Thursday, June 09, 2011

Here We Are Now, Entertain Us

"A disaster of mammoth proportions."

"Inexplicable."

"Inexcusable."

"Mystifying."

These and dozens (if not thousands) of other words died in vain over the past two days, sent forth to battle from the tongues and pens of the warriors of the great chattering sportshype machine in response to LeBron James' subpar and oddly passive effort in the 4th quarter of Tuesday's NBA Finals Game 4. General Stephen A. Smith implied (hell, he asserted) on this morning's Mike and Mike Show that LeBron was facing personal issues that were impacting his performance. (In a stunning display of both cowardice and look-at-me yellow journalism, Smith also claimed to know all about the issues, but declined to elaborate.)

Let us stipulate that James, the most physically gifted player in the NBA indeed played badly and un-starlike in the quarter in question. Let us further stipulate that his self-aggrandizing "Decision" was badly conceived and terribly executed. But we come here today not to bury LeBron James, but to wonder what the fuck we as a sports society want from him?

While we all say championships are what matter and build shrines to winners, we have an oddly skewed perspective on LeBron. Instead of celebrating a player who has routinely sublimated his (fairly massive) ego in pursuit of a championship, we flay LeBron any chance we get. The man took less money to play with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. He was clearly the star of the Eastern Conference Finals with his two-way play against Derrick Rose and the Bulls. And now, four games later, he's a bum because Wade's outshone him against the Mavericks? Bullshit.

Sally Jenkins rode to the rescue in today's Washington Post, channeling no less a sage than Phil Jackson, the man who convinced both Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant that they needed to share the ball at least a little in order to win. Says Jenkins,
“The fact is, selflessness is the soul of teamwork,” Jackson said a few years ago to EnlightenNext magazine. “We have a practical rule in our game: When you stop the basketball — when it resides in your presence and you hold it for longer than two counts — you’ve destroyed our rhythm. When the ball is in your hands, you become the focal point. And when you become the focus, our system breaks down. It’s that simple.”

“It doesn’t matter how good individual players are — they can’t compete with a team that is awake and aware and trusts each other. People don’t understand that. Most of the time, everybody’s so concerned about not being disrespected. But you have to check that attitude at the door — that defensiveness, that protection of your own image and reputation. Everybody needs help in this game.”
It's not enough to win now, we need style points. We need our superstars to win the right way, to dominate, to see their enemies driven before them, to hear the lamentations of their women. And to do it selfishly, individually, alpha male-style. That seems a perversion of everything we teach our kids and claim to want from our colleagues.

For obvious reasons, I have a soft spot for LeBron
. I'm rooting for him to have a big game tonight and lead the Heat to a win. And then I want him to walk over to the nearest big-mouth media member and stab him to death with a pencil, exclaiming for all our blood-lusting benefit, ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?

Stephen A. would still call him a pussy.

35 comments:

  1. If the Heat win, I hope all of these dipshit reporters feel like clowns for crushing the guy.

    The series is tied 2-2 and the Heat play two of the next three at home. They are in a pretty good spot, folks. Let's not panic.

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  2. All this spilled ink is just a bunch of territorial pissings.

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  3. Fantastic. If I still had a blog, I probably would've written at least 10 versions of this post over the past few months.

    Game 3: Miami wins and close and exciting game. #1 story - LeBron James didn't take shots in the 4th quarter.

    Game 4: Dallas wins a close and exciting game. #1 story - LeBron James didn't play well.

    We should separate the LeBron James media phenomenon with his performance in game 4. He wasn't good in game 4 - no question about it. And you can't even go to his defense, because Jason Terry was going around him in the 4th with ease. The only real positive you can say is that he knew that he didn't have it going, so he didn't shoot his team out of the game.

    Bottom line is that LeBron has demonstrated over the past year that he cares a lot more about team success than he does about personal glory. For everybody else in the world this is a virtue, but for him it's a mortal sin.

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  4. Hoopspeak.com is a good source for logical and often contrarian basketball material. Also TrueHoop and the TrueHoop network.

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  5. There's really only two things we can be sure about with the game tonight:

    1) It will start too late tonight.
    2) I will be asleep on my couch before the game ends.

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  6. I might forget a lot, and often, but I do remember Jerry being on board with this a looooong time ago.

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  7. TR told me that the Heat are going to win in 5 and I still believe him.

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  8. remember when igor told grantland not to copy us?

    well, they copied us:

    http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6626431/space-time-dvr-mechanics

    http://gheorghe77.blogspot.com/2008/09/true-confessions.html

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  9. The problem with sportscasters is that they aren't smart enough to be sportswriters, and they have to do stuff to distinguish themselves from all the other blathering talking heads, so we wind up with these blatantly stupid over-the-top arguments. Even the average sportswriter is too hackneyed to come up with truly interesting material, which is why guys like Simmons and Klosterman stand out. And Simmons isn't a great writer -- he has excellent ideas, but he doesn't write particularly well. See, e.g., his Grantland intro. A truly great writer can churh out 5,000 compelling words about nothing.

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  10. the nba is stupid. the games start too late, and the players are too big for the size of the court and the height of the basket.

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  11. of oourse, teaching in 100 degree weather without A/C might be making me sleepy and angry.

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  12. So Rashard Lewis slipped it into Bron Bron's lady?

    http://tinyurl.com/3lxz2zx

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  13. Klosterman stealing Squirrel's bits...well I'll be damned.

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  14. Klosterman writes better than you, Rob. But it's close...

    Only issue I had with Simmons' intro to the site was that he came off as 100 years old. Most of his readers are used to various internet sites with daily-updated content, various writers and features. He made it sound like he thought he was the first guy to do it.

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  15. Tell Klosterman to keep his hands off of rob's bits.

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  16. I like how Dave doesn't watch the NBA but has decided it's "stupid". Thanks. That's a useful opinion.

    I agree with most of what Rob said. I, however, have a few issues. First, stop with the "he took less $" argument. You sound like Cowherd. It's not much less money, the lack of state taxes in Florida makes up for it...AND I'm pretty sure the Heat will catch him up on the back end. Also, other than signing with the Heat, when else did LeBron sublimate his ego in pursuit of a championship? Not saying he hasn't. Just can't recall a specific instance.

    As for him being "a bum", I agree that that is a ridiculous point of view. He has shown a certain lack of killer instinct (at times) though. I'm okay with guys having a bad game but to be totally disengaged from the game (on both ends) and react like a scared JV player who can't the ball out of his hands fast enough when you're the best player in the game is inexcusable and certainly something he should be taken to task for. It's especially telling when compared to Wade, who can hurt his team by being too aggressive even when he doesn't have it going, but can never be accused of "shrinking" from the moment. He may not come thru (missed FT, near turnover at end of Game 4) but he busts his ass for the win, thats for sure.

    I'm not asking LeBron to win selfishly. His performance in Game 3 was fine (7 second half assists is pretty damn impactful) but Game 4 was terrible and I don't think that can be debated. I'd also argue that his lack of engagement was just as, if not more, detrimental to his team than if he had a poor shooting night and kept chucking. The Heat need LeBron to be active in the halfcourt. When he stands in the corner or refuses to explore the defense out of a P&R it severely limits their ability to create opportunities in halfcourt sets.

    He's still an unselfish, unbelievably talented, multi-dimensional player but I don't think I'm out of line for at least questioning some of his mental toughness based on Game 4, last year's Game 5 in Boston and his decision to join Wade and Bosh in Miami.

    I'm sure he'll be fine tonight. If he isn't engaged in the game though, he should get killed for it. Dirk was ripped after the 2006 Finals and the 1st round exit in 2007 and that was just for being "punked" by physical guys like Udonis Halsem (2006) and Stephen Jackson (2007). We were all okay with that, no? This is the life they've chosen. This is the biggest stage in said life. If you don't deliver you're going be ripped. Just the way it is.

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  17. i watched a half an hour of the NBA the other night!

    i used to love to watch jason kidd play for the nets, so i had some rooting interest, but it was so stupid looking i couldn't watch the whole game.

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  18. And I said to myself, this is the business we've chosen; I didn't ask who gave the order, because it had nothing to do with business!

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  19. Also, Simmons at least partially contradicted himself with his latest post. Months ago, using the Disney co-CEO analogy, said there can't be two alphas on the team. Then today he seemed to be complaining about "how easily" LeBron has deferred to Wade in the finals. Not saying he hasn't, but just another example of how Bron can't get a break
    .

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  20. mayhugh falls into the common fallacy of thinking that a longer piece of writing (or anything) is better than a shorter one. 'sokay, i'm used to it. also, if i had the kind of time klosterman has to write, i'm sure i'd...still not be as good as him.

    and mark, i hear you about the money issue, but it is one of many things sportsland contradicts itself about vis a vis lebron. we say winning is what matters, and then when he does something that puts winning ahead of other considerations (even if only a little), we kill him.

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  21. Mobile blogger is now pissing me off.

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  22. Alternative theory: LeBron only scored 8 points in game for so that he could achieve a total of 69 for the series.

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  23. Based on recent history, if Miami wins a few titles, nobody should remember the occasional bad game by LeBron. Kobe's had his share of bad playoff games, especially in the Shaq era, and he's the ultimate winner/closer/warrior/etc.

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  24. now deadspin's stealing our shit. sort of. okay, not really:

    http://deadspin.com/5810407/stephen-a-smiths-the-one-starting-rumors-about-lebrons-personal-life

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  25. Remember when we were kids and the TV camera would pan to the Knicks' bench and you'd get a shot of Herb Williams and you'd say to yourself, "Jesus that guy's old!"? Juwan Howard is that guy now ... and he's only a year older than me.

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  26. Zman, I had the same reaction. Rob and I used to cheer on Juwan at the Cap Centre when we were 24, single, living in squalor with a couple of other dudes, and drinking large amounts of swill beer most nights. Feels like a generation ago, so seeing him out there nowadays makes no sense to me.

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  27. Forget LBJ...I was at the Glee concert tonight, and it was SO MUCH FUN!

    And there were a surprising number of straight men in the audience.

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  28. And I feel REALLY old watching Juwan in the Finals. I remember his rookie year...but he looks pretty good for an old guy.

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  29. Juwan Howard is trending on twitter now.
    WORLDWIDE

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  30. This game is entertaining. The Finals are great. I want the Mavs to win just because I want 7 games.

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  31. 2 Points, 1 of 4 from the field, 0 free throws. Jordonesque 4th quarter if you ask me.

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