This has been on my mind for over a week, which is way to much time to be thinking about an NBA basketball player. Even if he has the potential to be statistically and literally the greatest NBA player of all time. Is it time for me to ease up on my hatred for Lebron? Can I just let it go and be done with it? Is it even that simple? Nahhhh!
If you know me, you know I’ve hated on Lebron hard since The Decision. Prior to that, I was more obsessed with the Celtics beating the Cavs. The Celtics were the better team and Lebron was the guy without help. Plenty of players tried to help, including an older Shaq, but it wasn’t going to happen with washed up veterans trying to push the King to another level. When it came time for free agency, I said there was no way Lebron would leave his home town for some unknown team. The Cavs were his family and they would do anything for him. But Lebron was changing and his team of people wanted bigger, better and wanted Lebron to be in everyone’s face. ESPN wanted in as well, so on July 8, 2010 ESPN hosted The Decision. ESPN spent an entire show waiting for Lebron to announce his decision. They asked dumb questions and talked about even dumber things leading to Jim Gray finally getting to the only question anyone really cared about. Where was Lebron playing next year?
The problem was that this decision had happened months and maybe even years ago. Lebron, Wade and the Bostritch had discussed this while members of the USA Basketball team. And while this was and still is illegal, that’s not the point. Everyone does this and the NBA shouldn’t even have this in their rule book. All this build up was for nothing really. Just an elaborate play by everyone involved to make Lebron into and even bigger star than he already was. This wasn’t completely about winning, which is hard for me to swallow but I understand. This was about branding and imaging and making Lebron and his team a whole lotta money. The Decision itself failed to do that, but his decision to go to Miami, may in fact been about as good a decision as possible.
I immediately hated Lebron after The Decision and for most of the past three years have done my best to talk him down whenever possible. The problem with that was that I was ignoring what I loved about sports and that was that once in a while a player comes along and changes the way the game was played. Lebron had been that star and I was ignoring how bright he was shining because I couldn’t get over The Decision. Then it transformed into a different kind of hate. I hated the Heat as a team. I hated the coverage they got. But mostly, I hated how damn good they were. Even if Bosh didn’t need to be there, his ugly mug screaming every time he made a basket made me want to vomit, and it all started with Lebron. They brought in guys like Battier and Chalmers who were successful college players with tons of confidence. They added veterans every year that seemed to take on a bad boys vibe. And they kept getting better.
The best thing about it was they didn’t win right away and the Celtics still took them to seven games in 2011. But Lebron kept getting bigger and better. He added a low post game, improved everywhere else and was about as cocky/ confident as they come. I hated that ESPN’s head was so far up Lebron’s behind that they seemingly were missing out on other athletes. Choosing to make every move of Lebron a top story and running it across their bottom line as breaking news. And I wasn’t the only hater either. Everywhere I looked people were in agreement.
I just don’t feel that way anymore. I think it’s probably because I do think he’s a ridiculously good player. He’s über talented and extremely driven. Will he ever be better than Michael Jordan in my mind? Probably not, but that’s ok. And it’s ok that I hate Lebron at times too, which I will continue to do becasue I root for the Celtics and the Heat are clearly better than them right now. Michael Jordan is maybe my favorite athlete of all time and I was hating on him hard in the 1996 finals against the Sonics. It didn’t mean I hated Jordan, I just hated what he was doing to a team I was rooting for. That’s probably the same way I felt about Lebron and the Heat for the last three years. They were flying by the Celtics, even taking one of our big three this year, and we could do nothing to stop them.
I probably won’t stop calling him LeDouche because he can be a douche at times but I can’t deny how talented the guy is.