LeBron James: Loved, hated, misunderstood
Head over heart, in other words. That's not often where sports reside. James and Wade were being clinical, practical, reasoned. But every hostility that engulfed James after his choice was the opposite of that -- not only soaked in emotion but overwhelmed by it. Hatred. Fury. Envy. And name-calling from coast to coast. One NBA coach referred to James as a ``fraud.'' Cleveland's crazed owner called him a coward traitor in a raging public letter. These are visceral reflexes, and reflexes are rarely logical. One is not thinking clearly when setting fire to an expensive jersey, but the first word in ``fanatical'' is always ``fan,'' and fanatical is not a logical state of mind. So James went from one of the country's most beloved athletes to one of its most reviled in a single hour of flatulent television, a fall from grace faster than that of Tiger Woods, and for a crime I'm having some difficulty identifying.
ANALYZE THE ANGER
Sports are emotional. So too are its fans. It is part of what makes both so fun. But, because of that, what has happened to James outside of South Florida doesn't seem any kind of reasonable. The volume of the anger, and the intensity of it, doesn't fit at all with the actual choice he made. You can be put off by the way he made it, even though no amount of humility and contrition would have soothed the crushed people of Cleveland, but let's examine just his action, if that is even possible given the storm of noise that swirls in the reaction. Actions echo and endure more than words, right? Here, unemotionally, is the choice James made:
He chose to take less money. He chose to sacrifice being the singular star of his team in order to share the stage -- and in a city that belonged to another star, no less. He chose to admit to all that he needed to lean on a friend for help. He chose to go from the easy and forever love of little Cleveland to unholy criticism that would wildfire-spread from the burning jerseys in his hometown to a smoldering that would engulf our entire sports nation. He chose to go from hero to villain. Chose it. Think about that. He chose to go from love to hate. And he chose to subjugate his enormous ego in the name of team. In other words, he put winning above all else -- above money, adoration, even home.
And that's a bad thing? Doesn't America usually love that kind of rah-rah sacrifice in sports? Don't those ideals usually get transformed into Hoosiers instead of Hatred? Given his standing, the reigning two-time MVP in his prime at 25, it is only a decision that is without precedent in the history of American sports. If people wouldn't laugh you out of the room because he is making $110 million for bouncing a basketball, you could make the argument that what James did, if indeed he was aware of the backlash it would cause, was damn near noble and brave. Pioneers rarely get to be popular while in the middle of the pioneering. Real leadership always risks unpopularity.
Let's give this the scale breathless television has given it now for months. Let's make James an actual global giant. Let's make him, physically, bigger than the United States. Now watch him, without emotion, step with one of his signature sneakers upon the little hometown he outgrew. And let's have him do it in such a clumsy and shocking way that the little people around Cleveland scurry and cry and scream and burn, and the reverberation of that moment, shown live on television, makes America shake from sea to tremoring sea.
EGO PLUS TV
That ain't going to feel any kind of good. And we're going to want the giant to apologize or empathize or feel some sort of connection with his worshippers. But, sorry, ego is a big part of what makes the giant the giant, and bloated television fed that insatiable beast for months. And, besides, he isn't sorry. The giant has told you, in words and now in deeds, that all he craves is winning. Maybe, if he's at all aware or compassionate or empathetic, he'll regret the way he presented this decision one day. But he clearly doesn't regret the decision itself.
And that was a rather amazing thing we witnessed Friday night in a gyrating Miami, an arena in an indifferent sports town filling with people even though there would be no game. The giant was so happy to be this close to big winning that he chose to stand in the shadow of the smaller Wade. On the posters. On the scoreboard. On the stage. Wade was always in the middle, at the center. The more famous player, the global icon, was always off to the side. By his choice. An unemotional one.
Amid smoke and music and roaring, Wade, James and Chris Bosh were introduced as The Three Kings, a ridiculous designation to give Bosh (a ridiculous designation to give anybody, really) but particularly ridiculous for a guy from Toronto whose teams have had more appearances in the lottery than in the playoffs. And Bosh, so new to it all, stepped out into it with gusto, throwing his head back and screaming into the noise while James simply nodded his head with royal approval.
Point is, James used to be nicknamed the King all by himself. But already, before a ball has bounced, he is in the process of elevating his teammates.
That said, you can see why this was infuriating to the rest of America. That's how you celebrate after you've won something big, not before. The entire tone-deaf way this all has played out, though we love it here in bandwagon Miami, is entirely unlovable everywhere else. The choice James made, and the way he made it, makes him a lot less likable in the eyes of most people outside of South Florida. Yankee champions Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera, graceful gluttons, would never celebrate like this way even after they had accomplished something.
VIEW IN ORLANDO
The Orlando Magic general manager, like a lot of people in the sport, criticized James. Said he thought James was more of a competitor than that. Taking the easy way out. That's how this is being viewed elsewhere.
All of a sudden, after getting ravaged for all the ego in his absurd made-for-TV special, James is now being ravaged for his absence of ego, too. He should have been more selfish, evidently. He should have not only wanted to win, apparently, but he should have also wanted to hog all the credit and glory for said winning.
But, hey, maybe that's the fear talking. Three players just teamed to put a whole lot of good jobs in jeopardy. And put another group of emotions -- terror, envy, fury -- into just about every other fan base. These three guys are in their prime. And they've hogged the best emotion in this sport -- hope.
And that's why the media critic for Sports Illustrated writes the following: ``Not trying to be alarmist or hyperbolic: I honestly believe the Miami Heat are now the most hated team in all of professional sport.'' Before a game has been played. Shoot, the Heat isn't even a team yet. The Heat isn't even half a team. Seven of the 12 spots on the roster are empty.
What has happened isn't any kind of fair, of course. The Heat have built an instant dynasty with dollars, and that is hard to cheer. But maybe this is what makes everyone uncomfortable, too:
James did it without emotion in an emotional world, crushing his poor hometown with the cold-blooded streak we usually assign to champion killers Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant when they use it in ways that make us applaud. We salute Jordan and Bryant for being that kind of cutthroat because we saw them win with it again and again. In other words, we played the result, making that attitude a virtue only after we saw it succeed. But we've never seen a star of this magnitude cut throats quite like this -- before he has won, in order to win, even stepping on the neck of his hometown and home state in order to do so.
RAW REACTION
We forget that this kind of instinct is greedy and not easily controlled, no matter how superhuman its owner. Jordan, patron saint for winning, punched teammate Steve Kerr in the face. Bryant made a big public mess in demanding a trade. They did this emotionally when frustrated. James is frustrated now, too. But not emotional. May God have mercy on Cleveland the first time the Heat play there, when Wade and James are emotional. Because of how conditional the love always was in Cleveland, because the loyalty only went one way, because the owner wrote that public letter, because Cleveland always needed him a lot more than he needed Cleveland, that will be the night Wade will be doing a whole lot of passing to his great friend. That'll be the game Wade returns this King-sized favor and steps from up front and in the middle to right to his friend's side.
James was shown video of his jersey burning on ESPN, and we all got to see his first reaction, raw and real.
``I can't get involved in that,'' he said. ``One thing I didn't want to do is make this an emotional decision.''
And then he referred to himself in the third person, saying LeBron James had to do what was best for LeBron James, which is part of the problem here. The delivery. The packaging. How he did this is obscuring what he did. That one-hour infomercial on ESPN was a godforsaken mess Thursday night, the worst television idea since Geraldo Rivera opened Al Capone's empty vault. The way James chose to make his announcement was cheesy and ridiculous and a monument to the kind of childish me-me-me fans despise from arrogant athletes. It was also benign and fun and funny, but it doesn't feel that way to fans when an athlete dares to toy and tease with those damn emotions. So it becomes one of the worst ideas an athlete has ever had in theory and in execution -- a disaster so epic that it buried James' unprecedented message about winning and sacrifice.
LEBRON VS. KOBE
So, of course, he was called names. Bryant would have had the courage to go it alone, it was argued, even though when Bryant really went it alone he kept losing very fast in the playoffs and begged for a trade and made a public mess trying to get out of his situation to, um, be with better teammates. That was the same Bryant, incidentally, who was only in that position to begin with because he couldn't co-exist with Shaquille O'Neal and preferred to go it alone. We can be awfully convenient and inconsistent with our moralities in sports, using only that scoreboard as a character referendum to separate life's winners from losers. But Bryant was under contract when he sought better teammates by demanding a trade and embarrassing his employer; James was a free agent, free to work with whomever he chose, and I'm guessing most of us would choose jobs that gave us the most of what we wanted.
James made a good decision. Sound. Reasonable. With a lot more staked on the consequences than any of those who are angry. Jordan, patron saint for winning, never took a public-relations risk like this. Wade didn't take it, either.
Again, James did this without emotion.
Head over heart.
Head over heart.
Head over heart.
Head for the exits, NBA fans outside of South Florida. Now is when the King goes looking to really break your heart.
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