Finally, LeBron James hits his first speed bump. He’s veered slightly off of the Path of the Chosen for the first time in his career – and it’s about time that something didn’t come easily to the kid.
He has the body of a 30-year old forward with the agility and grace of a two-guard. He can beat forwards off of the dribble and take smaller guards down on the block. He can shoot it OK (the jumpshot does need a little tweaking) and can elevate better than most everyone of his size.
But in these finals he encountered something that he hasn’t seen before, and it should produce a long, hard look in the mirror to find out what San Antonio has that Cleveland doesn’t.
The right team won these finals. The Spurs are everything that professional basketball should be – classy, professional, efficient, tough, defensive-minded, and above all, selfless.
LeBron James met, for the first time in his career, five guys working together to form one, impenetrable mob of defenders that would rather send James to the hospital before giving him an easy deuce.
James’ inexperience was highlighted, put under the microscope and then dissected by the men in gray and black.
And it showed the basketball world that LeBron James really isn’t the king of anything yet.
Here is where the real test will show itself. Every champion has to go through trials and tribulations. It is well documented and incessantly pointed out that Michael Jordan lost to the Detroit Pistons three times in the conference finals before ousting the brat point guard Isaiah Thomas and the Bad Boys.
Magic Johnson, after winning his first championship in 1980 crowned by a 45-point effort in which he played all five positions, had to overcome the ‘soft’ label in his battles with the Boston Celtics.
Larry Bird had the 76ers and the Lakers to deal with (and the Pistons toward the end of his career) on his way to three championships.
And it was never easy for these guys. If they took the straight and narrow to a championship, the next year another dagger was thrown at them and they had to dodge it in order to remain the best.
Bill Russell, the winningest athlete of all time, was questioned even in his final years with the C’s, after he proved his worth a thousand times over. In the 1969 NBA Championship with the Lakers, critics called the battle-tested Celtics too old and worn to handle the Laker trio of Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor, and Jerry West.
The series went to a Game 7 in L.A. and the balloons were already in the rafters waiting for the Laker victory. The Celtics, of course, stunned the Lakers on their home floor and silenced whatever critics they had left.
So if we look at LeBron in the big picture, he is still very, very, very young, and has a long career ahead of him. But he is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a champion, nor is he the best player to ever play the game.
The masses (and James himself) have anointed him too quickly, and everyone forgot that you have to get some scars before you reach the top of the mountain. Every champion in every sport has been challenged over and over and over again, and responding to those challenges is what makes a winner.
LeBron James has just received his first body blow. Now we’ll see what he’s really made of.
