mARCandE: official / clean.freshness: June 2012

I became a pseudo Heat fan during the Heat-Pacers series when I found myself really going for the Heat when I watched the playoffs...so I just gave in and told people 'yes' I'm a Heat fan (at the expense of looking like a bandwagon fan)...but I found out the only reason I was a Heat fan was because I was rooting for LeBron James 100%...if LBJ wasn't on the Heat I would have watched the Heat play en route to the Finals like they did in '06 (in actuality they probably wouldn't even be on a championship run if LBJ wasn't on the team) simply as a basketball fan...

I never understood how people began to hate (media and fans) LBJ like he was the anti-christ all because of one decision he decided to publicize on ESPN...Seriously!!!??!! All this hate because he wanted to leave the lowly Cleveland Cavs where they never gave him a substantial no. 2 player to support him, he carried the team to a Finals appearance and 2 consecutive 60+ win seasons...With that said I began to like LBJ even more because everybody had something to criticize him for when he was and is the best player in the league...Since he finally won the title you now start to see the tide change about people's opinions of the 'Chosen One'...read this good article titled 'Lebron Makes LeLeap' by Bill Simmons that nicely talks about LBJ's championship run...(heads up, its a long but good read)
--------------------------------------

LeBron Makes LeLeap

Sitting in awe courtside while King James finally figured it all out

By Bill Simmons

You know what saddens me? The funniest clip on YouTube is no longer funny. Yep, you can finally rest in peace, "The Heat Welcome Party" video. Thanks for giving us two sterling years atop the Internet comedy rankings. We're replacing you with a bullpen by committee of old reliables like "I Like Turtles," "Charlie Bit Me," the "It's Still Real to Me, Dammit" guy, Journey's immortal "Separate Ways" video and even the "I Like Turtles" techno remix. You will be buried officially during Monday's championship parade in Miami. We will bury you not once, not twice, not three times … just kidding, we're only burying you once.

Let's hope you don't resurface as something else — something scarier, something more ominous, something on the level of Namath guaranteeing Super Bowl III or Ali promising to defeat Liston. See, the ceiling of "The Heat Welcome Party" slowly changed during the last two games of the 2012 Finals. It's no longer about hubris or a suffocating lack of self-awareness. It might be more of an omen, a warning, a little like the Game of Thrones characters seeing a red comet streak across the sky and saying, Uh-oh, dragons are coming. I mention this only because, like every other non-Miami fan who attended the last two home games, I left that arena muttering to myself, "sh-t … he finally figured it out."

Suddenly "Not one, not two, not three … " doesn't sound so far-fetched. Unless his body betrays him, it's hard to imagine LeBron not using the 2012 playoffs as a launching pad for the next stage of his career … you know, when he starts collecting trophies and climbing up that imaginary historical ladder. We remember NBA stars three different ways: by the entirety of their career, their career's highest peak, and the duration of that peak. Something like 25 players had genuinely great careers, but only seven played at the all-around level that LeBron achieved these past few weeks. Jordan, Russell, Kareem, Magic and Bird kept their peaks going. Wilt got bored. Walton got injured. Now we're here again.

LeBron spent the last nine years juggling various identities — a little Jordan, a little Magic, a little ABA Doc, a little Pippen — never revealing that HE knew what he wanted to be. Even his position was amorphous. Was he a power forward? A small forward? An oversize point guard? What the hell was he? By the end of the 2012 Finals, we had our answer: He's LeBron James. First of a kind. A power point guard who can create his own shot from the perimeter and the low post, a devastating passer who can't be double-teamed, a superior athlete who attacks the rim whenever he wants, an unfathomably durable workhorse on both ends, someone who can defend all five positions (yes, five) at an elite level.

Over everything else, he fully married his physical gifts with his basketball I.Q. and morphed into something of a basketball monster. Remember all those times when we wondered, Why doesn't LeBron just take it to the rack — it seems like he could score whenever he wants? Yup, pretty much. A good example of LeBron's physical dominance this spring: Late in Game 4, when LeBron started limping and finally toppled to the floor, everyone in the arena had the same reaction. Wait, LeBron can get hurt? LeBron feels pain? It was like seeing Michael Myers keel over. When he was carried off, the crowd audibly gasped in disbelief. They're carrying him off? They're carrying LeBron off? I assumed that he belatedly realized he'd blown out his knee because, you know, he's a fu-king cyborg. As it turned out, he only had cramps. Even that seemed kind of amazing. LeBron James gets cramps? LeBron James needs to drink water?

So yeah, everything starts with that remarkable body. If you were creating a basketball player in a science lab, you would create the guy we just watched these past five weeks. When was the last time an NBA player made you say, "Come on, that's not fair"? Maybe Shaq during those three Finals when he kept overpowering the Pacers, Sixers and Nets? That's how LeBron made Celtics fans feel during Game 6's cold-blooded scoring barrage, and that's how he made Oklahoma City fans feel during those last two Finals games. LeBron mastered their defense the same way Tom Brady would solve a nickel zone. Everything slowed down for him, and even better, you could see it slowing down for him. The court turned into his personal chess board. Throw in his superhuman athletic gifts and it almost didn't seem fair.

In Game 4, Miami planted him on the low post and LeBron went Larry Bird 2.0 on us. (For the record, there was never supposed to be a Larry Bird 2.0. We discontinued that model in 1992 and assumed it would never be seen again, much less in an even more devastating form. So … yeah.) In Game 5, he mixed that same low-post game with Dirk Nowitzki's high-post isolation game that worked so well in the 2011 playoffs, going Dirk 2.0 by adding a slash-and-kick component. Of his 13 Game 5 assists, eight resulted in 3s. Throw in his 26 points and LeBron was directly responsible for 60 points last night.

You know what was really scary? I didn't even think he played that well. Game 6 against Boston? A-plus. The first three quarters of Game 4 against Oklahoma City? A-plus-plus. Last night? B-plus … even though he finished with a 26-11-13 in a blowout victory. Something that wasn't totally reflected in the box score other than Miami's made 3s (14 in all): LeBron's brilliance lifted everyone else along with him. It wasn't a coincidence that Miami's supporting guys starting swishing 3s like pop-a-shot free throws. We just watched the same thing happen with the Los Angeles Kings — once Jonathan Quick established himself as the proverbial "hot goalie," his teammates started flying around with an inordinate amount of confidence. They could smell it. Same for Miami those last few games. And all because of LeBron.

In the postgame presser, he mentioned being happy it played out the way it did, that he needed to "hit rock-bottom" before he could become the player he needed to be. I don't believe this for two reasons. First, his jaw-dropping performance in the 2009 playoffs (35.3 PPG, 7.3 APG, 9.1 RPG, .510 FG) strongly hinted that this 2012 bloodbath (30.3 PPG, 9.3 RPG, 5.6 APG, the first player ever to average a 30-9-5 twice in the postseason) was coming. His evolution was always headed this way; we just got delayed (and nearly derailed) by 2010's meltdown in the Boston series, then "The Decision," then everything from last year. Second, I can't imagine LeBron would ever repeat the last 23 months. There had to be better ways to get there. During last night's interviews, we kept hearing the same wistful refrain from LeBron, his teammates and even his coach. The last two years weren't fun. Wearing that big bull's-eye and the black cowboy hat wasn't fun. Being booed wasn't fun, being picked apart wasn't fun, being maligned wasn't fun. They spent last season battling the collective vitriol, figuring out how to use it to their advantage … and ultimately failing.

As LeBron admitted last night, it just wasn't him. He wasn't meant to be someone who dunked on opponents and stared defiantly into the stands like a wrestling heel. He lost himself in the process, spent the summer remembering why he liked basketball, rededicated himself, found that same joy … and the rest was history. Even if that sounds like a sweet plot for a sports movie, I'm not buying that LeBron needed that specific sequence to achieve his manifest destiny. Sports would have taken care of that for him. You keep losing the title, you keep going back to the drawing board, you keep trying to get better. Wilt wanted to get past the Celtics. Bird wanted to get past the Sixers. Magic wanted to get past the Celtics. Jordan wanted to get past the Pistons. That's basketball. Eventually, LeBron would realize that losing sucked and spend the summer accordingly. Decision or no Decision.

So what actually changed? For one thing, Dwyane Wade injured his knee and became 70 Percent Of Dwyane Wade, inadvertently solving the "dueling banjos" dilemma. The Heat tried to thwart six decades of NBA history by teaming two alpha dogs together, making them equals and assuming their overwhelming talent would overcome any resulting bumpiness. They were wrong. Basketball doesn't work that way, for the same reason you don't need two transcendent lead guitarists for a rock band. Someone had to learn bass. It ended up being Wade, and only because fate intervened. We'll remember Game 6 of the Boston series for a variety of reasons, but mainly because LeBron looked around and said, I'm going down on my own terms. I'm playing all 48 minutes and scoring 50 points. If we lose, we lose. At least nobody will say that I rolled over. It ended up being the most important two hours of his career. He went out and assassinated the Celtics.

From that moment forward, Dwyane Wade became a glorified sidekick. Everything Miami did offensively went through LeBron. Wade quickly figured out how to coexist, grabbing stray shots and doing anything else the team needed: protecting the rim, crashing the boards, bolting toward the rim for backdoor passes anytime Oklahoma City forgot about him. You couldn't even call him more valuable than Chris Bosh, who reestablished himself in those last seven playoff games as a quality defender, screen-and-roller and inside/outside threat who didn't need the ball to thrive. Was Wade happy about how it played out? Absolutely … because they won. Tellingly, of course, he made a point of mentioning how "difficult" that adjustment was.

And that's only scratching the surface. Imagine you're Wade. Imagine you talk Bosh and LeBron into joining YOUR team and living in YOUR city. Imagine that first year going to hell. Imagine coming to the begrudging realization that you're only going as far as LeBron takes you, that — even though it's your city, and you're the one who gets introduced last at every home game — you're going to have to wear the Robin costume. By Game 2 of the Finals, everyone is wondering whether you're the same guy you used to be; meanwhile, you've never had to take a backseat on a basketball court before, and that's what is screwing you up more than anything. By Game 5, you're listening to your fans serenade LeBron with "M-V-P!" chants as he holds two trophies like a hunter holding a couple of deer heads. You're standing on the side, just like Shaq six years ago. Maybe that's what he meant by "difficult."

Just know the situation was resolved organically, much like it was during the 2008 Olympics, when Spain was closing in and Kobe said I got this, followed by everyone else letting him have it. That's just how basketball works. You can't have two guys saying "I got this." Miami figured that out a year late. And if Wade hadn't tweaked his knee, maybe they never would have.

The other twist of fate: Derrick Rose wrecked his knee in Round 1, propelling the Celtics into the Conference Finals … you know, LeBron's nemesis, the bullies who beat him in 2008 and 2010, the grizzled veterans who were convinced that LeBron would always cave when it mattered most. Garnett and Pierce loved pushing his buttons more than anyone. During their final regular-season road trip to Miami, which turned out to be a surprisingly easy win for the Celtics, they spent the last two minutes busting Wade's balls about LeBron. You picked the wrong guy. You'll never win with that guy. LeBron could hear everything. They didn't care. In Game 5 of their playoff series, Garnett and Pierce pushed things a little further, believing that LeBron was ready to cave again. Down the stretch, Garnett muttered derisive obscenities under his breath anytime LeBron was in earshot, then stuffed him at the rim on a pivotal drive. A little bit later, Pierce nailed a back-breaking 3 right in LeBron's mug, then yelled, "I have the balls to take that!" as he trotted back down the floor.

In retrospect, they pushed him too far. The Celtics regarded LeBron with a surprising amount of disdain — that's why Rondo angrily yelped, "Let's go!" before defending LeBron's final drive of regulation in Game 2. LeBron ended up settling for a 21-footer against someone seven inches shorter than him, followed by Rondo strutting back to the huddle and probably telling his teammates, "I knew he didn't have the balls to come at me." They spent that whole series challenging his manhood; by the end of Game 5, they thought they had broken him. Was that what turned him into a serial killer in Game 6? Not entirely … but it definitely helped. I just don't think LeBron makes LeLeap without the bullies from Boston.

-------------------------
holla,
(4o)ur

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Unlucky lottery loser: entry 28 (6.9.12)

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Random Rant vol. 44: 'About damn time' Lebron wins (plus article by Bill Simmons)

Monday, June 18, 2012

Spreadin the Real: Bboy Tata and Bros. Bboyin

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Unlucky lottery loser: entry 27 (6.6.12)

Tuesday, June 05, 2012

Shameless promotion/Spreadin the real: Will Boy - If I die song

Spreadin the Real: Nas reveals the new album cover

mARCandEees