NBA Finals 2011: How LeBron James Proved Some of His Critics Wrong

Let me start off by saying I still can't stand the Miami Heat, and will continue rooting against them as long as they're together.

That said, LeBron James has sent a resounding message throughout these NBA Finals, and that message is: "I am not a quitter."

Those of us who took pleasure in pointing out LeBron's disappearance in the 2010 East semifinals as evidence that he was a quitter have been proven conclusively wrong. We may have other things to hate about him, but this particular one is history.

By doing his disappearing act yet again this year for Miami, LeBron has shown that it's not his motivation that was lacking in Cleveland; it is just the way he naturally responds when things turn out harder than he expects.

LeBron didn't quit on Cleveland any more than he quit on Miami, which is to say he didn't quit at all. He simply got flustered by a challenge he didn't know he'd have to face, and his swagger evaporated.

If he had quit on Cleveland, he would never have duplicated that fiasco in Miami, where his desire to win was undoubtedly through the roof in his first year.

The fact that he basically repeated his mysterious disappearance last week shows us that quitting had nothing to do with it. 

I sincerely believe that LeBron thinks his amazing talent—and that of his all-world teammate—should naturally win out over any adversity that comes his way. When it doesn't, he hasn't figured out how to dig down deep and rise to the occasion.

LeBron—and to a lesser degree, the Miami Heat—often looked bewildered, less by Dallas' actual play, which was stunningly good, than by the fact that the winning part wasn't taking care of itself. He seemed to lock up mentally at the realization that after taking down Boston and Chicago—his two greatest nemeses—and going up two games to one in the Finals, he still wasn't out of the woods yet.

That has proven to be the narrative the last few years of his career now that he is continuously expected to be at the top. The first few series are a laugher for him—his last two seasons in Cleveland he swept his way to Orlando and Boston before hitting the wall. When he encounters some legitimate resistance, he jams up.

This actually goes a long way towards explaining why he felt he needed Wade and Bosh to be successful; he can't conceive of things not coming easily for him on the court.

Repeat after me: He does not quit on his teams. That much has been all but proven fact in light of his latest setback. He simply does not (yet?) possess the grit to stare down the potential for failure and still deliver.

He's not yet in a place mentally where he can be counted on to consistently take the big shots because he's paralyzed by the thought of being the one to miss the big shots. The only really distressing aspect for Heat fans should be the night and day difference between LeBron's performance when things are going well and when they are going badly.

My theory is that LeBron has been praised and fawned over for so long as the future of basketball, and/or the greatest player alive, he feels like he can't afford anything compromising his deified image, lest it fall apart completely. Not a big miss in a big game, not a loss in the dunk contest, not some young college kid dunking on him one summer. 

Problem is, LeBron doesn't realize that his image isn't that wobbly and that any of the above "embarrassments" are perfectly acceptable from even the biggest star in the league. He's like a knight who's incapable of swinging his sword the way he knows he can because he's too worried about exposing a kink in his armor that no one could reach anyway.

Now more than ever, LeBron is showing us that an over-abundance of physical talent does not—as most of us assume it does—necessarily come with the mental gifts to make the most out of them.

Guys like Michael Jordan did more to feed that illusion than anyone; MJ had us all thinking it was only natural that he had the mental fortitude to use his immense talent and impose his will when it counted the most. Well, actually, the two need not go hand in hand. Michael just happened to have both the mental and physical gifts to achieve greatness.

It doesn't mean everybody else will have both. Case in point: your former two-time MVP.

So, to all you irrational LeBron haters* and bitter Clevelanders (Dan Gilbert especially), I say go ahead and be happy that LeBron failed this year. I know I am. Just do everybody a favor and dead the "quitter" talk because LeBron has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that you misjudged him.

But then again, I doubt you'll abandon the theory since it fits so conveniently with your overall "LeBron sucks no matter what" platform. In the end though, this year's Finals gave us a glimpse into the real problem with LBJ, and the real reason he feels like he can't win without a super-team to carry him.

It's not that he decided to perform as badly as he did, it's just that we all underestimated his capacity for letting the pressure affect his mindset. We assumed he had world-class mental toughness to go with his world-class skills, and that's where we were dead wrong.

He has been exposed during these NBA Finals, just not as what you thought he was. He never quit on his team when they needed him most; his nerve just quits on him when he needs it most.

*as opposed to the level-headed LeBron disliker.