Why America Deserves Lebron James

Again he walked the lonely June walk. His sixth. But the first time he would rip off a drenched jersey not of the Cavaliers. He unclipped some luckless bracelet, slinked away from the TunnelVision camera, and into his first full summer as LeBron James: The Villain.

A sultry summer locked in the gym. Of endless jump shots and low post spin-moves. Months of watching his first name scroll along ESPN’s ticker as its own category, headlining his every passing thought and tweet. Months of couldas, wouldas, and What Should I Do Nows? Months to dwell on the mid-career crisis.

LeBron James is 26 years old. Half of his career remains. Legacy is still a six letter word tossed around by restless sportswriters. But LeBron James has played 627 NBA games. He is decidedly middle-aged in a young twenty-something’s game. He has an Olympiad on Kevin Durant and Derrick Rose. And just as many titles.

Year 8 was LeBron’s closest yet. But still two wins short. Still six rings short of MJ, five of Kobe. Even one ring short of Brian “The Janitor” Cardinal. And so LeBron James slips another year behind the MJ trajectory. Another year the crown sits a little heavier. Another blemish on the King’s name. In 2009, he walked off the court against Orlando. In 2010, there was Game 5 in Boston. And in 2011, The Fourth Quarter.

Cleveland meant The Chosen 1 could not win one with the hand he was dealt. Miami: Year 1 meant The Chosen 1 could not win one with the stacked deck he picked either.

He will. The Miami Heat will gel. They will land a svelte point guard. Chris Bosh may even control his facial reactions. And more grizzled vets will flock to the South Beach. But they will come not to play for the next Jordan. They will come to play for the Miami Heat. A misshapen constellation of stars of which LeBron James is simply the brightest.

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We aren’t fair to LeBron James.

He dishes out 9 assists and is smeared a “facilitator”. He messed around and got a triple double in Game 5 (17, 10,10). The most scorned triple double in NBA Finals history. We demanded the next Jordan and bemoan all we got was a more athletic Magic Johnson.

Dwyane Wade was the one locked in the sordid divorce and custody trial. DWade started the cough joke. Yet DWade is Teflon-coated. He won his ring. He will always play the Derek Jeter front-man to LeBron’s ARod punch-line.

Granted, LeBron did it to himself. DWade does not have Chosen 1 inked to his back. Or call himself King. DWade did not dump the hometown team on the grandest of stages.

LeBron toned down the pregame shenanigans from the Cleveland days, sure. The Nike ads petered out with his Q-rating. But there he was throwing air haymakers at DWade up fifteen with seven minutes left in Game 2. There he was mocking Dirk after Game 4. And there he was again after Game 6. Defeated but still smirking at his haters: “All the people that was 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.”

Jordan or Kobe would have stared icily into the camera. They would have vowed: I’ll be back. But not LeBron. At his rock bottom, at his lowest low, LeBron James reminded the world that he was still fabulously rich.

No matter what snarky columns the sportswriters would pen, no matter how they would leer at his tarnished brand, LeBron James still banked $48 million this year. In a day or two, he would fly off to the South of France or some tropical paradise. And they would still be there. Sweating out deadlines or making rent for walk-up apartments.

LeBron walked it back two days later. I’m not superior to anyone, he opined. He congratulated the Mavs on his website. Not that it mattered. The damage was done. The Villain was bronzed.

What we saw in the Game 6 press conference was a man spent. Drained from a year of death threats, scorched jerseys, and deafening jeers. A year when he lost the country. His own mother was arrested for slapping a valet in the face. Drunk.

All this because he wanted to play basketball with his friends.

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We forget something.

LeBron James is not a politician who tweeted explicit pictures of himself. He is not a bailed-out Wall Street banker. LeBron James is another arrogant professional athlete paid vast sums of money to swish a basketball through a net. Nothing more. Nothing less.

LeBron hasn’t been charged with rape. He hasn’t been implicated in a dog-fighting ring. He hasn’t even been docked with a speeding ticket. Never before has America so vilified an athlete for a simple change of uniform. LeBron’s two crimes—both only in the court of public opinion—are 1) switching companies and flubbing the PR, and 2) not winning a ring yet.

Kobe had Colorado. Michael, more mistresses than All-Star Games. Shaq staged his own Decision on the eve of the ’96 Olympics, planted kiddie porn on an employee’s computer, and had a sex tape. It is the same singular focus that drives so many champion athletes but last-place husbands. And the reality is we want to watch history over morality plays.

We don’t forgive so much as forget with a title or a record or two. Awe us enough on the field and we’ll spot you a mulligan for your misdeeds off it. It’s the American sports fan way. Ask Ray Lewis. Or Michael Vick. Dallas gave the felon a key to the city this February. Tiger needs Jack Nicklaus’ record for true redemption, but the Augusta gallery still roared like the olden days when he charged at this year’s Masters.

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America hates LeBron James for the preening, the decadent birthday cakes, and The Decision, yes. But he is not the first prodigy whose ego outgrew his talents. And he will not be the last. America hates LeBron James because he isn’t The One we were waiting for. But, perhaps, he’s The One we deserve.

LeBron James is heir not to Jordan but to Air Jordan. In visiting locker-rooms they just call him “Nike”. And LeBron is the poster-child of a softer, commercialized NBA. A game that fits its phenoms with cushy shoe deals. Splashes them across Gatorade and Vitamin Water ads before they taste greatness.

Someday we will merely see the Jordan Years as a different era. A no-holds barred, angrier epoch in grainy NBC video. An NBA Gilded Age of clean old fashioned hate. When rivals Magic Johnson and Larry Bird would not even speak to each. When Michael Jordan fought his own teammates in practice.

But LeBron hails from a new age. He did not beat DWade and Chris Bosh. He joined them. He is the coddled valedictorian of a class that has texted each other since AAU games in their tweens. They are the unfinished products of a sensationalized youth talent search that makes middle schoolers SLAM Magazine cover boys. Green-lit by an industry that prizes megawatt smiles with Efficiency Scores.

And so LeBron daydreams. He fantasizes in interviews about someday becoming the richest man on Earth, a global icon. He forgets where athlete stops and celebrity starts. LeBron James is yet another childhood star, sprung from a broken home, flawed by years of our drooling adulation.

The truth is we probably rushed our Mozart with a Spalding. He posed for Sports Illustrated’s cover before his driver’s license. He inked a $90 million shoe deal with Nike before he even laced them up in the pros. Michael Jordan’s high school team cut him. ESPN aired LeBron’s high school games on national television.

We sized up King James for the crown and were astonished when his head grew. And now we are all witnesses. To an industry that hyped up a Golden Boy and now toasts a Villain’s lonely walk of redemption.