Miami Heat: How LeBron James Can Learn from LA Clippers' Blake Griffin
LeBron James is a great individual player, rivaling Laker great Kobe Bryant in his prime, but his "advisers" and ignorance of the world around him continues to be his downfall.
If he had kept his mouth shut after the Cavs' devastating 55-point loss to the Lakers, people would have naturally come to the conclusion that he made the right choice with "The Decision."
By inserting himself so directly into the conversation, however, he shifted discussion from the Cavs' obvious inability to win without him to one which sets up sweet "karma" for his and his team's next bump in the road.
Like on cue, the Heat loses to the surging Clippers the day after, led by the phenomenal Blake Griffin, and LeBron James injures his ankle in the process.
This humiliating loss resulted in the Heat's current road win record being broken, robbing them of potentially tying and surpassing the 16 road win streak by the legendary 1971-72 Lakers.
No doubt the huge negative reaction to LeBron's tweet as well as the overwhelming negative press attention became a distraction to an otherwise focused team.
With his ankle injury, LeBron had to sit out the next night's game against the Denver Nuggets and his original NBA rival and friend, Carmelo Anthony. With him on the bench, the Heat suffered their second loss in a row, and their worst of the season, losing by 28 points. Karma indeed.
Karma struck again as LeBron had to sit out another game against the Chicago Bulls, which the Bulls won 99-96, despite the strong performance of LeBron's teammate, Dwyane Wade, and which resulted in another injury to the Heat's "Big Three," this time to Chris Bosh.
Now, going from an improbable resurrection in December after a horrible start of the season which saw their record being 9-8 to winning the next 21 of 22 games and now back to being exposed and struggling again, all in no small part to another dumb "tweet" made by James, one has to wonder where his "advisers" factor in all this, and whether they should continue "advising" him.
Part of LeBron's former mystique was he kept to himself. Before the summer, he was not on Twitter, and he rarely made his inner thoughts known.
That was what made his "decision" so intriguing. He never let on exactly what he was going to do, which lead many teams and their fans to believe he was coming their way in free agency.
Now LeBron 2.0 is too open. Like Tom Cruise before him, once he opened his true self to the public, robbing the public of the ability of projecting their own fantasies of who he is, the public learned what the real LeBron James is like and they don't like what they see.
On the other end of the spectrum is Blake Griffin. Naturally soft-spoken off the court, Griffin is a monster on it.
With his highlight-reel dunks in nearly every game he plays, along with his obvious work ethic and competitive zeal, Griffin is the anti-LeBron. He lets his game do his talking, not Twitter.
Unfortunately for LeBron, his dreams of an NBA dynasty with the Miami Heat might have hit a stumbling block in the name of Blake Griffin.
Whether he stays with the Clippers or leaves in 2014 for a contender (Lakers anyone?), Blake Griffin is destined to make perennial appearances in the playoffs, and it's hard not to expect that he will be the owner of multiple championship rings before his career is over.
Having emerged in the time of the "Heatles," the NBA has found the perfect foil in Blake Griffin for the brashness that is LeBron James, and that is something NBA fans are thankful for.
For LeBron, he should take his cue from the NBA's newest superstar and let his game on the court do his talking.
