2012 NBA Finals: The (t5!) Cap Off
Last Tuesday night, the night of Game 4 of the NBA Finals, Ikha and I went out on a mission to devour as many cheap wings as our stomachs would allow. I also wanted the experience of watching championship basketball with a drunken crowd. It seemed like a wonderful idea at the time, but the problem was that the lounge that served these savoury, 35 cent chicken propellers decided to put on the Euros instead. Perhaps a bigger problem was that no one else seemed to be bothered by this. On any other night, this was pardonable; everyone is entitled to enjoy whatever. Any other NBA Finals matchup even and I wouldn’t have been this aggravated. This year, however, was special. The two greatest basketball superstars on the planet were fighting for the same crown1, altering each other’s shots and affecting each other’s possessions, diving for the same ball and battling for the same square inch of hardwood. The last time the top two vote-getters of the MVP awards faced each other in the Finals was 1998 when Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls beat Karl Malone’s Utah Jazz in six games. But even when we’re blessed with this rare meeting of heavenly entities, the people around me were more pissed about their ranch dressing running out than about missing this game. Nevertheless, I am able to live with the fact that the NBA is perceived as an inferior league in this country2. It’s frustrating, but to quote Kurtis Blow, these are the breaks.
I’m more frustrated with these alleged NBA fans that were purposely ignoring these games once it was clear that the Miami Heat were the better team. At some point during the series, it became inevitable that LeBron James was going to be crowned, and these vitriolic haters didn’t tune in for the coronation. Don’t get me wrong, I am a big proponent of hate. I have dedicated years on hating players like Kobe Bryant, John Starks, Sidney Crosby, Eli Manning, and Alex Rodriguez3. Although as a fan of sports, I would like to think that even when I hated, I had never renounced the talents and achievements of these athletes (unless I hated because of incompetence and lack of dedication).
LeBron haters, however, possess the solipsistic mindset that if they didn’t see it, it didn’t exist. To them, LeBron James’ extraterrestrial accomplishment during his Finals run can remain a fabricated myth. But it’s a thing that happened. In 23 games, he averaged 30.3 points, 9.7 rebounds, and 5.6 assists. He posted a 30.3 PER, which is fourth-best among NBA players who played at least 15 games in a single post-season4. With all those numbers listed, those prodigious statistics doesn’t even give justice to what he did. His determination to silence his critics made him seem unstoppable on the court. When you watched him during these playoffs, he had an aura of fortitude reminiscent of what killers in slasher movies have when they’re hunting their victims. It’s sad that the haters of LeBron refused to appreciate what he did because of their hate. When their future children and grandchildren ask them to talk about the benevolent folklore of King James one day, all they will say is that he took his talents to South Beach and that he wore a headband to cover his receding hairline.
The unfortunate part of it all is that unless you’re from Cleveland, there’s no legitimate reason why this guy is so hated. If there was, no one in my Twitter or Facebook newsfeed has provided a logical one. If you’ve watched him lately, he literally does everything we wish a basketball player would do on the court: he is the most athletically gifted basketball player we’ve ever witnessed; his basketball IQ belongs to basketball Mensa; he is one of the greatest passers the league has ever seen and he is willing to downgrade his role as a facilitator in order to make his teammates better; he is a consummate hard worker; he is one of the most debilitating defensive players in the league5. Before 2012, my biggest criticism of his was that he didn’t seem to care about improving his skill set during the offseason, but he addressed every single flaw of his game before the lockout-shortened season started. He stopped settling for jump shots, he adapted a post game, and he learned how to play off the ball. He became a more efficient player by taking less threes and driving more to the basket. “The best thing that happened to me was losing the Finals, and me playing the way I played,” he claimed during an interview, "because basically, I got back to the basics. I knew I was going to have to change as a basketball player and as a person to get what I wanted. It just happened one year later."
And all of his clutch time woes that people constantly assaulted him with? During this run, he recorded a number of outstanding clutch performances to shut his denigrators up. In the second round, when Miami was down 2-1 to the upstart Indiana Pacers, he posted 40 points, 18 rebounds, and 9 assists in Game 4. In the conference finals, when Miami was down 3-2 to the punchy veterans of the Boston Celtics, he went on full Khal Drogo mode in Game 6 and posted 45 points and 15 rebounds. He was +16 in the clutch (last five minutes, score within five) plus/minus during these Finals, coming up big on a couple of crunch time moments like the bank shot that sealed Game 2 and the big three in Game 4 while he was battling leg cramps.
Before Thursday night, the only valid criticism you could have thrown at him was that he has never won a ring. Now that he’s addressed that, the only straw that LeBron haters are grasping at is the fact that Michael Jordan has won six championships and Kobe Bryant has won five. Just remember though that Jordan was 28 when he won his first championship in 1991 and Kobe was 30 when he won his first championship without Shaquille O’Neal. LeBron James is 27 right now. Regardless, this recent performance—whether or not there’s a championship attached at the end of it—belongs in NBA’s pantheon. When his career is judged when all is said and done, the number of rings he rocks should be irrelevant in the same way that the number of Emmy awards The Wire won never gets mentioned whenever that show is praised.
Now I’m not bold enough to predict that the Heat will go on and win every championship from now until LeBron retires (not four, not five…). However, as long as the Big Three remain relatively healthy, and as long as the front-office can keep surrounding them with role players willing to play for bargain contracts6, the NBA finals can be an annual appointment for LeBron. I guess a considerable obstruction to multiple titles is “The Disease of More”, a term coined by Miami Heat President Pat Riley when he was coaching the Lakers in the Eighties. It states that “success is often the first step toward disaster”, meaning that after everyone sacrifices to win as a group, they want to reap the rewards as individuals. Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, or even Mario Chalmers could very well want more touches and more prominent roles next season, causing them to crumble from within. Personally, I can’t see this tight-knit group of teammates and friends being infected by this disease, but you never know. Wade might have decided that he wants to start gunning for that season MVP that has eluded him in the past, and even though LeBron is unselfish enough to let his best friend win it, the Heat aren’t as scary when this year’s MVP is riding shotgun.
It’s also entirely possible that this year’s runners-up, the Oklahoma City Thunder, claim the title next year. They do have the league’s smoothest scorer (Kevin Durant), the league’s most explosive firecracker (Russell Westbrook), and the league’s most cunning offensive player (James Harden) as their own small-market version of the Big 3. They have a premier perimeter defender (Thabo Sefolosha), a premier post defender (Kendrick Perkins), and a guy who blocked 1 out of the 10 shots he came across (Serge Ibaka). Most importantly though, they have the league’s smartest roster manager in GM Sam Presti, and if they want to return to this very position next year, it’s up to him to keep this core intact. If the Heat and Thunder meet up in the Finals yearly from now on, and LeBron vs. Durant becomes our generation’s Bird vs. Magic, I am perfectly fine with that. Thankfully, the Euros won’t be stealing the Finals’ spotlight until 2016.
1 Basketball is different than any other team sport because the two best players can really go head-to-head for the duration of an entire game. Durant vs. LeBron is not like Manning vs. Brady, or Crosby vs. Ovechkin, or Joe DiMaggio vs. Ted Williams. They are offense and defence. For 48 minutes (if their respective coaches allowed them to play all game), they were altering each other’s shots and affecting each other’s possession. They were diving for the same ball and battling for the same square inch of hardwood. They argue that the NBA is a superstar league? That’s because it’s the only team sport where superstars can try to out-superstar another superstar.↩
2 Hockey will ALWAYS be the bigger sport to Canadians, but at least, don't be unfair when judging basketball. My biggest sports discussion hulk up was when a guy I barely knew in University said that basketball is stupid and pointless because they just trade baskets for 48 minutes. I love both sports, but they are completely different. I've always argued that hockey is the best sport to watch and basketball is the best sport to follow . The NHL is like Die Hard in that you probably don't need a plot to revel in all the action and thrills; The NBA is like Mad Men in that watching it is as fun as discussing it afterwards (or listen to other people discuss it).↩
3 Kobe Bryant is an entitled sociopath, John Starks is a swaggering pest, Sidney Crosby is an overachieving valedictorian, Eli Manning is a lucky bastard, Alex Rodriguez is a snooty metrosexual.↩
4 The only playoff performances that LeBron didn't surpass were Michael Jordan's 1990-1991 (32.0 PER), Michael Jordan's 1989-1990 (31.7), and Shaquille O'Neal's 1999-2000 (30.5).↩
5 Because of LeBron's mix of speed, size , and strength, he has ability to guard all five positions and he does so effectively. The only player in the history of the NBA that can do that is Magic Johnson. The difference is Magic sucked at defense.↩
6 Steve Nash? Grant Hill? Greg Oden? Come on over!↩
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