LeBron James: Hero or Villain?

As bizarre as it sounds, LeBron James and President Barack Obama do have a few things in common, other than their love for basketball.

Both have carried expectations to bring about major changes in their respective spheres of influence.

LeBron is the human stimulus package after all, an economic shot of adrenaline for a region, something that President Obama has yet to find for the nation as a whole.

In some form, both men have also been looked to as saviors. It’s even possible to imagine that if LeBron had chosen to stay in Cleveland, he might one day have become governor of Ohio.

Picture it: on July 8, 2010, a smiling LeBron announces, via a local press conference, that he will be staying with his hometown team, the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Cheers erupt across the city. That’s not what happened, of course. But just pretend—pretend that, years down the road, LeBron eventually brought a championship to title-starved Cleveland.

How adored would LeBron have been there?

Just imagine the parade through downtown. LeBron posing for a photo op under his giant Nike banner, arms outstretched as confetti rained down from above like manna from heaven.

The crowds are going wild, the old people weeping, the children dreaming, whispering LeBron’s name in their sleep.

LeBron is given the key to the city, awarded honorary degrees in every Ohio university. His jersey is retired, then years later, LeBron runs for governor and wins the race in a landslide.

Poof.

Instead, on national TV, in a figurative cloud of white powder from his hands, LeBron vanished. History became undone.

Now, LeBron will never have his jersey retired in Cleveland, nor will he ever be governor.

Instead of confetti floating down over his oversized mural, it is the mural itself that has been torn down.

In the wake of his decision to leave Cleveland for the Miami Heat, LeBron, the erstwhile King, has left behind a shattered crown, a heartbroken city, and a legacy that is incomplete and publicly blemished—at least until he wins some championships. History is written by the victors, after all.

Still, Cleveland will never forget.

LeBron has disillusioned an entire generation of children and even adults in northeast Ohio who believed he was the second coming—only to see him turn around and walk off the page. Gone.

LeBron James is King no longer, if he ever was—now he is labelled by many as a coward and turncoat, and depicted as egotistical, calculating, and heartless. He has become the most hated man on the most hated team in America.

But as entitled as Cleveland is to its righteous rage, LeBron still does not deserve these new labels, at least not all of them, any more than he deserved the old one.

Though no savior, he is also not the demon many have made him out to be. He has broken no law and has done only what was well within his rights as a free agent. To his credit, he raised millions of dollars for charity in the process, unseemly as the means was.

What is LeBron then, if he is neither hero nor villain? Quite simply: he is a basketball player.

We may question the self-aggrandizement of his hour-long special on national TV. We may criticize him, legitimately, over his insensitivity to his hometown fans, and grumble about his choice of team.

We may worry about the loss of competitive parity in the league, about a poor distribution of the NBA’s wealth of talent—but hasn’t that always been the case in the NBA?

We may even moan, as aging legends Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Charles Barkley have, about the seeming paradigm shift LeBron has catalyzed in the sport, from an age of cutthroat competition between the greats, to an age of camaraderie and banding together to win it all.

At the end of the day, the reason we watch LeBron, the reason we gush or curse or agonize over him, is his supreme talent on a basketball court. Nothing less, nothing more.

Barkley himself has decried the idea of the athlete as role model. Why worship a guy who dunks a ball, when true heroes like firefighters and teachers deserve more acclaim?

First and foremost, LeBron and his fellow athletes are entertainers. They play a game for our enjoyment, and for theirs. They don’t play to save lives, much less cities or regions, and they don’t dunk the ball for the betterment of mankind.

They play to have fun, to earn personal glory and loads of money, and perhaps more than anything, as the Heat players’ collective financial sacrifice has shown, they play to win.

Sometimes, they want to win at any cost, even at the price of breaking their hometowns’ hearts and inviting contempt the world round.

When this happens, it is easy to lose faith in our sports heroes and their ability or willingness to lead us fans to the promised land, through thick and thin.

Maybe that faith was misplaced to begin with.

Often we expect our best athletes to be as the great heroes of old, Atlas bearing the world on his broad back, or Prometheus risking the gods’ wrath to bring fire to men. However, not all super talented athletes have that kind of selfless heroism inside them.

Maybe, someday, the face of the NBA will be that rarest of superstar—one who is humble and unselfish, but also indomitable and relentless, a man as gracious off the court as he is ferocious on it.

Maybe that man will be Kevin Durant, or Derrick Rose.

Hopefully, one day these young men can ascend to greatness by winning it all. They can start by winning a gold medal for the U.S. in the World Championships this summer.

For now, we would be well-served to set aside our misplaced faith and our unnecessary hatred for players like LeBron.

What purpose does it serve to debate and agonize over their moral fortitude? They are who they are.

Instead, we might be grateful for what they do have to offer, and what should be another thrilling NBA season.

Then, we can let our athletes be athletes, and do what they do best: perform feats of supreme athleticism and grace, compete tooth and nail for the ultimate prize, and provide us with world class entertainment.

As Dwyane Wade, LeBron's fellow star on the Heat, put it, "It's still basketball. We're going to have fun. We're still young men. We can't put the pressure on ourselves like we've got to run the country. We're not Barack Obama."

No, you’re not. But we’ll watch you anyway. Play on.