In Game Three of the Cleveland-Orlando NBA Eastern Conference Finals, with the Cavaliers trailing 77-70, announcer Doug Collins reached for an adequate descriptive term for Lebron James, and came up with: locomotive.
On the very next play, James drove the middle and collided with Dwight Howard, Orlando’s all-league center, who has been described as “insanely athletic” and is the NBA’s leading rebounder and shot-blocker. The collision between these two massive bodies was pretty equal, but Lebron got slightly the better of the deal, and also came away with the two points that were at stake. No foul was called.
Down 90-83, James went at Howard again, collided again, scored again, and this time was fouled too, on his way to converting a three point play that cut Orlando’s margin to 90-86 in this critical game at Orlando, where Cleveland needed a victory to regain the home-court advantage they’d lost when the Magic captured Game One.
Though not quite his equal in strength (only Wilt Chamberlain need apply), Howard is nonetheless the heir to Shaquille O’Neal’s Superman designation. The NBA’s leading rebounder and premier shot blocker, Howard is so powerful and athletic that he’s earned the honour of being an all-star center despite only a rudimentary start on developing a true offensive repertoire. That means he has to be awfully strong, yet Lebron James seemed to get the better of both collisions. A passing glance at James’ massive steel-like tattooed arms is enough to erase any trace of surprise on this score.
Having made (arguably) the greatest shot in NBA playoff history to win Game Two, Lebron carried an aura of invincibility and inevitability as he spearheaded Cleveland’s comeback with these two drives, but as the game wound down, the 24 year old superstar and league MVP proved himself still human by missing critical free throws and throwing a bad pass as Orlando held on to win.
With the exception of one other remarkable 37-14-12 performance (numbers reminiscent of Oscar Robertson and nobody else) in Game Five, in which James scored or assisted on 32 straight Cleveland points, it all fell apart for the Cavaliers after that. Their place in the Finals was taken instead by the Magic. Nonetheless, as he does night after night, Lebron made his point: his strength is way beyond that of any player who has also possessed all-court skills, and comparable only to that of very few of the great big men who have ever played. His actual weight is a mystery, the best estimates being around 275, more than the legendarily strong Wilt Chamberlain weighed when he entered the league, bigger than Karl Malone in his prime, and over fifty pounds more than Bill Russell ever weighed when he shared domination of the center position with Wilt.
Combine James’s incredible strength with his lightning speed, and his scrupulous attention to working on eliminating any weaknesses (where he matches Oscar Robertson’s commitment to meticulously mastering every aspect of the game) and you have, unbelievably enough, an athlete who transcends the traditional dichotomy that’s always existed between big man and all court player.
So while aficionados and hangers-on alike natter on about whether James has surpassed Kobe Bryant as the league’s best player, whether he’s capable of surpassing Michael Jordan, and whether he’ll win over the few remaining holdover/refusniks from the Jordan Era (count me in on this one) who have maintained until now that Oscar Robertson was the best ever, James brings something extra to the argument: he is as strong as any big man in the league. Unlike any of his predecessors, he can be legitimately called the best player in the game, without his supporters having to wrestle with the difficulty of comparing big men to all-court players.
If one admired Robertson beyond all others, as I did, there was still no way to say that he was better than Russell or Chamberlain, because they played fundamentally different games. As great as Oscar was, he had to fool or finesse Russell and Chamberlain. And Michael Jordan couldn’t simply bogard Hakeem Olajuwon or Shaq (or even Patrick Ewing). James, however, if required to play a traditional center position and grind away in the low post, might well be the league’s leading rebounder and shot-blocker.
Even playing from his current position, when he sprints down the floor to erase a shot taken by a player who starts out ten feet ahead of him, he inspires the kind of awe that only Russell and Chamberlain have evoked before him. He is, like Chamberlain and O’Nea, an undeniable force of nature and a great basketball player, whatever remaining weaknesses there are left for him to iron out. He has healed – or, if you must, is on the verge of healing – a great break that’s informed discourse about b-ball’s best and highest for six decades.
James’s fans may be disappointed at the loss to Orlando, which proved a far better team than had been understood before the playoffs began, having flown unpressured under the radar while adjusting to the loss of point guard Jameer Nelson (against Cleveland, 6’10” Hedo Turkoglu’s near-poetic mastery of the offense-igniting drive and kick reminded folks of such ultra-savvy physically-dominant at-their-position greats as John Havlicek, Manu Ginobli – whose names were as hard to spell as their carriers were to guard). But that loss is a reminder that basketball remains a team game. The glaring Cleveland weaknesses that Orlando exposed make it even more amazing that James could have led his crew to 66 regular season victories, a feat which he achieved in no small part because his unbelievable physical prowess allowed him to play hard every night, and to overwhelm weaker teams. Those who expected him to carry his mediocre mates all the way through were unmindful (pace Charley Rosen, ESPN NEWS) of the Cavaliers’ collective 3-6 record against the three other division finalists.
I
Eras and trends tend to last about two decades in basketball. That seems to be the pace of the development of our species, the leading edge of which has been visible in a 94 x 52 foot space ever since African-Americans entered the NBA, and quickly delivered to the still-fledgling league the likes of Maurice Stokes, Bill Russell, Elgin Baylor, Wilt, and Oscar, who shattered all previously existing standards and records less than a decade after the NBA first admitted Chuck Cooper, Earl Lloyd, and Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton.
After Bill Russell’s Celtics won eleven times in thirteen years, no champions repeated for twenty years. Russell’s true successor in charisma-translatable-into-victory finally arrived a little over two decades later when Earvin Johnson brought Pat Reilly where Russ had taken Red Auerbach before him many times. Russ used to like to say that basketball is a simple game, played by grown men in short pants. Since Michael, of course, those pants are no longer so short, but nonetheless, one man, like Oscar says, even one with James’s unique capacity to transcend the big man/all court player duality, is not enough to win.
For now, with both Chinese investors and the salary-unloading New York Knicks waiting in the hope of making the critical difference – or at least securing the great prize in the Lebron sweepstakes – James remains where Oscar was for many years. He’s the league’s best player without a strong enough supporting cast to win a championship. Always simultaneously contentious and imperious, the Big O himself recently drew that very comparison, however much he may have inflated his own disadvantage by complaining that Boston had four great players to his one. (Jerry Lucas, wherever he is, should be very much insulted!). Oscar had never designated a true successor before, having resented the adulation of Jordan and generally avoided comment on Magic Johnson.
Magic? How can you leave him out of any discussion of who was the greatest and of who most extended the physical range of players at his position? Huge as a point guard, 6’9, to the extent of capturing Wilt’s appreciative awe, Magic has returned the favour to Lebron, musing in an interview that he had never seen anyone like him. It’s hard to top that.
James did not take kindly to losing the six game series, disappearing without a handshake or an interview, and defending his behaviour as that of a winner who does not take well to losing, an extremely rare lapse in his otherwise impeccable record of image management (Though back in the day there was that Nike contract/Hummer-derived near-scandal involving his redoubtable mother.)
Stung and reacting like a spurned lover, the sports media turned on the man they were used to lionizing. Some in the media were rendered inarticulately neologistic, one calling James an “impetulant” child and another endowing his contract with Milton-like satanic animus, remarking that it was “getting ready to run out.” Unwilling to give credit to Orlando’s superb play which denied Cleveland (and all of us) the much-anticipated confrontation with Kobe Bryant’s Lakers, they fanned the flames by ridiculously comparing Lebron’s “rude” behaviour to Bryant’s adulterous-and then some! acts in Colorado.
So the Finals will proceed without the King. He may have to wait on full recognition. But his unifying integrative thrust, which has been apparent for years now, is likely to evolve in one of two competing empires: New York City or Beijing – the seemingly plague-ridden Knickerbocker franchise or the future home of the world’s default currency.
There is a new gold standard for us all to yen for. Next year is Lebron’s contract year. Sooner or later, he’ll realize his twin goals of winning a title and becoming the first billionaire athlete. Enjoy him while you can, Cleveland. Great art is both rare and transformative, but remember: it’s his economy, stupid.
From June, 2009