Respecting LeBron
It’s been almost two weeks since the Lakers won the NBA’s bubble championship. I intentionally went cold turkey on sports podcasts and articles¹ over that period because (1) I expected plenty of gaslighting which would have only pissed me off and (2) I needed time to face an existential question: am I denying LeBron his damn respect?
I tend to overreact whenever someone I am rooting against wins a ring, so the time off helped calm the emotions and put things into perspective. After Kobe won his 5th title in 2010, I wrote:
Yep, a bit too melodramatic. I generally stand by the substance, except for the part that Kobe got close — he never did.² In one of the comments, I said that “It’s all up to LBJ now to stop Darth Mamba”. That one didn’t age well. I got Anakin’d. Kobe must be smoking a cigar at a barbecue joint somewhere.
So LeBron and his respect. Four rings, four Finals MVPs, 10 Finals appearances, numerous Finals and Playoffs career records, most likely going to surpass Kareem’s career points record before he retires. I mean, it’s pretty much unassailable at this point.
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LeBron belongs to the NBA’s Mt. Rushmore.
Jordan. Russell. Kareem. LeBron.
There you go. That’s how much I respect LeBron.
What? Were you expecting something else? I think LeBron was when he made that demand right after they won the title. Can’t we just appreciate his greatness and live happily? LeBron wouldn’t allow it, so the question gnawed at me.
I just need to clear the air a bit. Contrary to common belief, I don’t hate LeBron. Those who’ve known me since the early 2000s know for a fact that I was a big LeBron fan. I love his combination of skill, athleticism, and basketball IQ. He’s not selfish like Kobe. He’s Magic but a much better scorer. These things were true 15 years ago, and it’s still true today. That’s LeBron the basketball player.
Where things get a little tricky is when LeBron, the media personality, enters the picture. The Decision LeBron. Taco Tuesday LeBron. The Shop/Klutch Sports LeBron. The BLM/Black Trump Lebron. Media LeBron annoys the hell out of me. He’s inauthentic, narcissistic, phony, and hypocritical. He’s basically Ossenburger.
The point of diversion came in 2010 with The Decision. I wrote how much I hated it because (1) he was being a media whore and (2) he put a roof on his own greatness. It wasn’t because he became less of a basketball player. It was never about loyalty.
Then he did this. And proclaimed this.
My response:
But that’s all prior to LeBron’s fourth title. And now he wants his damn respect. Not just Mt. Rushmore respect, though. He wants that something else. I wrote about it two years ago. So was there a dramatically shift over the span of two years? Am I just clinging on to an outdated belief that Jordan is the undisputable GOAT? Am I denying LeBron his respect?
In the year of The Last Dance and the inevitable 2020 documentary Mamba Out, the question seemed worth revisiting.
The short answer: NO.
There was no dramatic shift.
If anything, the last two years proved what I’ve always said about LeBron: he wants to win easy rings. That’s his M.O. “Easy” not in the sense that he doesn’t work hard for it. There’s no question about his work ethic and commitment to winning. “Easy” in that he’d rather have the best players playing alongside him than competing against them. In 2018, I wrote “LeBron is the kid who plays a video game on novice setting and brags about beating the game over and over again to impress his friends… [W]hen he picks his next team this offseason, you can be sure he’ll want to win easy again.” Twenty games into the 2018–19 season, he already wanted to have the Lakers’ young core traded for AD, a top 5 player managed by a member of LeBron’s posse, Rich Paul.
The Lakers missed the playoffs without AD last year. True, LeBron missed time due to injury but they were still in the playoff picture when he returned at the end of January. They went 4–15 during a crucial stretch from February to March.
GM LeBron got his wish in the offseason after the Lakers finally landed AD. (Oh, and don’t forget that he wanted Kawhi, too). They had the best record in the West and AD led the Lakers in all major statistical categories except for assists. Yet LeBron and his media cronies were campaigning for him to win the MVP. LeBron should heed his own advice and put some more respect on AD’s name.
Make no mistake, AD was the Lakers’ playoff MVP. LeBron had a slightly better Finals and deserved the Finals MVP, but AD was their best player in the first three rounds. His 31.2 points per game paced the Lakers in the West Finals — 4 clear of LeBron — and came up clutch over and over, including the game-winning 3-pointer against the Nuggets in Game 2. He averaged 25.4/12.4/4.0 in Round 2 against the Rockets, while shooting 40% from 3 — don’t forget he’s a seven-footer. He had 29.8/9.4/4.2 in Round 1, shooting 38.9% from 3, but his interior D (1.6 blocks and 1.4 steals) was the big difference in cooling down the red-hot Blazers. Over the span of the playoffs, including the Finals, AD led the league in win shares, win shares per 48, offensive win shares, and was T-2 in defensive win shares. MVP numbers.
But none of this is to take away from how good LeBron was in his 17th season. He was a monster in the Finals (29.8/11.8 /8.5). He was the Lakers’ best player from Games 3 to 6. He deserved it. He also deserved to be in the All-NBA 1st Team. He’s still one of the best players in the league on Year 17. Nobody other than Kareem can compare. And when I talk about AD being the Lakers MVP, I’m not saying that AD carried LeBron during the season. This wasn’t like Shaq carrying Kobe during the Lakers 3-peat. I have absolute respect for what LeBron did. Just don’t tell me he should’ve been the league MVP or conveniently forget how, in the words of one of his Lakers teammate, AD was the best player in the world for two months.
Back to my point, when you’re as good as LeBron, it’s easier to win with AD on your team. In a year with no Warriors, no KD, pickup-style no-fans-no-pressure format,³ then the significance of having two superstars in one team becomes more pronounced. It also helps when you’re not coached by Doc.
LeBron stans love pointing out that Jordan would have had zero championships without Pippen. That’s true and Jordan himself admitted as much in The Last Dance, “I didn’t win without Scottie Pippen, and that’s why I consider him my best teammate of all time. He helped me so much in the way I approached the game, in the way I played the game. Whenever they speak Michael Jordan, they should speak Scottie Pippen.”
But Pippen also never reached AD’s level, statistically speaking. His best year was in 1994 during Jordan’s first retirement, when he averaged 22/8.7/5.6 with a 21.5 PER. AD is averaging 24.0/10.4/2.2 and 27.4 PER for his career. Not to mention that Pippen entered the league as an unfinished product and averaged below 8 points per game as a rookie. AD, Wade, Bosh, Irving, and Love have all been to multiple all-star games before LeBron even teamed up with them. The Bulls practices were the stuff of legend and it’s no exaggeration that Jordan pushed Pippen to become an all-time great. As Pippen said, “He was very competitive, so he went at me and that helped me learn. You continue to compete against the very best every day, and you will get better, or you’ll be embarrassed.” I wonder if Bosh and Love feels the same…
The Last Dance was a timely reminder
If you watched The Last Dance, you’ll know that in the 1998 Finals, the 2-time defending champion Bulls faced the same team they beat the previous year, a team with a first-ballot power forward, a team with home-court advantage, a team out for revenge. The Bulls had to face this team while their second-best player was ailing with an injury.
Sounds familiar? The Heat were in a similar position in 2014.
The Spurs blew them out by over 15 points per game. A third-year Kawhi — pre-All-NBA Kawhi — outplayed peak LeBron.
People generally regard 2011 as the blackeye to LeBron’s legacy, but 2014 is the scar tissue. That is why stats are insufficient to explain greatness. 2014 LeBron learned from his 2011 meltdown and appeased his critics by filling the box score. But when your team is getting blown out, does it really matter? When the opponent is giving you the open lane with your team trailing by double-digits so that your three-point shooters can’t cut into the lead? We criticize the likes of Devin Booker and Trae Young for being empty stats, bad team players, but LeBron was exactly that in the Finals. Peak LeBron.
In contrast, Jordan labored through the 1998 Finals. He was 35, but he led everyone in minutes and played a total of over a game quarter over anyone else on the Bulls — unlike in 1997 when Pippen played the exact number of minutes as Jordan. Because Pippen had a bad back in ’98 and wasn’t effective on the offensive end, Jordan had to focus on scoring. He attempted almost twice as many shots as Pippen in the Finals and shot only 42.7% from the field. His rebounds and assists were down. But if you watched the games carefully, Jordan did that because that was what the Bulls needed. They weren’t winning if he deferred to Jud Buechler. Jordan had to carry the scoring load, shooting percentage be damned. And he delivered when the Bulls needed. Layup. Steal. Last Shot. Legend.
Because Jordan and LeBron played in different eras, it’s impossible to compare them directly. But 1998/2014 provides the best glimpse. If anybody tells you that LeBron is the greatest, point them to 2014. If they retort with stats, then don’t waste your time; they know nothing about basketball.
Proper respect for LeBron
As I’ve said, LeBron is one of the four greatest basketball players ever. Full stop. It’s a compliment.
But that something else? No. That ship has sailed. In the 10 Finals he’s played, he was the third-best player in 2007 and 2011, and the second-best player in 2014, 2017, and 2018. Imagine saying that about Jordan. Plus he’s proven time and again that he can only win rings with fellow superstars — he completes the game on easy mode. When you play Twisted Metal 2 on Easy, the game ends just after the first boss. I mean, there’s no shame in that. You just wanted to have fun.⁴ But did you really complete the game? Worse, would you claim to be better than those who completed the game at higher difficulty levels? 2015 was impressive and Game 1 of 2018 was legendary, but LeBron ultimately lost.⁵
According to LeBron, winning the 2016 title made him the GOAT. Beating the 73-win Warriors looks good on paper. But this same Warriors team was down 3–1 against KD and Russ. They simply weren’t the juggernaut that they were in the regular season. And those Warriors remain to be the only 60-win team that LeBron has ever beaten in the Finals. Four of Jordan’s titles came against 60-win opponents. Delivering a title to Cleveland was a great story for the boy from Akron, but don’t forget how many championships the Bulls won before and after the Jordan era.
Am I setting the bar too high? If you think so, then that’s tacit admission that Jordan was god-like. And, no, this isn’t some nostalgia-driven fixation on the past. Jordan is the GOAT now, but if Giannis wins multiple rings in Milwaukee, then we can have that discussion. If Luka continues on his trajectory and wins titles in Dallas, then he might have the best shot. Who knows? All I know is that LeBron is not the one.
2020’s been a bad sports year for me. Obviously, LeBron winning is one, but:
- Seb was let go by Ferrari and is getting his ass whooped by LeClerc
- Hamilton breaks Schumi’s wins records and will equal his 7 titles
- Greinke had a 4+ ERA and ‘Stros got bounced in a Game 7
- Crosby and the Penguins were eliminated in the qualifying round
- Cambridge lost The Boat Race
- Messi and Barca got humiliated again in the UCL
- City lost the EPL to Liverpool
- Nadal equaled Fed’s grand slam count
Ateneo would have probably been dethroned if there was a UAAP season in 2020.
Footnotes
¹ Except for BS’s podcast with Zach Lowe on the Mt. GOATmore and Lowe’s ESPN article. The latter is a good, fair take but he omits my single biggest criticism of LeBron: he only wins with fellow superstars.
² Cos those 3 rings were Shaq rings.
³ Should the season have an asterisk? Anything that happens in 2020 should. Would it matter? Probably not. But know this, there’s no way the Nuggets would have come back from 3–1 down TWICE if it had to win three hostile road games to complete the feat.
⁴ KD did, too. That’s why 2017 and 2018 were such schadenfreude.
⁵ You know the easy ending on TM2? A big stop sign featuring the message “No losers allowed beyond this point”.
