I believed in LeBron James.
Let me rephrase that: I wanted to believe in LeBron James. I wanted to believe the hype. I wanted to believe he was “The Chosen One” as much as I believed that “We are all witnesses”.
I wanted to believe in him because I wanted to become a witness to greatness, a concept defined in sports as the ability to excel in the midst of improbable odds. It is the rarest and most precious of sports phenomena, more than championships, which happen every year, more than 50-point games or triple-doubles, which happen almost every other month.
I wanted to believe in him because I refused to believe in Kobe Bryant – a player whom I always viewed as artificial and contrived. I lusted for the possibility of LeBron beating Kobe one day, both in the NBA Finals and in the perpetual tournament of greatness.
The last truly great NBA player was Michael Jordan, of whom I only became aware when I was in 6th grade, by which time he was already on his way to greatness. With LeBron, I got to follow his NBA career from the start. And what made him captivating was the surreal but totally plausible prospect of him surpassing Jordan. He had Jordan’s athleticism and explosiveness plus Karl Malone’s body and Magic Johnson’s passing skills. He was a freak of nature. He could be better. I could be a witness.
So I followed him every year. I reveled in his 48-point explosion against the Detroit Pistons in the 2007 NBA Eastern Conference Finals. I made excuses for him when his Cleveland Cavaliers were humiliated by the Orlando Magic in the 2009 Eastern Conference Finals. Then I was embarrassed for him when he seemed content to roll over against the Boston Celtics in this year's Eastern Conference Semifinals.
And then this.
Joining Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami guarantees that he will never be greater than Kobe, and therefore will never even be like Mike. He chose the easy way out by choosing to play with one of the top three players in the league. He veered away from the path of greatness – the path taken by the likes of Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Isaiah Thomas, Hakeem Olajuwon, Michael Jordan, and yes, Kobe Bryant – the one that entails building a team around oneself, the one that entails more responsibility, more hard work, more balls.
I felt cheated. And I wasn’t alone.
LeBron James is unselfish.
The disappointment over LeBron’s decision could be felt all over the internet, and in the noise, I found it almost impossible to write about it. It took me a few days, but now I’m finally here, clear-headed and the closest I’ve been to being objective, staring at the computer monitor and finally seeing something buried in all the frustration and disillusion, which finally made it possible for me to write the preceding one-sentence paragraph.
What LeBron James did with Dwyane Wade was unprecedented; and it’s perhaps because of this that we true-blue basketball fans of the old-school cannot wrap our heads around what just happened. They essentially did what no other superstar under the age of 30 has done: take less money and possibly less shots to play for what could turn out to be one of the greatest dynasties in basketball. Veterans looking for a championship ring do this, but not young players coming into the prime of their careers.
This is probably the most unselfish act in the history of the NBA.
And we hate it.
We are selfish.
We wanted LeBron to build his own dynasty where he’s the main man. He didn’t even have to stay in Cleveland to make us happy; he could’ve been a part of a LeBron-centric powerhouse in Chicago or built empires from scratch in New York or even in New Jersey. We wanted to see him fulfill the promise he himself hyped: the promise of individual greatness.
People who are passionate fans of sports are no different from people who are passionate lovers of art, in that they revel in drama, misery, glory, loss, pain and basically everything human. In this regard, sports fans have a more impossible task than art lovers: we expect the exceptional in a realm that is inherently flawed. Fiction writers can create worlds inside their minds, unhampered by the laws of reality, but athletes are pretty much expected to weave fiction-like heroism within the realm of reality. But when they do, we savor the moment; moments like Michael Jordan’s heroic 38-point effort despite a stomach flu in the 1997 NBA Finals; Ginebra coming back from a 3-1 series deficit against Shell in 1991, punctuated by Rudy Distrito’s off-balance shot to win the series in Game 7; Steve Nash killing the Spurs this past playoffs with nifty passes and back-breaking jump shots despite his left eye being swollen shut; LeBron James hitting a long contested three-pointer to win Game 1 of the 2009 Eastern Conference Finals.
We can only view LeBron’s unselfish act as an act of cowardice because while he chose the tough financial path, he also chose the easy winning path. He will never face improbable odds ever again. For the next few years we will get to see him win on games that he’s supposed to win, grab championships he is supposed to grab. We won’t see him face his demons and vanquish the very enemies that caused him all his heartbreak like Michael Jordan did. We won’t see him face the pressure of carrying a team to championship glory like Kobe Bryant did. We won’t see him – to paraphrase Jordan himself – fail time and time again…so he can succeed.
People who are passionate fans of sports are no different from people who are passionate lovers of art, in that we want to see real life portrayed. That is why we are so obsessed with the concept of a superstar overcoming adversity and leading a team to victory, because it is a struggle that mirrors life itself. When we watch Jordan, or Magic, or Bird, or Kobe, we don’t root for them because they inspire us to succeed in our personal lives; we root for them because their struggles remind us of the ones we go through in our personal lives.
The LeBron-Wade union makes us mad because it represents the easy way out unavailable to us in the real world. We work hard everyday for a paycheck, respect, a promotion, better writing skills, opportunities abroad, better dancing skills, our children’s tuition fees, our own self-worth, our life’s meaning. In our quest, we go through heartbreak, we lose our jobs, we get stuck in our jobs, we fight co-workers, we fight the system, we get betrayed by the system. Everyday of our lives we fail, and every day of our lives we wake up to fight what we know could very well be a lost cause. And we do this alone.
We never get to have a choice to ride on someone else’s talents and skills in order to succeed because real life is not a game played with teams; it’s a game played alone. That’s why we will always love selfish superstars like Jordan and Kobe – because they faced their challenges in a world that is ruthless and lonely. And their superhuman achievements will always be closer to our reality than anything LeBron will ever do for the rest of his career.
photo from http://mobile.sbnation.com/2010/7/9/1560845/cleveland-plain-dealer--lebron-james-rings-cavs-newspaper-front-page
Let me rephrase that: I wanted to believe in LeBron James. I wanted to believe the hype. I wanted to believe he was “The Chosen One” as much as I believed that “We are all witnesses”.
I wanted to believe in him because I wanted to become a witness to greatness, a concept defined in sports as the ability to excel in the midst of improbable odds. It is the rarest and most precious of sports phenomena, more than championships, which happen every year, more than 50-point games or triple-doubles, which happen almost every other month.
I wanted to believe in him because I refused to believe in Kobe Bryant – a player whom I always viewed as artificial and contrived. I lusted for the possibility of LeBron beating Kobe one day, both in the NBA Finals and in the perpetual tournament of greatness.
The last truly great NBA player was Michael Jordan, of whom I only became aware when I was in 6th grade, by which time he was already on his way to greatness. With LeBron, I got to follow his NBA career from the start. And what made him captivating was the surreal but totally plausible prospect of him surpassing Jordan. He had Jordan’s athleticism and explosiveness plus Karl Malone’s body and Magic Johnson’s passing skills. He was a freak of nature. He could be better. I could be a witness.
So I followed him every year. I reveled in his 48-point explosion against the Detroit Pistons in the 2007 NBA Eastern Conference Finals. I made excuses for him when his Cleveland Cavaliers were humiliated by the Orlando Magic in the 2009 Eastern Conference Finals. Then I was embarrassed for him when he seemed content to roll over against the Boston Celtics in this year's Eastern Conference Semifinals.
And then this.
Joining Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami guarantees that he will never be greater than Kobe, and therefore will never even be like Mike. He chose the easy way out by choosing to play with one of the top three players in the league. He veered away from the path of greatness – the path taken by the likes of Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Isaiah Thomas, Hakeem Olajuwon, Michael Jordan, and yes, Kobe Bryant – the one that entails building a team around oneself, the one that entails more responsibility, more hard work, more balls.
I felt cheated. And I wasn’t alone.
* * *
LeBron James is unselfish.
The disappointment over LeBron’s decision could be felt all over the internet, and in the noise, I found it almost impossible to write about it. It took me a few days, but now I’m finally here, clear-headed and the closest I’ve been to being objective, staring at the computer monitor and finally seeing something buried in all the frustration and disillusion, which finally made it possible for me to write the preceding one-sentence paragraph.
What LeBron James did with Dwyane Wade was unprecedented; and it’s perhaps because of this that we true-blue basketball fans of the old-school cannot wrap our heads around what just happened. They essentially did what no other superstar under the age of 30 has done: take less money and possibly less shots to play for what could turn out to be one of the greatest dynasties in basketball. Veterans looking for a championship ring do this, but not young players coming into the prime of their careers.
This is probably the most unselfish act in the history of the NBA.
And we hate it.
* * *
We are selfish.
We wanted LeBron to build his own dynasty where he’s the main man. He didn’t even have to stay in Cleveland to make us happy; he could’ve been a part of a LeBron-centric powerhouse in Chicago or built empires from scratch in New York or even in New Jersey. We wanted to see him fulfill the promise he himself hyped: the promise of individual greatness.
People who are passionate fans of sports are no different from people who are passionate lovers of art, in that they revel in drama, misery, glory, loss, pain and basically everything human. In this regard, sports fans have a more impossible task than art lovers: we expect the exceptional in a realm that is inherently flawed. Fiction writers can create worlds inside their minds, unhampered by the laws of reality, but athletes are pretty much expected to weave fiction-like heroism within the realm of reality. But when they do, we savor the moment; moments like Michael Jordan’s heroic 38-point effort despite a stomach flu in the 1997 NBA Finals; Ginebra coming back from a 3-1 series deficit against Shell in 1991, punctuated by Rudy Distrito’s off-balance shot to win the series in Game 7; Steve Nash killing the Spurs this past playoffs with nifty passes and back-breaking jump shots despite his left eye being swollen shut; LeBron James hitting a long contested three-pointer to win Game 1 of the 2009 Eastern Conference Finals.
We can only view LeBron’s unselfish act as an act of cowardice because while he chose the tough financial path, he also chose the easy winning path. He will never face improbable odds ever again. For the next few years we will get to see him win on games that he’s supposed to win, grab championships he is supposed to grab. We won’t see him face his demons and vanquish the very enemies that caused him all his heartbreak like Michael Jordan did. We won’t see him face the pressure of carrying a team to championship glory like Kobe Bryant did. We won’t see him – to paraphrase Jordan himself – fail time and time again…so he can succeed.
People who are passionate fans of sports are no different from people who are passionate lovers of art, in that we want to see real life portrayed. That is why we are so obsessed with the concept of a superstar overcoming adversity and leading a team to victory, because it is a struggle that mirrors life itself. When we watch Jordan, or Magic, or Bird, or Kobe, we don’t root for them because they inspire us to succeed in our personal lives; we root for them because their struggles remind us of the ones we go through in our personal lives.
The LeBron-Wade union makes us mad because it represents the easy way out unavailable to us in the real world. We work hard everyday for a paycheck, respect, a promotion, better writing skills, opportunities abroad, better dancing skills, our children’s tuition fees, our own self-worth, our life’s meaning. In our quest, we go through heartbreak, we lose our jobs, we get stuck in our jobs, we fight co-workers, we fight the system, we get betrayed by the system. Everyday of our lives we fail, and every day of our lives we wake up to fight what we know could very well be a lost cause. And we do this alone.
We never get to have a choice to ride on someone else’s talents and skills in order to succeed because real life is not a game played with teams; it’s a game played alone. That’s why we will always love selfish superstars like Jordan and Kobe – because they faced their challenges in a world that is ruthless and lonely. And their superhuman achievements will always be closer to our reality than anything LeBron will ever do for the rest of his career.
photo from http://mobile.sbnation.com/2010/7/9/1560845/cleveland-plain-dealer--lebron-james-rings-cavs-newspaper-front-page
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