You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.
How damn good Lebron James is.
I’m watching game six of the Eastern Conference Championship against the Celtics in Boston.
The boys in green are up 3 games to 2. They win they advance to the finals.
The Miami Heat must win to force a game 7.
So what do the Heat do?
They ride the Thoroughbred.
Lebron James is that Thoroughbred. He is Secretariat and Sea Biscuit all rolled into one.
In 3 quarters he has 41 points. That’s a season for some guys. Lebron James has bull dog’s bite and surgeon’s skill. He has a gambler’s heart and a magician’s flare for the unexpected.
I am sitting here mesmerized. He is stealing passes, running the court, dishing assists. He hasn’t taken the bench once in 3 periods.
He is a piston in a Mercedes that blows by other sports cars on a mountain pass.
Magic Johnson stared right into the camera and said. Lebron James is the best basketball player on the planet.
Not just in the NBA. Not in North America. This planet called Earth.
And Magic Johnson is one of the greatest basketball players to have ever lived. And his statement is as accurate as it is simple.
Lebron James is Picasso in high tops. He is Stanley Kubrick with a head band. He is Einstein seeing cuts to the basket that are the hoop dream version of E=MC2.
In other words, he is a savant. He is special. He is a unique talent that comes around once in a generation.
People tend to either hate this guy or love this guy. He is a polarizing force that divides people like Al Sharpton outside a protest rally.
ESPN announcer Jeff Van Gundy said it best; “What’s to hate?”
He’s as a diamond. He’s a stud. He’s an athlete’s athlete. He seemingly scores at will. He posts up, he flies to the rim, he plays defense, he dribbles the length of the floor.
He inspires without a lot of trash talk. He doesn’t have a mug shot. He does charity events. He doesn’t have a school bus full of kids born out of wedlock.
The only mistake he made was announcing his new job on network TV like some kind of Monte Hall who wants to make a deal.
He never said a word, but the even itself belittled the city that gave him NBA birth, in favor of the bright lights of Miami. It was like taking the ugly girl to the dance, telling her you have to go to the restroom, and then sliding out the back door with the prom queen.
People burned his jersey in effigy. People cried and tore up his basketball cards. He was vilified like Osama Bin Laden.
What did he do? He didn’t fly a damn plane into a building. He didn’t park a van full of ammonium nitrate in a parking garage. He simply improved his place of employment. He did what all of us would have done.
He left Cleveland. What’s so crazy about that?
Asking him to win a NBA championship with Cleveland with that cast of clowns was like trying to get a skateboard to win the Indy 500.
Then he went to Miami and in a spectacle of a press conference, made another mistake, again pissing on the entire state of OHIO.
King James and Wade and Bosh made the mistake of being circus whores joking about how many championships the three of them might win. Well so far that boast looks pretty hollow.
But Van Gundy is right. What the hell is not to like.
I’m rooting for this guy because his greatness will never be validated unless he wins a championship.
Steve Young with the 49ers felt the pressure. So did John Elway. When they won, it was a crowning achievement to their legacy.
Charles Barkely was one of the greatest ever, but he never brought home the hardware. Sir Charles will always wonder what if?
So I say appreciate Lebron James. Win or Lose.
Like watching a sunset on a pastel colored night, you are experiencing something that deserves your attention.
Win or lose. He is special.
And that is crazy.