Miami Heat: Has LeBron James Finally Found the Fuel for His Fire?

Up until the time Michael Jordan walked unto the stage to acknowledge his Hall of Fame acceptance, he was just the greatest to ever play the game.

Then he opened his mouth to give his acceptance speech and shocked the world, coming across as petty and bitter.

For anyone who could see past the speech, they will understand what it takes to be a champion. How Jordan motivated himself to bring his best effort no matter what, for 82 games a season, then take it to another level for the playoffs.

Michael Jordan may have taken little slights too personally, but he nurtured these insults and through the passage of time and transformed them into something positive.

To date, LeBron James has never been dropped from a team in favour of someone else; he has yet to fight for his place on any team or had a franchise draft a guy before him simply because he was seven feet tall!

To put things in perspective, Carmelo Anthony won the NCAA championship for Syracuse his one year in college, is about the same size as James, and almost as athletic, yet no one seriously thought of drafting him before James.

James was anointed the “chosen one” in high school and has walked in the light up to the time of “The Decision.”

Now he is one of the most hated, if not the most hated athlete in America. He must get up every day thinking "thank God for Michael Vick and Ben Roethlisberger!"

Only in the face of real adversity can a man find himself; to put it in the words of the late great John Wooden, “Adversity is the state in which man mostly easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then.”

Whether he “quit” in Cleveland, or made the wrong decision over the summer, or rattled people’s cages by playing some kind of “a race card,” all that is in the past now.

What matters is how he handles all this negativity.

Once you are backed into a corner, no matter what you say, people will always interpret it negatively. He could become angry and aggressive, dodging all reporters or berating them for misinterpreting him for their own agenda.

Or he could go all Keyser Söze on all his detractors; every point he scores will be a kick in the nether regions for his naysayers. Every dunk will struck his antagonizers—the very same ones that despises him for being a weakling (putting it mildly) for joining Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami—like a bolt of lightening.

James needs to embrace the darkness and channel it into a blinding light for everyone that stands in his way. Let the negativity wash over him like water off a duck's back. This is the edge he needs.

Every team he eviscerates would feel the wrath of a king scorned. For the last seven years, LeBron has played like a man having fun. Now he needs to emulate the black mamba, Kobe Bryant, and show the world “he wants this!”

Michael Jordan was not the only great player who held grudges. Larry Bird made everyone who thought he was slow and can’t jump eat their words; though he never bothered to give a speech lording it over people, it was there.

Watch the film Blue Chips and Bird’s line says it all.

"The Decision” could be the making of the real King James or it could break him.

Personally, I want to believe that we have just awoken a sleeping dragon and the coming season is going to be special.