Have to admit it, I'm rooting for LeBron in this series. Winning it all without either Love, Kyrie, or Varejao would be one of the greatest accomplishments in NBA history.
This.
My dislike for LeBron waned somewhere in the middle of his run in Miami. I think some of it was seeing Wade's dirty play and realizing that LeBron doesn't typically resort to stuff like that. Behind his whining and arrogance, LeBron had never really done anything worthy of hate. Another part of it was the admission that Boston was on its way down, a fact punctuated by the trade of Pierce and KG. No point in wasting negative emotion on a rivalry that no longer really exists.
Mostly agree, though I'm still rooting for the Warriors. But most of what I disliked about younger LeBron was A. Frequent prancing and preening, in conjunction with B. Hadn't won any titles yet. Also being really really good and in Boston's way didn't help.
But he cut way down on that stuff once he got to Miami. Very little dancing on the sidelines in a regular season game type antics. I wanted the league to humble LeBron a bit before he finally started collecting rings, and I think that mostly happened. Now I don't root for the guy, but I do try and appreciate what an incredible player he is. If we live another 50 years we'll only see a handful of guys at that level again.
The hate for LeBron is petty. People find the weakest stuff to latch onto. "He preens!"... Give me a break. We look at players these days with an unfair microscope. It's such a cynical world and people can no longer appreciate greatness without trying to tear it down. LeBron is amazing. Nobody is perfect. "But he preens though!!"... Who cares.
MIchael Jordan might have been the biggest **** in league history. We have plenty of stories backing this up at this point. Michael Jordan never won without another legendary player alongside him (Bulls won 55 games without him... Cavs/Heat fail to make the playoffs without LeBron). LeBron preens... Jordan had a gambling addiction. LeBron takes 2 weeks off after leading his team to 4 non-stop brutal years of leading his team to the finals. You know what Michael Jordan was doing at the same point of his career?... taking a year and a half off.
My favorite player ever is Larry Bird. Larry Bird was one of the biggest punks in League history. You want to complain about LeBron's ego? Bird would get bored in games and exclusively shoot left handed. Bird was one of the biggest trash talkers in league history. You wanna complain about LeBron taking a 2 week break? Larry Bird apparently wrecked his finger in a BAR FIGHT that impacted his playoff performance. Can you even fathom a world in which LeBron James wrecked his right index finger in a bar fight? Can you imagine what twitter armies would do to him? The non-stop barrage of articles, blog posts, and forum articles about his dedication to the game?
But Bird's incident happened pre-internet... so we really didn't even hear about it until long after he retired. There weren't instagram photos and tweets from bar patrons who saw it happen. TMZ wasn't outside to document the whole thing.
On the night of May 16, 1985, in the middle of the Eastern Conference finals between the Celtics and Sixers, Bird was involved in a scuffle that started at a now-defunct bar called Chelsea?s and spilled out to the corner of State Street and Merchant?s Row. After the altercation, Mike Harlow, a bartender/former Colgate football player, claimed he was sucker-punched by Bird. Nick Harris, a man who was with Bird and Quinn Buckner on the night of the incident, was treated at Massachusetts General Hospital?s emergency room that night.
There was a lawsuit and a settlement. The Celtics told Bird to stay away from Harris. None of the parties ever talked about it.
Bird's right index finger was badly swollen in the days after the fight. He claimed he injured it May 18 in a game at Philadelphia, two days after the fight. He shot 46 percent in the ?85 playoffs. In his other two MVP seasons, when the Celtics won the championship, he shot 52 percent each year.
Bird didn?t speak to me for seven months after I wrote the Chelsea?s story in 1985. Twenty years later, when I teased him about it, he said, ?I hit that guy [Harlow] with my left hand!??
Can you imagine if such a story were to happen to LeBron in 2015? I mean, can you imagine even seeing a story about LeBron hanging out in a bar during the ECF? He did a brief post-game interview yesterday with D-Wade (who was one of the broadcasters last night) and fans freaked out about him spending so much time doing media when he should have been resting up for the next game.
I mean... with the way people are so loose at describing LeBron's character flaws (omg, he threw a towel on the floor... LeBron has no respect for ball boys!) can you imagine the kind of negativity publicity Larry Bird would have gotten had the story about him "abandoning his daughter" came out with him playing basketball during the internet culture? You think they would have been fair about it and listened to Bird's side of the story?... or would we have had a billion blog posts about how Larry Bird was the worst person in the NBA?
LeBron is cool in my book. I'm enjoying watching him. I'm rooting for him.
