I'm just going to put it out there from
the start- I don't think LeBron James will ever become the greatest player to
ever play basketball. There I've said it, please leave your complaints at the
end. I am not a hater, just resigned to the fact that he will never live up to
the potential he fully had in him to top Michael Jordan as the greatest player
ever.
If LeBron was ever going to beat
Michael Jordan in that department he should have won the championship last
year. It's not a question of whether physically he has it but the mental side
of it. MJ never folded over and capitulated in an NBA Finals, he never joined
forces with an arch rival in the prime of his career. Jordan's desire to win
and enforce his will on others may never be replicated in SPORTS history. He
was truly one of a kind.
LeBron has the
physical tools to match Jordan but he doesn't nearly have the competitive drive
to match. You can't just manufacture that drive either, if he had it he would
have won a championship by now, pure and simple, because physically he can
dominate any team, any player he chooses. LeBron though has a sense of
entitlement and a tinge of arrogance which rubs many people the wrong way(The Decision, moaning to refs, mocking
opposition), something MJ was very good at hiding to the public. LeBron also
focuses a large amount of his time on his image and brand, trying to be 'hip'
and 'cool' and part of the in crowd.
His career is
indicative of the generation of players directly impacted by MJ's career.
Almost all the superstars of today have failed to replicate, or come close to
for that matter, MJ's career successes on and off the field (Kobe Bryant being
the exception).
So, with all that
being said LeBron is on the verge of winning his first championship got me
thinking- how will the result of this series impact the rest of his career and
how will he be compared and ranked with the other NBA greats to play the game?
Where
He Stands
Many will argue that it's too early in
his career to talk about his career implications for. LeBron is, after all,
only 28 years old and still in his prime. He's maybe the best
athlete-physically- to ever play the sport of basketball, he is a beast on both
ends of the court and he still has several years of dominating the league
before his skills begin to decline.
That maybe all good but consider he has
lost two Finals previously. He's into his ninth season(where did
those years go?) already! Not one superstar of his calibre of the NBA had to
wait this long for their first championship: here is a list of the greatest
players since 1979 to play and what number season career wise did they win
their first championship:
- Michael Jordan (7th Season)
- Magic Johnson (1st Season)
- Larry Bird (2nd Season)
- Kobe Bryant (4th Season)
- Tim Duncan (2nd Season)
- Dwayne Wade (3rd Season)
- Shaquille O'Neal (8th Season)
- Hakeem Olajuwon (10th Season)
- Kevin Garnett (13th Season)
- Dirk Nowitzki (13th Season)
The final three on
the list are the most interesting when comparing with LeBron. All three
dominated their particular positions for parts of their careers and it took
them a while to win their first championship. Both Garnett and Nowitzki
suffered from the lack of supporting players early in their careers, just like
LeBron did. However they both can't match LeBron in terms of dominating the
league year in, year out as he has done almost since the time he entered the
league.
Whether
you accept it or not(I think he, himself, is more than aware of it), time is
slipping away for LeBron to live up to the expectations placed on him to win
multiple championships and become one of the top two or three players to ever
play the game.
So I present you with
the two NBA Final outcomes and how they directly affect LeBron's
subsequent career and legacy.
Outcome A- Miami win the NBA Finals
LeBron
is undoubtedly playing like the MVP in NBA Finals so far. He has been out of
this world to be honest since Game 6 of the Indiana series. Here are his stats
since then (taken from Grantland.com and up until Game
3): 45.4 minutes, 32.5 points, 10.0 rebounds, 4.3 assists, 1.6 steals,
51.3 percent shooting, 3.1 turnovers. He's getting three minutes a game
off, an absurdly low amount. He is still shooting over 50% from the
field though and he has been making big shots in the 4th quarter. This has been
one of the sticking points for LeBron's critics over his career- his knack of
disappearing in big time pressure situations.
Now if LeBron can carry on playing like this all the way to a
championship I believe critics will back off from and put him amongst the Top 5
players to ever play the game. He carried a team with an injured Dwayne Wade
and Chris Bosh as well as a mediocre supporting cast all the way to the NBA
Finals. This would be classed as an amazing performance by any other player in
the NBA, but for LeBron this is classed as merely living up to his potential.
It really shows how great a player he is when such high expectations are placed
on him. To win the championship will be THE defining moment of his career
and it will only be for the better, no more second guessing and wondering, a
monkey off his back.
For
LeBron to be truly classed as one of the Top 5 players ever he will have to win
at least three championships and give the likes of Larry Bird and Kobe Bryant a
run for their money. He would have to win almost every championship from now on
till he was 35 to top Michael Jordan as the greatest player. I think this is
extremely unlikely, as talented as LeBron James is, because of reasons I will
highlight in the next outcome scenario.
Outcome B- Durant and Thunder win the
NBA Finals
Now if somehow LeBron and the
Heat lose to the Thunder after being up 3-1 in the series, this would be THE biggest choke in NBA history and would damage his legacy irreparably, I
believe. Not one of the NBA superstars listed above has lost their first 3
Final appearances. To lose in such a crushing way would leave LeBron’s
career in limbo. He already has a reputation for choking so this result would
just confirm to many that he doesn't have what it takes to win. He would easily
be the greatest player to never win a championship at this stage of his career
by a long shot.
Age is also against the Big Three as
the graph in this excellent article shows. James and Bosh are at their peaks
while Wade is on the downside. If the NBA stood still this might not be such a
problem but it doesn't. Regardless of who wins these Finals the Heat are going
to find it more difficult to win championships as their star players reach the
twilight points of their careers and the likes of the Thunder and Derrick
Rose's Bulls reach their peaks. The time for LeBron and the Heat to win is now.
Stat to consider: No team in the NBA Finals has
ever WON A GAME when they are down 3-1 (30-0 all time record).It would be a monumental choke if the
Heat lost this series from this position. Bet that's a relief for LeBron.
Part 2- A mid-career look at where LeBron will rank among the greats when he retires. Link Here
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