OK, a confession. I'm probably not alone in this, but I don't particularly like LeBron.
As a celebrity personality, he seems like a good enough guy. The gravity of his presence in a franchise seems to warp and twist things over time to the point that there is organizational fatigue in dysfunction almost by default, but I can't entirely blame him for that. Like Jordan before him, he's somewhat earned it. I recognize every generational superstar can't be Tim Duncan.
On the court, he's a savant. Probably the GOAT, although there will always be an argument for Jordan, and he has to play another 5+ years at a really high level to match Kareem's longevity. It's incredible what he's doing at his age. We can mention the specter of PEDs but if he's using them I'm certain he's not alone in this league, and that doesn't invalidate what he's accomplished.
And as to the on court stuff, it's weird to find that I have such a hard time wanting to watch LeBron and enjoying it when he plays so well. I like ball movement, I like passing, I like unselfish players. LeBron isn't selfish on the court. He's elite in virtually every area and he has unsurpassed court vision and creativity. I guess I do tend to dislike that every team he's on inevitably bends toward whatever he wants to do. He is the team and the coach and the system, always. He seems to want to be surrounded by guys that don't need to make decisions with the ball. That makes his teams a little bit uninteresting to me in terms of how they play offense, despite how deadly they are.
Still, I don't think that's it. I enjoy plenty of superstars that hold the ball a lot and don't empower their teammates to do things. Not every superstar can be Al Horford or Steve Nash.
I was thinking about this in the wake of the Raptors getting smoked -- again -- by the Cavs, and I realized something that feels close to the heart of it:
LeBron makes being a serious basketball fan feel like a waste of time, at least when it comes to understanding the playoffs.
What's the point of knowing things about roster construction, cap space, threes versus twos, coaching strategies, ideal bench lineups, and so on ... when LeBron cuts through all of that and makes it very simple: Which team has LeBron?
The Raptors won close to 60 games this year. They had the point differential to match that win total. On paper they were clearly the best team in the East. They should have beaten the Cavs in 5, on paper.
Not just on paper, either. You could have looked at the tape and talked about the bevy of useful players on the Raptors. You could have talked about how they changed their offense to be more versatile and efficient. You could have talked about the intangibles of a core group of players that had played together a while, with a coach who had seen plenty in the playoffs and learned many tough lessons.
But the casual fan who never watches NBA basketball except in late April and May could have tuned in to see the score of any of the Cavs games against the Raptors and done just as good as job as you or I explaining what was happening:
LeBron.
Two years ago, the Warriors won 73 games and were the triumph of threes over twos, of building through the draft, of creative lineups. Any "smart" basketball fan would have said, no way can they lose to the Cavs, even with a Draymond suspension and a Curry injury.
LeBron flew in like a block on a layup in transition and smacked away any notion of the superiority of "smart" fans -- he was the only thing that mattered.
And you know, I don't like feeling that following the sport, paying attention to the regular season, listening to podcasts, and so on, that all of that doesn't matter at all when it comes to understanding what happens in the games that are most important.
I imagine if I'd been old enough to be a serious fan during the 90s I would've felt similarly about Jordan.
So bottom line, I think it's a vanity thing, an ego thing. It feels good to feel like investing time to understand the nerdy stuff of basketball helps to appreciate what happens in the most important games. It doesn't feel good to think that this sport in which I invest so much time and energy really can be as simple as who has LeBron on their team. Then it feels kind of frivolous and silly.
What do you think? Anybody identify with what I'm saying here?