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Set aside the free-agency talk, the media ejaculations, and the manic mood that already has enveloped the Cavaliers. We will get to all of that. First, though, let's take a moment to reclaim LeBron James from the deep space of ad nauseam.
A season's worth of speculation about LeBron's next team and of genuflection in front of LeBron's on-court ascendancy created a meta farce: not only was the constant speculation and adoration excessive, but those exercises sucked all of the air out of the ensuing conversations which were simultaneously born therein. LeBron is the best player, every team should want him, and we've run out of ways to talk about those things. We, basketball observers, have arrived at this moment with nothing new to say, the fires having already consumed the matters at their disposal. No column or podcast or SportsCenter feature can sufficiently repackage the Case for the Clippers, the Draw of Madison Avenue, the Jay-Z Friendship, or any other LeBron storyline in a manner that gives it new life. That shit is played, even before it truly plays out. And as a result, LeBron the concept is currently floating through a deep void bereft of oxygen or anything that can give it life. What is there left to say about him before July?
Well, this: last night was surreal. This whole week was, but not because of The LeBron James Story. Rather, it was because LeBron also was starring in another, larger, perpetual basketball story that everyone who cares about the NBA knows by heart. It's a story we tell ourselves as a means of organizing all that we see, and this narrative has become self-perpetuating as a result. This basketball story has a priming effect which conjures the curious intersection of physics, mysticism, and faith because it renders its subjects both actors equipped with free will and puppets left to the whim of predetermination.
The story is simple: the best player in basketball wins. For as long as I can remember, the NBA has been a place where this story is told over and over. Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, Isiah Thomas, Shaquille O'Neal. These have been the best players, and they've all won. Nightly, they would compile regular seasons filled with superlative exploits, and those of us looking on would begin to identify which players had the mettle required to be the best. The playoffs then would validate those presumptions or disabuse us of attitudes laid bare as fallacies. Some seasons the team with the best player doesn't win, but we regard them as outliers. Look no further than the compromised historical positions enjoyed by the 2004 Pistons and the 2008 Celtics. Other years, a best players run into another one. Our basketball story is imprecise and arguably unfair, but the basketball universe has cleaved to it for so long because it overwhelmingly feels right in spite of its flaws.
This is a singular phenomenon. Football and baseball are not the same. Those are sports where the schematics obviate such a simple but effective tale of greatness. The best player in the NFL is only on the field half the time, and is never more than one of eleven moving parts. In baseball, exerting individual control is even more elusive. In basketball, though, individuals determine outcomes disproportionately. Everyone has gotten used to it, and everyone likes it. The NBA is always hailed by its acolytes as a sport of humanity. The players don't wear helmets, fans are on top of the action, and athletes are accessible to the greatest extent allowed. Similarly, the sport, itself, allows for us to truly learn about these heroes, because as one in five, the best player can always exert control.
LeBron James broke the basketball story this week because the best player is not going to win the championship. That's the problem with today. That's what there is left to discuss right now. This season was meant to be a coronation for James, and even had the Cavaliers lost to the Lakers in the finals, LeBron likely would not have suffered ill effects. There is no shame in losing a dance contest to Baryshnikov. We would not have suffered, either. Sure, the best player wouldn't have won, but only because he lost to the other one. The basketball story would have survived intact, and its iteration next year would have devoted more pages to redemption and rivalry, fewer to whatever ancillary features of the plot were obscured in that process.
Everything feels wrong today because the best player is not going to win, he did not even come close, and we don't have a script for that. Michael Jordan didn't win a championship until 1991, but he spent those years before building toward it while also tearing down the walls erected by the greatness of others. He'd defy our notions of basketball movements, he'd pop off for 63, he'd piss in the Pistons' cornflakes. Kobe was similar: he flashed potential, raged against a machine (which would ultimately assimilate his strengths), warred with a sibling, and ran into other great players. But ultimately, he, too, arrived. And like Jordan, his arrival was the moment that cemented his greatness. The story told itself.
But what of LeBron? He has arrived already. He is the best player. It should be conclusive and self-evident, only the narrative has been disrupted because consensus throughout the basketball universe has fomented without the attendant playoff triumph. We don't even settle for derivative praise that withholds full acceptance; we don't say that LeBron is the most physically gifted or that he has the highest ceiling. We call him the best, because that's what he is. Still, though, he has failed, and not through growing pains or an encounter with a peer from Mount Olympus. In 2007, he was still young and Tim Duncan was still the man. In 2008 he fired a true warning shot by almost destroying the ill-begotten Super Friends Celtics. Last year, though, he was enfeebled by the Magic, themselves guided by a star still far from true greatness. And then this year, he seemed to lose his mind when Boston had the temerity to hold a line against his march toward a presumed destiny, rather than volunteering to write its obituary into the larger story LeBron was thought to be authoring.
So basketball is currently left with two useless commodities: an unfinished iteration of the story we want to tell every year at this time, and the best player out of his true context. That is discomforting, for far more people than just the citizens of Cleveland. The NBA feels shaken and changed today. The ground has fallen into the center of the earth, mountains have crumbled into piles of dust, and ash dulls the horizon. There are two more rounds of the playoffs, there are other plot lines to pick up, and a Lakers victory will resemble The Basketball Story with the words "Kobe" and "Los Angeles" substituted for "LeBron" and "Cleveland." By the end of June, being a basketball fan will very likely feel normal again. Right now, though, is an uncomfortable and disorienting time.
LeBron has lost much in this process, even if history ultimately validates him. He has not lost money, popularity, or prestige, but he has lost the moment. A tide was swelling behind him as he navigated his way to the best regular-season record, a commanding MVP campaign, and a championship. Had Lebron won, this triumphant moment could have initiated a league-wide Pax LeBrona. The esteem held among teammates, rivals, and coaches would have been strengthened, not a trifling commodity. Whatever lingering doubts remained about LeBron focused on his ability to lead and to win. LeBron appeared to answer the former with his universally beloved personality and a Cavalier culture that was joyful and spirited. But results are the only cure for winning problems, and he couldn't produce those.
The fallout will spread, now, perhaps diminishing the potency of his personality. Flaming out against the Celtics amidst unnerving spells of passivity and imprecision will make whispers about LeBron's tenacity louder. For at least a year, people may feel justified in wondering whether LeBron has "it," and whether that winning charm masks a fatal inadequacy. Perhaps his aloofness on the court, or his panicked play that gave off the whiff of charade, will embolden those who wonder if LeBron is indifferent, as odd as that may be to consider. Despite so clearly standing as a genetic anomaly, and as an almost unfathomable combination of skill, size, and wit, LeBron will not enjoy best-player status if he can't take a dramatic leap forward soon. Fair or not, and rational or otherwise, he'll perhaps start down the road to Karl Malone status in the minds of some fans and peers. That would be a testament both to the power of The Basketball Story and also to the alarming nature of his play against the Celtics. Numbers don't tell the real story of how qualitatively worse LeBron and the Cavs looked in the second round.
Does all of this mean that LeBron should leave Cleveland? That Mike Brown should be fired? That ESPN should launch a new network dedicated to LeBron coverage through next October? There are so many opinions already in circulation, and so little new ground to cover, that it seems like a waste of everyone's time to delve too deeply into those subjects. So, briefly: As bad as LeBron looked in Games 4, 5, and 6, his teammates looked worse. I can't imagine James could objectively consider the Cleveland roster and believe it can win a title. The Cavaliers have too many guys unprepared for critical moments, a frailty that was perhaps amplified by a Celtics team which had little to lose and the three most hardbody players in the series (Rondo, Pierce, and Garnett). It didn't help that Cleveland's rotation was a mess, its offense a joke, and its mentality shattered. Mike Brown has done less with more his entire career and should have been endorsing his checks over to James. He should never be an NBA coach again. (That's true of most people, like Doug Collins, by the way. Expand the candidate pool!)
Set that stuff aside for today, though, and just linger with the larger basketball implications that were unleashed last night. The NBA is a changed place today.
