| 15 June 2011
During the playoffs last year I wrote a piece called The man Who Would Be King.
Without wishing to rehash the entire post, this is how it started off.
Along time back Rudyard Kipling wrote a short story in 1888 with this title. It is a story of two British adventurers who become kings in a remote part of Afghanistan. If Kipling was around today he might write of another man who would be king – LeBron Raymone James.
LBJ has been called "great" since before he came out of high school to 'save' the Cleveland Cavaliers. To quote another great writer - Be not afraid of greatness: Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. While I don't usually try to
improve on the writing of Shakespeare, for LBJ you might want to add and some don't live up to the billing.
It might be another season, it might be a new champion, there might be a different (and superior) supporting cast, but the outcome, the legacy and the attitude remain the same.Throughout this season LBJ has continued to state the ridiculous, act like an immature spoilt brat (and take D-Wade down with him) and, yet again, fail to deliver when it mattered. 17.8ppg in the finals is not going to cut it. Claiming that he was doing great work on D and letting D-Wade take care of the other end is not going to cut it.
The great ones want the rock in their hands. Dirk was a great one in this series. Dirk had a horrible night in Game 6 shooting 9-27 from the field, but Dirk wanted the rock and in the 4th quarter he showed up. At both ends of the floor.
Still, even the most Miami/LBJ/new Big 3 ardent haters out there (FYI – I'm right up there) might be prepared to cut them all some slack. They improved dramatically over the course of the season, made the finals, and they may just go that extra step next season. Greatness is a journey.
And then LBJ is asked if it bothers him that so many people are happy that he failed and he comes out with this -
"Absolutely not, because at the end of the day, all the people that were rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day, they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today," James said. "They have the same personal problems they had today. I'm going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that. They can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy about, not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal. But they have to get back to the real world at some point."
For anyone who can't translate this, I'm pretty sure what he said was -
"Get back to Burger King and flip some burgers because I'm rich, I'm talented and my life is awesome!"
I hope that when LeBron wins his championship that a little humility comes with it. Not surprisingly, I don't have any great hopes of that.
A little fact that probably amuses me more than it will LeBron – Celtics 'legend' Brian Scalabrine and Lakers 'legend' Adam Morrison both have more championship rings than LBJ...
