
Before this season, I would explain my relationship with the NBA as something I tried when I was younger, I am glad I experienced it, but it’s in the past and I probably wouldn’t go down that road again. Kind of like a threesome in college. I would argue how the NBA sucks compared to NCAA basketball; it is an individual, every-man-for-himself type of sport, as opposed to a true team playing solely for pride. I would add in that the only time I watch the NBA is to see my friends from Duke play. While I have always been impressed with the skill level in the NBA, it just wasn’t for me. Or so I thought.


Joe Posnanski recently wrote a piece about this very subject. You should read the whole thing, because it is awesome. Entitled “The Joy of Rooting Against LeBron,” he explains why it is so much fun to hate the Heat – and he does it much more eloquently than I am doing now. He also mentions a new book coming out about Lebron, called The Whore of Akron, by Scott Raab. I think the Whore of Akron is just about the best nickname ever. Regardless, like Joe Pos, I have been genuinely motivated by Lebron and his Heat; he single-handedly morphed me into a rabid pro-basketball fan. And it got me thinking. Because there is only one other person who has changed my life out of the sheer disgust he inspired – and that is George W. Bush.


Whether you agree with my political views is really not the issue. My point is only that George W. Bush was so incredibly polarizing, and he angered such a large number of seemingly random groups to the point that he united them. And Lebron James has done the same thing. Lebron has made me care. He has made me sympathetic towards the city of Cleveland, when I used to regard it as nothing more than a punch line. He makes me not only hope for Miami to lose, but to be humiliated – sort of like how I feel about Republicans and congressional races. He has even made me fall in love again with my Knickerbockers.

