LeBron James and the Miami Heat: The Up and Down Coverage of a Dangerous Team

What are we supposed to think of LeBron James?

This morning, when I was making my daily Yahoo! Sports trip, I eventually came across an Adrian Wojnarowski article that got me thinking.

First of all, I don’t know how Yahoo! does it, but every time I go there, I am immediately sidetracked by one of their main page articles. I’ll go in curious as to how many points LeBron scored last night and then find myself reading about a North Carolina team’s plans to pull up the anchor of Blackbeard’s ship. Ten minutes into the article I’ll realize, “Wait, I don’t actually care about this at all.”

By the way, today’s lineup of front page articles consists of “Lottery winner still uses food stamps,” “Schwarzenegger stirs up frenzy” and “Cool MLB video sparks buzz.” Great, I won’t be able to look up last night’s box score till 4 p.m., which, by that time, I will have completely forgotten about my original quest, logged on to Facebook twice, tweet once then go back into Yahoo! to start the cycle again.

When I finally got to the NBA section, I clicked on the Wojnarowski article. For those of you unfamiliar with Woj (I can’t continue to type out his full name), he is usually the go-to guy for everything anti-LeBron. A little over a year ago, he wrote this article about the King, which contained passages like this:

“Stop strutting, stop preening, stop stomping away as an ungracious winner, a sore loser, and win something, LeBron. Win something now."

So it came as somewhat of a surprise for me to read his latest column  that crowned LeBron's Game 2 performance last night as Jordanesque, ending with this line:

"Greatness had risen in the fourth quarter and made the game his own in every possible way. Once, it was M.J. Now, it was LeBron James, Riley’s revenge."

What happened in between?

I can’t really spend time bashing Woj, because I too am guilty of these bipolar mood swings on the King. For instance, during last night’s game when LeBron was hitting big shot after big shot down the stretch, I remained defiant, hoping—somewhat desperately—to pounce on any late game mistake he could make.

LeBron James called for a travel.

See! He’s not clutch! He makes just as many late game turnovers as he does baskets—

LeBron James hits another shot. And another. And another.

…Silence…

Let me first give the modern definition of clutch.

Clutch is when a player hits a big shot(s) late in the game the night before. If you didn’t, no worries, the definition of clutch also requires we as the fans have no long term memory and are an entirely blank slate, each and every night.

Also, we as modern fans, have an alzheimic recollection of negative past performances, so the made baskets stick with us far longer than the misses.

For example, Derrick Rose is not clutch because he missed late game free throws in the Kansas vs. Memphis game. Wait, no, I have that wrong, Rose is such a clutch player, in fact, he may be the most clutch player in the league. He carries the Bulls down the stretch of big games. Wait, woops, I had that wrong again, Rose did nothing late in Game 2, he is sooo not clutch.

Can’t wait to watch Game 3 and determine if Rose’s entire legacy is going to be remembered as being clutch or not.

We look at Michael Jordan’s career and only see the buzzer beaters that went in. When his commercial and posters came out about how many times he had the game winning shot and missed, we treated it the same way we do when a supermodel says she was the ugly duckling in high school.

The ad campaign was a nice gesture, and I’m sure it inspired kids everywhere to not give up on their dreams after a bad game or gave office employees a little extra boost after they spilled coffee all over the important documents, but in the end, none of us believe that Jordan failed more times than he succeeded.

We simply can not remember the misses.

So as of May 19, 2011, LeBron James is the most clutch basketball player living today. That is, unless Dirk Nowitzki or Kevin Durant have a big game tonight, then LeBron is back down to No. 2 or No. 3.

Well, at least until Sunday…

But why am I rooting against LeBron James? A year ago, I remember being in a room full of my fraternity brothers lifting our beers into the air every time LeBron did something amazing. I thought LeBron was incredible. I would argue on the LeBron side of the King James vs. Kobe debates, and I badly wanted him to win a ring for Cleveland

Now, here I am, becoming a fan of whoever is playing against the Heat. I want LeBron James to be ring-less for as long as possible. I want anyone else to win it this year, Kobe or Boston to come back and win it all next year, then the Bulls/Thunder era to be fully unleashed after that.

But why?

The answer most people give at this point is the standard, “Oh, it was the Decision, how could LeBron do that!” or, “Their celebration was so ridiculous, they think they’re entitled to a championship.” I’m not going to fall into those categories. 

I probably have said this before, but LeBron had every right to leave in free agency. It’s the very definition of being a free agent. He fell onto a team in Cleveland in 2003 who had a supporting cast of Carlos Boozer, Ricky Davis, DeJuan Wagner and Darius Miles.

It wasn’t his fault that Boozer sought out a better situation and more money in Utah, it wasn’t his fault that DeJuan Wagner’s last game of relevance was a 100-point game he had in high school and it’s crazy to believe that Ricky Davis and Darius Miles are the two key missing pieces of the real Big Three.

Had he fallen to Cleveland in a situation like this year with Cleveland having the No. 1 and No. 4 pick, the Cavs would have been able to draft James and  Wade. Is there any doubt James would have stayed in Cleveland for the rest of his career with that type of scenario?

However, judging by the other moves the front office made during James’ stay in Cleveland, they probably would have drafted Darko Milicic instead. Think about it, the best sidekicks James had were Larry Hughes, a 37-year-old Shaq and Mo Williams.

With the way the league was this year and the number of young, talented teams that are going to be around for a long time, I don’t think James would have ever won a title in Cleveland with his subpar supporting casts.

If the NBA Finals becomes the Dallas Mavericks or Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Miami Heat, the storyline at some point will emerge how Dirk Nowitzki and Kevin Durant are the real superstars, because they remained loyal to their original team.

This argument, once again, is not at all fair.

Nowitzki was willing to stay in Dallas, because Cuban wants a title just as badly as anyone, and doesn’t care how many millions of dollars he spends in luxury tax. Surround James with Jason Kidd, Shawn Marion, Jason Terry, Caron Butler, Tyson Chandler and JJ Barea in Cleveland and then see if James would still head elsewhere in the offseason.

Durant was willing to commit to an extension, because Sam Presti filled the roster with sub-22-year-old talent, and even when he did have his star player locked into a long term deal, he took it to another level trading for Kendrick Perkins.

Less than a year ago, LeBron had the chance to stay in Cleveland or choose from the Clippers, Nets, Knicks, Bulls and Heat.

With the Nets and Knicks, the sales pitch was all about the money he could make off the court and the potential for great teams to be built around him. With the Clippers, he was being asked to pair up with Blake Griffin, who was injured his entire rookie season. Yes, we now know that Griffin is a star, but at the time, it was like selling LeBron on teaming up with Greg Oden.

A lot of people will point out the Chicago situation and how he and Dwyane Wade could have joined forces with Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah and Taj Gibson. Yes, that starting five would have been unbeatable, but remember the clutch definition from above, none of us—especially people in Chicago—remember Jordan ever missing a shot.

Even if James brought six or seven titles to Chicago, there would still be so much Jordan nostalgia, that he could never shake himself from the losing side of the, “Which Bull was better, LeBron or MJ?”

It’d be like someone in New York City trying to be a bigger name than Frank Sinatra or a British rock group trying to become a bigger sensation in 2011 than the Beatles were in the 1960s. James wanted to win, but he still wanted the freedom to have his own legacy.

In a way, after The Decision, we as the fans became free agents too. We could either follow James to Miami or become haters, passionately rooting against the Heat the way people do against the Yankees or Duke.

If you already were a Miami Heat fan, well congratulations, you just had the equivalent of winning the lottery, because now your team has a chance at winning the title for each of the next five to 10 years. And that’s fine. None of us can honestly say we wouldn’t be equally as thrilled had our team landed these players instead.

The problem becomes when the media seems to have two stories already written before the outcome of each Heat game. If James has a big game, the, “He’s now emerging as a champion” articles are sent to print. If the Heat lose, and James does not play well, all the, “How dare he think he could just join up with Wade and win titles?” articles reemerge.

James hits late game shots one night, oh he is so clutch. James misses late game free throws in a game two days later, well, he just isn’t a winner like Michael Jordan.

It’s easy for my bias against this team to skew my reactions to what I am seeing on the screen. I call it “Heatourettes,” the somewhat uncontrollable urge to shout out nonsensical arguments about why the Heat will not win the NBA Title. I’m trying to get it under control, and I apologize for any Facebook statuses or tweet slips I make throughout the rest of the playoffs.

When the Heat were struggling this season, it was easy and fun to pick on this team. When they started winning and looking dominant, everyone reverted to the, “Well, so what, I thought they were supposed to win 72 games?” defense, which is really the grown up version of, “I know you are, but what am I?”

If the Heat win the title, Heatourettes will probably cause many to blurt out, “Yeah, but LeBron promised seven titles, so uh, well this means nothing!”

The truth is, the reason writers like Adrian Woj are dialing back on their criticism of the Heat is because suddenly LeBron’s claim of seven championships is seeming less outlandish prophecy and more realistic possibility.

Well, that is unless the Heat lose Game 3 against the Bulls. Then it’s back to LeBron as a non-clutch, greedy, selfish, underachieving player who will never become a champion.

If the Heat do not win the NBA title this year, myself and the rest of the anti-Heat fanbase can enjoy the celebration.

There may not be too many of those left.