LeBron James: When Will the Hate Finally End for the Miami Heat Star?

In case you haven't heard already, people don't seem to like LeBron James too much.

Even before joining the league in 2003 as a bright eyed 18 year old fresh out of high school, the NBA world has been a LeBron-centered universe. The hype surrounding him was immense as people truly believed that he was the second coming of Michael Jordan about to set the league on fire. There wasn't too much evidence to believe this, aside from the fact that he had won three championships in his high school career and was rated as the top prospect for leading each and every one of those teams.

James was drafted first overall by a Cleveland Cavaliers club that had finished the previous season 17-65. The Cavaliers were a team that were rarely taken seriously as they had never been to an NBA Finals and only reached the Conference Finals twice despite joining the league in 1970. Before James was drafted, the Cavs hadn't had a winning season since 1998 or won a playoff series since 1993. The organization expected James to be the franchise's savior as they had exhausted so many options for years prior.

Sure enough he did save the franchise.

They would have an 18 game improvement from the year before once James was drafted, a winning season the following year, clinching a post season berth, winning 50 games for the first time since 1993, and winning a playoff series the year after that, and would then top off with their first Finals appearance in post season history in 2007. They would get swept by the San Antonio Spurs, but it was a sign to come that the Cavaliers were going to be a force to be reckoned with.

And they were. Two years later they would win a franchise high 66 games and would lead the league record-wise for the first time in franchise history. They would go on to win 61 games the following year. The Cavaliers organization had actually began to surround James with talent after witnessing just how dismal the team played in the Finals when James had Larry Hughes and Zydrunas Ilgauskas as his main scoring options.

So they got Mo Williams, Antawn Jamison, and a 36 year old Shaquille O'Neal instead. The team did well in those two regular seasons with back-to-back 60 plus win seasons, but they didn't do much damage when it came to the playoffs. They wouldn't get as close as being two games away from the Finals as James and the team faltered down the stretch in tightly contested playoff games.

James suffered as criticism began to rain down on the two-time reigning MVP. It wasn't fair to blame him for the team's struggles as the players that had done so well in the regular season were now playing some of the worst basketball of their careers during the post season. Those who were thought to be reliable shooters before, Mo Williams, had suddenly gone cold and it was suddenly up to James to lead the team by his lonesome.

In no way is James a bad post season player. In 2008-2009 when the Cavaliers lost in the Conference Finals to the Orlando Magic in six games, LeBron had averaged 35 points, nine rebounds, and seven assists per game. He was the entire team as the supporting cast basically stood around and hoped that James would be able to lead the team on his own. No team had won with one player doing everything before and it wasn't going to happen here.

So can you blame LeBron James for leaving? After seven years of heartache from a team that gave him nothing to work with, could you blame him for wanting to go to a team that was championship caliber and actually had players that wanted to win? The Miami Heat welcomed James with open arms and championship caliber players, it was a deal that James couldn't refuse.

But that's where most of this hate stems from. Prior to joining the Miami Heat, James was a perennial member of being in the top ten most popular athlete list created by the Harris Interactive poll. He dropped off completely after joining the Heat this season and probably won't join that list again unless he completes one task which we'll get to in a minute.

People don't like James for several reasons: with him leaving and the way he left being the main reasons. To be perfectly honest though, I don't see why fans of other teams have grown to dislike James over the past year. This was a problem with the Cavaliers and their fans as James scorned them on national television and didn't tell the organization in advance of where he was going. With the free agency period already ending, Cleveland didn't have much to pick and choose so it's easy to see why the Cavaliers would show hate for James.

You can see how much the city despised James when he made his December 2nd return to the city. The massacre that ensued didn't help his image when it came to the Cavaliers fans.

So what if he's an arrogant player too? It's sports; you can't find an athlete that isn't full of himself somewhat when he's being paid millions upon millions of dollars by his team and endorsements just to be himself. He does have a huge problem with his ego and allowing himself to talk without thinking of what he is saying however. It's still no reason to hate the player. He's still one of the most talented players to step onto a basketball court and people fail to recognize that because they're blinded with hate.

This past failure in the NBA Finals wasn't helping either, as it only allowed people's hate of LeBron to grow to its highest. It only reassured everyone's point that James still couldn't finish the deal and might have made the wrong move by going to Miami. The fact that many people are actually pointing out that the Heat will not win a title with James on the team is pure blind hatred. It's highly doubtful that three of the best players in the league, in their prime, will not be able to secure a championship over the next five years.

And that's exactly how the hatred of James will end. All he has to do to silence his critics and prove everyone wrong is win. Win a championship and end the constant criticism by NBA fans from across the country. Once James wins, he'll garner the respect that he's been gunning years for and he'll also possess the trophy that he's been fighting eight years for now.

Cleveland might not like it, but the rest of the NBA world would back down from their hatred of James. Everybody loves a winner and so far James hasn't done anything close to winning aside from those high school championships over a decade ago. For him to end this circus following him at every corner and in every stadium outside of the American Airlines Arena, James just needs to put everything else behind him and just pull out the victory that everybody has been waiting to see.