I was looking back last night at the Facebook “On This Day” feature, which showed me everything I posted on June 21. And I saw that exactly four years ago, I posted the following about LeBron James winning his first NBA championship:
“Congrats to LeBron James (the A-Rod of the NBA) and the Miami Heat for their championship. I thought “The Decision” was pretty dopey, but give credit to LeBron for shutting up the haters — for a few seconds, at least.”
Four years (and two more titles) later, there are *still* LeBron haters (Skip Bayless, STFU already!) bashing him. Unreal.
While I think the term “haters” is overused these days — just having a different opinion on somebody doesn’t make someone a hater — the irrational hatred (and crazy standards) people have for LeBron is unreal. Especially the comparisons to Michael Jordan.
James is 31 years old, and has three NBA titles (and three Finals MVPs) to his name. He’s been in six finals in a row. He has four NBA MVPs.
He’s also a pretty decent human being, too. As LZ Granderson of ESPN’s “The Undefeated” writes:
…The father of three is every bit an inspirational American story as one could hope for. Here you have a young black man from a single-parent household graduates from high school, enters the NBA and becomes the highest paid non-soccer player, according to Forbes. It gets better. James takes his childhood friends with him. But instead of being a negative influence — a story we’ve heard numerous times — they become his business partners, forming LRMR. He owns a piece of Liverpool FC. He signed a $1 billion marketing deal with Nike. He’s sending 1,100 kids from his hometown to college for free. He married his high school sweetheart.
Honestly, the worse thing anyone can say about the man is he did a drawn-out TV special about his free agency. And even that raised more than $3 million for charity, helping to place 1,000 new computers in 59 Boys & Girls Clubs around the country.
To top it all off, James chose to make things right after taking his talents to South Beach, and return to Cleveland. I was arguing with people on Facebook the other day about this, and they were claiming he went back to Cleveland for the money. Excuse me? James would have gotten the money anywhere. That’s a really dopey argument.
I was trying to think of a comparison to him in sports returning to his hometown to make things right. Other athletes have returned to their original team, but they usually do it when they’re washed up. James was in his career prime when he did so. And Cleveland isn’t actually Excitement Central. Yet he chose that over playing in more exciting cities like New York or Los Angeles or staying in Miami.
And now he’s finally brought Cleveland that title he promised, ending over 50 seasons of futility and angst for the city. Beating the Golden State Warriors, the team with the best regular season record of all time and the only unanimous MVP in NBA history. A team that had as many losses in the regular season as in the playoffs. And beating them after being down 3-1 — the first time this has ever happened in the NBA Finals.
The copious tears James shed after winning it all were very moving. Heck, I cried at home watching him! This is one of the greatest sports stories of all time.
Yet some knuckleheads have determined — and still claim, even after this title — that James is a choker, a loser, because he hasn’t reached Michael Jordan’s six titles yet. And because he isn’t Michael Jordan. And some of the haters are *still* dissing him. Unbelievable.
It was crazy enough how much Alex Rodriguez was compared to Derek Jeter, instead of people accepting A-Rod on his own terms. But James (and Kobe, and Shaq, and Steph Curry, and any other star in the NBA) are constantly compared to Jordan, and of course found wanting. It’s like telling Bryce Harper and Mike Trout and every other star in baseball: “You’re no Babe Ruth!”
And it’s also revisionist history on Jordan as well. After all, it took him seven seasons before his first title; it took nine for James. And Jordan did have Scottie Pippen, one of the NBA’s 50 Greatest Players of all time, with him. Not to mention Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman for part of his reign.
My friend and fellow baseball blogger Paul Francis Sullivan (who I finally got to meet in person last week!) wrote a great piece four years after LeBron’s first title that is still relevant today. He sez:
Each player who aspires to be the best in the league has to not only be an MVP, not only lead their team to the title, not only be the Finals MVP, not only do it with a flair for the dramatic, not only do it with an assassin’s mentality, but do it six times.
Anything less than that means they are not Jordan’s equal. In other words, unless you are on par with the consensus pick for the greatest player ever, then your career has a gigantic hole in it. Does anyone else see how absurd and damaging this is?
I am glad that LeBron has gotten this redemption (thanks to my friend Cara for this piece’s title — she suggested it as per my Washington Post article on “The Redemption of A-Rod.”)
It’s sometimes hard to relate to professional athletes, especially given their wealth. I remember realizing that when I read Gary Sheffield slamming Barry Bonds because they had a fight over one of them hiring away the other one’s personal chef!
But I can definitely relate to being second-guessed and criticized and dissed, the way James has been. I’ve had my fair share of slights like that. Not to mention disappointment and hurt feelings. And I’ve been trying to use it all to fuel my running. “I’ll show you” is a more powerful motivational tool to get me out in the morning than sunshine and rainbows. Given that I have a marathon to finish in November, I need all the help I can get!
So I have to say I was extremely pleased to see James sticking it to the haters the next day in two ways. The first was by wearing the “Ultimate Warrior” t-shirt, made in the same colors as the Golden State Warriors, when he got off the plane in Cleveland.
In Northeast Ohio, nothing is given. Everything is earned. #OneForTheLand pic.twitter.com/thvzlbfYbp
— Cleveland Cavaliers (@cavs) June 20, 2016
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The second was in this Instagram post, complete with a “Kermit the Frog sipping tea” hat! That is the ultimate in payback. From King James to King Petty, and I love it!
A photo posted by LeBron James (@kingjames) on Jun 20, 2016 at 2:16pm PDT
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