doesn’t hurt.