The LeBron James Story: The King's Coronation

The king has officially been crowned. 

There will be no more ring jokes or questions about his hunger; there will be no more comments about his ineptitude for performing in crunch time. 

The man has silenced all his haters and quieted all the critics. 

Nearly nine years to the day after LeBron first burst onto the NBA scene and took the league by storm, he has finally seized the much-anticipated first championship of his career. 

He just did it—like his employers over at Nike have been encouraging athletes to do for almost a quarter-century. 

And since we’ve finally reached this moment in the destined-to-be Hall of Fame career of “The Chosen One,” it’s only fitting that we take a look at his past and the journey that got him here.

LeBron was an All-Everything coming out of high school. His skill-set, size and athleticism made him a consensus number one pick among scouts and analysts. Conveniently for him, the Cleveland Cavaliers were the ones with possession of that pick. LeBron’s big leap to the league wasn’t as full of unfamiliarity and discomfort as it is for most NBA freshmen, as he landed just 40 miles from his hometown of Akron. 

James’ selection gave him the opportunity to partake in and lead potentially the greatest franchise turnaround in NBA history. The down-and-out Cavaliers had the chance to be relevant and prominent in the league again, thanks to LBJ. 

Only four years into the career of LeBron James, he already had the opportunity to fulfill his destiny and satiate the appetites of millions of Ohioans by winning the NBA Finals. Unfortunately, though, it wasn’t meant to be, and the San Antonio Spurs easily swept the Cavs. 

The following three seasons in Cleveland all ended without even reaching the Finals. The franchise player dominated the regular season but failed to meet postseason expectations. 

Seven years had come and gone, and there was still not even a single championship banner hanging from the rafters in Quicken Loans Arena. 

Sadly, though, the LeBron-era was finished in Cleveland, and “The Decision” became the MVP’s next order of business. 

Instead of subtly parting from the Cavaliers, “The King” elected to hold a nationally televised interview on ESPN, in which he chose to “take his talents to South Beach” and team up with fellow superstars Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. 

His decision to leave didn’t come as a surprise, but the fashion in which he left rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. As a result, Cleveland turned its back on the man it looked to for deliverance and previously impartial fans from across the globe began to despise him. 

Instead of adding more fans to his kingdom, he incited a revolution.  

From a personal perspective, I felt that “The Decision” said everything I ever needed to know about the guy. 

He was a two-bit traitor who left his beloved home-state fan base and support system when the going got tough. He teamed up with two all-star opponents and, to add insult to injury, made it a nationally televised spectacle—twice.¹ 

He hadn’t even played a game of basketball in a Miami Heat uniform, but was already guaranteeing nearly a decade of unparalleled success. 

I thought that it was justifiable that media personnel (i.e. Skip Bayless) began to openly and unrelentingly critique the man’s every move. He had brought the criticism and pressure upon himself. 

He deserved to have his name in the headlines because of a sub-par regular season game. He deserved to have week-long segments on television and radio shows if he passed up the potential game winning shot to an open teammate or deferred to D-Wade. 

It made sense. 

By the time the playoffs rolled around in 2011, though, the criticisms and expectations for “The Chosen One” had reached new heights. 

People began to blindly and outlandishly hold LeBron to a standard that not even Michael Jordan could have lived up to. Fans and analysts seemed to agree that unless LeBron magically ended his first Finals run as a member of the Miami Heat with a Game 7, buzzer-beating, game winning, fade away, three-point shot in the face of all five defenders (plus the opposing coach in his peripheral vision acting as a sixth defender—like Eric Spoelstra did), then we, the basketball world, wouldn’t be impressed or satisfied.² His success would be minimal because he wouldn’t have accomplished what his self-appointed nickname, “The King,” implies: unrivaled and unquestionable dominance. 

Forget that there were times in Cleveland when we thought that Jordan was masquerading around in LeBron’s body like he did with Jeremy Lin. 

Forget the 48, nine and seven Game 5 performance he had against the Pistons in 2007, where he scored his team’s final 25 points. Forget the 45-6-5 he posted on the Celtics in Game 7 of the ECF in 2008. Forget his entire 2009 playoff run where he averaged 35.3 points, 9.1 rebounds and 7.3 assists and shot 51 percent from the field.³ 

We as a basketball community didn’t care, and, as a result, we seemed to forget what made LeBron so special. 

He was an embodiment of the “this is where amazing happens” slogan of the NBA. But because of his poor judgment and bad “decision,” we all seemed to erase his previously super-human and highly entertaining feats, and set the bar at a new, unreachable height. 

Just like the little neighbor boy in “The Incredibles,” we were all unsatisfied and started waiting for something amazing to happen, even though James had already proven himself. 

We questioned his compliance and team-first nature, and mistook it for a fear of leadership and clutch situations. We somehow forgot that LeBron was a different breed. He wasn’t made of the same mold as superstars like Allen Iverson and Kobe Bryant, whom attempted to carry teams to the Promised Land. 

He was unique. 

Once we lost sight of his uniqueness and turned the aforementioned questions about his personality and play into universal truths, everything went downhill. 

LeBron played terribly in the 2011 Finals and had a visible lack of self-confidence. He had the shakiest and most inconsistent playoff run in his eight-year career because, like he said in a postgame interview on Thursday, he was trying “to prove something to everybody.” He was playing the game with “a lot of hate,” and that’s not how he was used to playing. 

We attempted to change what was so great about the greatest player on the planet, and we nearly succeeded. It was a massive conspiracy that almost destroyed what is so phenomenal about him. 

The fact that he was the best player in the 2010-2011 season, with the exception of the Finals, is almost unbelievable looking back on it. It’s a testament to his will and fortitude. 

The man nearly won an NBA Championship while learning how to co-exist with two superstars and coping with the constant examination of his on-court play. Oh yeah, let’s not forget that he had the task of acclimating his family and himself to a new environment in Miami, too. 

Fast-forward to the present. 

(I will split up this last part of the article into three informal sections). 

First, realize that LeBron just won the NBA Championship while carrying that massive burden that I just talked about. 

This is why I respect and admire him so much for what he was able to accomplish this season (and mostly why I chose to write this article). It’s not just the ridiculous amount of illustrious accolades and hardware that he acquired, but the way he managed and dealt with the pressure and scrutiny. 

His first words after winning were, “It’s about damn time,” which pretty much sum up his feelings over the past two years. 

Those words encompassed all of the hard work and dedication that he has put into perfecting his craft over the past decade, as well as all of the pent up frustration and anger that he had from the past two seasons of unrelenting criticism.⁴ 

Which leads me to my next point: I couldn’t be more excited about watching LeBron James’ career unfold over the next few seasons. 

With the removal of all of this pressure and constant analysis, could we see an even greater LeBron in the coming seasons? Could he eclipse the careers of recent great ones like Kobe, Duncan, and Shaq, and solidify his name as not only one of the greatest individuals in sports, but as one of the greatest winners, too? 

Finally, here is a message for everyone who still despises and loathes LeBron James:

Look past the façade and hoopla of the media, and take him for what he is—one of the Top 10 greatest basketball players ever to grace the hardwood and someone who is just now taking the turn into his prime. His best is yet to come. 

If you don’t admire and respect what he just accomplished, and aren’t excited for what is on the horizon, then you are truly missing out. Things of the past are blinding you from enjoying the play of a man who will be the greatest player of this generation when it’s all said and done. I encourage you to throw some glasses on, put some contact lens in or get lasik—do whatever it is that you have to do to improve the muddied image of LeBron that you currently have. Because once you do, unlike that little boy in ‘The Incredibles,” you won’t be waiting for something amazing to happen, you’ll be witnessing it.  

¹ Don’t forget about the “not one, not two…but eight” speech he gave at the preseason coronation ceremony in Miami. “The Decision” was bad enough. The summer championship parade only confirmed my suspicions about his annoying arrogance and gaudy personality.

²  Think of MJ’s “Last Shot”… on steroids.

³  Look at those numbers again—like, REALLY look at them. And then remember that he hit arguably the most memorable shot of his career (the Game 2 buzzer-beating three) during that year's Magic series as well. What a shame that they didn’t advance to the Finals, too. It would’ve been great to see the Kobe-LeBron Finals matchup finally come to fruition.

⁴ I’m just surprised that he didn’t take the time to call out every single one of his haters by name. Then again, who knows? He still has the rest of the summer to make another Decision-esque programming show where he donates millions of dollars to charitable foundations and gets back at everyone. (Just for the record, I would be on that list…if I were even notable enough for him to know). 

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