From Messiah to Pariah: LeBron James is Down, But He’ll Get Back Up

I met LeBron James on December 13, 2004.

Came in contact, anyway—it’s a bit much to say we met. I was in Memphis, in the FedExForum as the Grizzlies were hosting the not-yet-elite Cavs. I happened to be standing on the floor at the entrance to the visitor’s tunnel as the first half expired. Cleveland’s players made their way off the floor, passing me as they headed to the locker room. I made my move.

“Hey, LeBron,” I said.

The King, stirred out of intense focus, looked up and saw me standing there. In a moment that immediately burned itself into my permanent memory, that I remember more than anything I learned in college, LeBron James lifted his left arm and squeezed his hand into a fist.

And gave me a fist bump.

It was one of those moments. I’d come fist-to-fist with the man who had stolen fire from the gods. I’d made the kind of human-to-human contact that us mere mortals never make with professional athletes. It was a momentous day, and not only because I’d missed my economics final to be at the game.

I’ve been an unabashed LeBron fan ever since. That extends to rooting for the Cavaliers, but to be clear, it’s only because I’m a fan of LeBron. If he leaves, there may still be a soft spot in my heart for the Cavs—but my fandom will follow LBJ to his new home. And I’m not ashamed of that in the slightest.

The ride following the Cavs has taken me all sorts of places, from the 2007 Finals to a couple MVP trophies and, now, a couple consecutive playoff backfires.

LeBron has taken quite a bit of flak for the Cavs’ exit in these playoffs; flak primarily for not doing five men’s jobs and winning a title on his own. Whether due to Mike Brown’s thorough offensive ineptitude or the now-annual absence of his teammates, it fell on LeBron again to win a title all by himself. And it fell short, as it always does.

It’s somebody’s fault. It may very well be LeBron’s, it may be Mike Brown’s, it may be Danny Ferry’s for assembling a group of players who are inexplicably unable to create offense for themselves. But it’s premature to give up on LeBron, as seems to be in vogue. The net result of the Cavs’ loss in the playoffs this season is simple:

LeBron’s seventh season has escaped without a title.

It was in his seventh year that Jordan won his first ring, and that’s really the comparison we’re making, right? We can make all the comparisons to Kobe Bryant that we need to sell papers, but in the end it’s of no consequence. We want to know if LeBron James will be the greatest player to ever play the game, so we can watch it all unfold before our gaping eyes. Kobe—even if he ends up being the second-best player of all-time—is decidedly not the benchmark.

If we wanted to get picky about it, we could even make the argument that LeBron isn’t yet off MJ’s pace, as he entered the league younger. LBJ is 25; Michael was 28 when the Bulls won it all in 1991. I won’t argue either way. Because it doesn’t matter.

To rub it in more, we could spend some time discussing Kobe’s 9th, 10th, and 11th seasons, where his Lakers missed the playoffs and then got bounced out of the first round twice by the Phoenix Suns. He already had a trio of rings in his trophy case, but not as the kind of alpha dog we’re discussing.

LeBron James’s career, then, shouldn’t be construed as having completed its full arc. In 2007 he was the underdog; his overachieving took a team of dilletantes to the Finals. After that he became a favorite, and has been for three consecutive playoff runs. But three strikes seems to be all LeBron can get; now he’s been given up on—he’s lesser than Kobe, and he’ll never be Michael.

Even if that ends up being the case, even if he somehow peaked in his fourth season and it’s downhill from there, it’s worth appreciating what LeBron has done. He’s been the focal point of an offense built around him putting in 30/10/10 every night—knowing that when he does, they’ll win, and when he doesn’t, they won’t.

This is the player who calmly, thoughtfully told reporters that he could win the scoring title every year if he felt like it—and we all knew it was true.

Any way you shake it, this is one of those guys. Someone who has risen to the pinnacle of human physical achievement, who puts himself in competition with those who are the best in the world and receives little or no competition in return. We talk of focus and drive and dedication, but who of us that write or read about sports can compare ourselves to LeBron in these categories?

Or even to, like, Larry Hughes?

The next ten years of LeBron’s career (that would put him at 35 years old; he should be wrapping up around then) are going to be a movie that, so far, we’ve only seen the trailer for. What happens if someone with twice the physical tools of Kobe Bryant develops that same killer instinct, similarly late in his career?

It’s true he’d have to win four titles in the next five years to have four by age 30, as Kobe did (three under the wing of a certain Shaquille O’Neal). And then he’d have to get a couple more to shake down MJ as the greatest player of all time. Maybe he will; it’s likely that he won’t, as it’s unlikely that Jordan will ever be dethroned. But whether he does or doesn’t, he’s still be one of the most unimaginably talented athletes we’ve ever seen.

It’s almost like we don’t want to see the end, for fear it will disappoint us. We want him to go like Bo Jackson.

If you remember, Bo suffered a career-ending hip injury while playing for the Los Angeles Raiders. The story goes that if the incident had happened to any normal player, his leg would have simply broken, and he would have been back on the field once it healed. But Bo was so strong, and his legs so muscular, that instead his hip came entirely out of its socket (and eventually had to be replaced, due to unrelated conditions).

I don’t have the slightest inkling whether that’s true or not, but between that and Bo’s unbeatable speed in Tecmo Super Bowl, it creates the perfect athletic legend. It leaves us with this warm fuzzy feeling about everything that Bo could have done—won a fistful of Super Bowls and World Series, been a 30-time MVP, been elected President—and we don’t have to worry about comparisons.

With LeBron, we’ll just have to wait and see. Barring some Bo-esque injury, we’ll see it all play out. So far, every year he’s rolled his rock all the way up the hill only to see it roll back down. But he has been, undoubtedly, the league’s Most Valuable Player for two straight years, and it seems unfathomable that anyone will soon displace him as such.

And now he has his big decision: continue as the face of the Cavaliers, or leave to become the face of another franchise? He’s already built a greater modern legacy than most entire teams in the league (all except the Lakers, Celtics, and Bulls… and okay, the Spurs), and won’t have to take a backseat to anybody, on any team that he chooses.

I don’t know what team he’ll be playing for next year. My guess is that he’ll be wearing a Cavaliers jersey, #6, when the season starts in October. But maybe it’ll be the Knicks, or the Bulls. Or the Clippers are a pretty compelling match.

It doesn’t matter the team. I’ll be a fan.