LeBron winning it all with current cast would vault him ahead of all-time greats
The NBA Finals, two thrilling and fulfilling overtime games in, have already moved beyond compelling and are threatening, as the series shifts tonight to LeBron James’s territory, to achieve real-time classic status.
It’s not just that the games have been ridiculous fun, even as they’ve occasionally devolved at times into rock fight. It’s that anticipating them, pondering and jabbering about what’s next in the hours before the event, has been a blast too.
I do have to acknowledge, though, that there are two common narratives in the aftermath of the Cavaliers’ gritty series-tying victory in Game 2 that I think fall at least a full-court heave short of accurate.
One is the notion that Matthew Dellavadova shut down Stephen Curry. He played hard, no doubt. He bumped him and agitated him. He was a nuisance, sure. But you know what really happened? Curry missed shots he normally makes. A lot of them. He won’t shoot 5 of 23 again if he takes every shot from the tunnel.
Dellavadova is a former Austrailian rugby player who looks and plays basketball like a former Australian rugby player. He’s made a nice niche for himself. But he could yell, “I’m going roll up your ankle like I did to Korver, mate!’’ all game and Curry would still shoot a higher percentage than he did in Game 2. I bet he makes more threes in first quarter tonight than he did in 42 minutes and 16 seconds of playing time Sunday night, when he went 2 of 15.
The other off-center narrative regards the driving force of this series so far, LeBron James. Actually, he’s the driving force of every series he plays in, even one that involves the current Most Valuable Player. Like Michael Jordan before him, an engaged LeBron is the true MVP every season, even if the trophy goes to someone else in a given year.
Since he finally vanquished Paul Pierce and the nemesis Celtics with his transcendent 45-point, my-time-is-now performance in Game 6 of the 2012 Eastern Conference Finals, LeBron has been positioned as the favorite in every series.
But with Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving falling victim to injury during the postseason, LeBron finds himself guiding — with shocking success Sunday — a severely undermanned Cleveland ensemble against a truly sensational Warriors team in the finals, this new narrative has him positioned in an unfamiliar place: as the underdog.
It’s a fascinating, even irresistible, concept. This is a player who was hailed as the Chosen One on the cover of Sports Illustrated when he was 17 years old and, remarkably if not miraculously in the chop-’em-down culture we live in now, emerged as a fully-formed athlete and man at 30 who is comfortable with his throne.
Yeah, he talks about himself in the third person sometimes, and The Decision was a bad one. Big whoop. He’s righted some wrongs, plays basketball relentlessly and selflessly, and has nurtured his own extraordinary talent. I admire the hell out of the way he appears to have navigated through it all.
LeBron was long-ago established as an all-time great, a legend in his own time, even as he remains in his electric prime. It may be time to acknowledge that he is more than that. I went into these Finals thinking that if the Cavs emerged victorious, the argument for LeBron as the greatest player of all-time would be easy to make. And that was with Irving. Should Cleveland somehow win this now, against this otherworldly Warriors team, with Tristan Thompson and Dellavadova and various assorted ex-Knicks in crucial supporting roles, it will be a feat for LeBron that eclipses anything Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan or Bill Russell accomplished in a single season. Jordan never won a title with Orlando Woolridge and Jawaan Oldham in crucial roles, you know?
Praising LeBron isn’t meant to diminish them. It’s to acknowledge and appreciate the rare and perhaps unprecedented talent before us. Which reminds me why this new narrative is not quite right.
It’s not that LeBron is the underdog. What’s going on here is even more remarkable.
He’s hell-bent on proving that he should always be the favorite, even when the odds and the rosters are stacked against him.
These Celtics made five straight Finals before LeBron did
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