Lebron James - What have we learned

[desoul]

Lebron James was phenomenal in the Chicago and Boston series. He seemed to rise to the occasion and was instrumental in bringing his team to the finals. So what happened during the Dallas series? When I watched him during the Dallas series I kept having thoughts like this:

• When he gets moving to the basket he usually does well. Especially on more open lanes. Drive Man.
• Why is he not going to the basket?
• They’ve cut him off at the top of the key, but he’s Lebron James, he can get through anything….maybe not.
• Must be painful to drive to the basket. Seems like he said screw it.
• Maybe he’s just too exhausted. He gave his all in 42 minutes a game the last two series.
• In the final two games of the finals, he gave up on open look jump shots. Is his confidence shot from the outside?
• Even when he makes a shot from the outside it doesn’t lift him up, it seemed to be more of a relief. Very different from the Chicago Series.
• The same confidence he had in slicing through a hard and tough Chicago defense isn’t here.
• He’s looking for the other guys to make the shot. He’s clearing out and asking the other guys to win the game for him.
• He seems to desperately want Dwayne Wade to drive the team.
• Once JJ Barea, Jason Terry and a newly rejuvenated Jason Kidd started hitting 3s along with Dirk Nowitsky’s MVP performance in the series and Shawn Marion pretty much made every shot within 6 foot to the basket, it's like kryptonite for the Miami offense.
• He doesn’t think he can win it himself.
• He doesn’t know how he can take over the game with these guys.
• It’s going to be Dallas. They’ve got the eye of the Tiger.
• Rick Carlisle won that game for them by starting JJ Barea and recognizing tha even though he wasn’t making all his shots in games 1 through 4, he still could get through their defense.
• JJ Barea and Jason Terry in game 5 and 6 grew in confidence and were in the zone. No answer for that, when you have 1 MVP playing the best basketball of his life.
• Nearly every outside shot was contested by the Mavericks against James. Only the open ones seemed to go down, but nearly none of the contested ones.
• James learned a valuable lesson. Great athleticism and skills, being possibly the greatest talent in Basketball does not make up for being a great focused and disciplined shooter. One Kobe or one Ray Allen short of a perfect team.
• There’s more room to grow for the best player on the planet. Defense still wins games.

At some point he realized he's not invincible even with this team. That's what I was thinking what about you?

[koberulz]

So does the fact that people are so surprised LeBron is human say more about how clueless they are, or about how incredible he is?

I love that people can say he choked after he puts up a triple double in an NBA Finals game, and that 18-7-7 (I think) in the NBA Finals is horrible.

[Patr1ck]

I thought we learned that Dallas was the better team during the finals.

Also, when you average ~9 points per game more during both the regular season and the playoffs until the finals, it's not horrible, it's underachieving.

[Jeffx]

Watching LeBron in the fourth quarter, I saw a superstar player who was reluctant to 'seize the moment'. While Kobe will never be as great as Jordan, he has the same assassin mentality as Michael. Kobe wants to break his opponent, to stick the knife in and nothing will stop him from doing it. Isiah Thomas and Larry Bird had that same iron will. LeBron has shown flashes of this, in '07 against Detroit and this year against Boston and Chicago. But in these Finals, he wilted. Credit Dallas for their solid defense, but you have to figure out a way to beat it. Dude passed up way too many shots - it was like watching a game of hot potato. He's three feet from the basket, yet passes to Juwan fucking Howard??? I couldn't believe that shit. Riley and D-Wade were probably saying to themselves, WTF is going on in this dude's head?


The young man has a lot to learn. If I were him, I'd seek out Magic. Pick his brain, ask how he dealt with playoff setbacks.

[Andrew]

We learned that Scottie Pippen may just have jumped the gun slightly.

I think it's fair to say that LeBron still lacks assertiveness at times. People continue to say things like "He's more like Magic than Michael," but Magic still had his moments where he took over the game and was willing to score/take the big shot in crunch time. LeBron is also more of a scorer than Magic was, so he still has a fair bit in common with MJ in that regard. We saw how he could take apart a team by taking matters into his own hands in the earlier rounds of the Playoffs. The LeBron we saw in the Finals wasn't LeBron at his best and most dangerous. We've seen what he's capable of doing and he simply didn't do it in the Finals.

I'm not sure that it's a lack of a desire to win or anything like that. I'm starting to think it's his ego getting in the way. Ego isn't necessarily a bad thing of course, it's what gives players confidence and if channeled properly, helps drive them to succeed. When it does get in the way, it usually tends to make them selfish and prone to shooting their team out of the game, trying to do too much. With LeBron, I'm thinking that it manifests itself as passiveness and an aversion to taking responsibility.

Basically, I get the impression that it's very important for LeBron's ego that he never look weak or appear as if he's failed, never appear to be the loser or anything short of great. That's not odd or a bad thing in itself, that goes hand in hand with striving for success. In LeBron's case however, it also takes the form of deflecting responsibility and avoiding situations where he has to shoulder blame should he come up short. If he's not taking the big shots, he can't miss them, so there's less for people to point to and fault him for.

The irony of course is that by shying away from the challenge, it does more damage to the image he seems so keen to protect than if he gave it his best shot and came up short. Everyone misses shots, someone's got to win and someone's got to lose. But for someone who's branded themselves with a tattoo that reads "Chosen One", introduces himself as "The King" to players he's recruiting for his management group when they're coming out of college (as recounted in a recent piece by Adrian Wojnarowski), to try and fail, to tarnish that image and persona in any way - as though he's the only great player to ever lose a big game - well, that's just unfathomable and can't be allowed to happen.

Maybe I'm off-base here and I hate to play armchair psychologist, but it wouldn't surprise me if something like that is what's standing in the way of LeBron being himself in big games like the Finals. It wouldn't be without precedent. Wilt Chamberlain was another freak of nature who dominated his competition but is rarely noted for his teams' success (though they did win) or great crunch time performances, more so his individual brilliance and statistics.

In Bill Simmons' Book of Basketball, he recounts stories told by Wilt's contemporaries that attested to him being very aware of his stats and records. John Havlicek described Wilt as being so obsessed with his feat of never fouling out at any level of the game that his defense would slacken if he were close to fouling out, even though he swatted shots with ease and would surely hold all kinds of records had the stat been tracked during his career. Former teammates have said that when he was putting up big assist numbers and becoming the first to lead the league in that category as a centre, he was very picky about who he passed the ball to, getting upset with them if they "wasted" one of his passes and cost him an assist, also checking with the scorer's table often to see how many assists he had and complaining if he hadn't received credit for a specific assist.

He was also described as being terrified of getting the ball late in games and being fouled because of his poor free throw shooting. Havlicek also recounted that one of the reasons he was able to make his famous steal was because he knew that the ball wasn't going to Wilt in a situation where he could be fouled at a crucial juncture of the game. Rick Barry asserted in his autobiography "(Wilt) is terrible in big games. He knows he is going to lose and be blamed for the loss, so he dreads it...when it comes down to the closing minutes of a tough game, an important game, he doesn't want the ball, he doesn't want any part of the pressure." Bill Bradley's book offered similar sentiments.

We even saw an example of it after his career had ended. At the 1997 All-Star Game, when Glen Rice had broken one of his records and was close to besting another, he joked about a comeback with Ahmad Rashad but he also seemed quite apprehensive about the prospect of the record being broken. As Rice got closer and closer, they'd cut to him in the crowd and he looked more and more nervous. The cameras cut to him again after Rice got the record and he looked absolutely devastated. Not that it's wrong for him to care about the record or take pride in it of course but whereas others have smiled somewhat wistfully (or in Reggie Miller's case when Ray Allen broke his three point record, shown a lot of class and humility in praising the record breaker), it looked like a piece of him died when that record went, suggesting his ego was still tied up in it decades later.

Why is all this relevant? Because I think LeBron is a similar case.

LeBron's game is probably a more naturally unselfish and team-oriented than Wilt's was, but I still think there's that desire to be seen as dominant, all-conquering, undeniably great no matter what the final score is. They do want to win, they do care about the game and the final result, but they'd like to at least be able to console themselves with their own greatness and deflect as much blame as possible if they are on the losing side.

For LeBron, I think this is evident when he points to having the triple double in Game 5 and talks about the people who wanted him to fail still waking up tomorrow with their own problems (as if he doesn't). I think the 2009 Eastern Conference Finals are another good example, leaving his teammates to answer to the media - effectively distancing himself from the loss - and then defending his decision not to shake hands by claiming he was a "winner" and "winners don't shake hands". He didn't fail, he's a winner. What about DunkGate? And of course, the fourth quarter passiveness.

Also, for what it's worth, Red Auerbach contended that Warriors owner Eddie Gottlieb "spoiled Wilt something fierce", as he often didn't travel with the rest of the team and got away with behaviour that anyone else would not. Again you can draw a parallel with LeBron and the way he was coddled and enabled by the Cavaliers during his time there. Wilt tasted fame with the Globetrotters before coming to the NBA, LeBron was a sensation in the basketball world before he was even old enough to declare for the Draft.

That's got to go to anyone's head and everyone handles fame and their resulting ego differently. It gave Bill Russell a thirst for winning, it drove Magic to great heights and win big games, it allowed Larry Bird the confidence to tell his opponents he was going to beat them, how it would happen and then go out and do it and it fueled MJ's pathological competitive fire (with Kobe being quite similar in that regard). With Wilt and LeBron, I think it created an obsession with their image and the idea of greatness. There's a love of the glory, but also a fear and aversion of the responsibility.

Does this mean Wilt and LeBron aren't great players, as good as anyone who played the game and bonafide all-time greats? Of course not, it would be foolish to think or suggest such a thing. Just look at what Wilt accomplished, what LeBron is capable of doing. You can't have that much success, put up those kind of stats by accident. But whereas other great players have risen to the challenge, lifting their game or at least maintaining their high standard of play, Wilt and LeBron aren't themselves when the pressure's really on. And rather than preserving their reputation, it actually takes away from the luster and mystique.

So what have we learned about LeBron from the Finals? The fact that he's being criticised despite putting up fairly decent numbers in their own right speaks of the great expectations of him, which I believe is a trait associated with all great players. No one expected Mario Chalmers to put up jaw-dropping numbers and no one is surprised that he didn't. When LeBron is quiet offensively or performs below par, we take notice.

By LeBron's own standards though, he could've done better. I'm thinking that it has far more to do with psychology than any lack of talent or specific basketball skill. My layman's opinion would be that it's associated with ego and narcissism, maybe it's simply a fear of failure. So much has been expected of him from such a young age, so maybe he just hasn't matured enough or has just never really been taught how to handle that pressure and that it's OK to try and fail because people who pick themselves up and try again have a chance to succeed the next time.

That's what I've taken away from the Finals, at any rate. Maybe this will be a learning experience for him, maybe it's too late and he'll always be that guy too enamoured of his own image to take a chance and try to be the great player we see 99% of the time. He has to risk failure and accept failure if that's what happens, pick himself up and come back a little wiser, a little more determined. A LeBron with that mentality is a dangerous, dangerous player. Until then, teams are going to be able to gamble on the notion that if it could make him look bad, he'll shy away from it.

tl;dr version (without the historical comparisons): What Jeffx said. He's got to get over this image of himself along with an apparent fear of failure and not be afraid to take charge in the games that matter most. It's in his mentality, more so than his basketball abilities.

[NovU]

I am with all you guys. I guess we all share the feeling that he just tried to hold his ground when he was expected to play with emotions and fury.

[NovU]

Just wanted to share the jokes but didn't know where to post these. Enjoy... I know I am a Heat and find these stupid, but... funny

(1) LeBron James is set to release his own line of headphones. The sound quality is amazing as it has no ring.
(2) LeBron James was just traded to the Florida Panthers. He should be wildly successful, since in the NHL, there are only 3 periods.
(3) I saw LeBron before the game and I asked for $1. He gave me 75 cents. I said where's the rest? He replied i don't have a 4th quarter.
(4) What's the difference between Saturn and LeBron James? They're both big and full of gas, but at least Saturn has rings.
(5) Why did LeBron James get an automatic transmission in his Lamborghini? He's not good in the clutch.
(6) The new movie called "the fourth" will star LeBron James as the invisible man.
(7) Why didn't LeBron James go to college? Because he can't pass the finals.
(8) What does LeBron James have in common with a fabric store? Neither carries any hardware.
(9) Apple is coming out with a LeBron James iPhone. But it only vibrates because it has no rings.
(10) Why does LeBron only get served boneless buffalo wings? Because he has a tendency to choke.
(11) Tomorrow is Lebron James day, everyone gets to leave work 12 minutes early.
(12) 7/11, they never close either

[Andrew]

I've been seeing number three come up a lot. I reckon number nine is the most creative.

[jenroe962002]

i Like 7

[Jeffx]

Andrew, my father said the same thing about the Wilt/LeBron. Mike Francesca mentioned it on his show too. Now I love Wilt, but you may have hit the nail on the head.

[shadowgrin]

Speaking of avoiding responsibility. What better way than to invoke that it's God's will?
LeBron tweet.

The Greater Man upstairs know when it's my time. Right now isn't the time.

More from Sir Charles.

[koberulz]

Every time you think he can't get more unlikeable...

[Sauru]

without reading this thread all i will add is i am sick of people saying the heat blew it and not giving dallas any damn credit. reminds me of the pistons win over the lakers

[Jackal]

We learned that Scottie Pippen may just have jumped the gun slightly.

How quickly they forget.

Gave me goosebumps.

[el badman]

without reading this thread all i will add is i am sick of people saying the heat blew it and not giving dallas any damn credit. reminds me of the pistons win over the lakers

Well, I think it's fair to say in game 6 because the Heat certainly shot themselves in the foot with the ridiculous amount of turnovers that they had and the defensive rebounds they were barely fighting for. But I agree that there should certainly more credit due to the Mavs, they seized their opportunities offensively, and they managed to operate a tight D when it was needed the most.

[air gordon]

Pippen was just playing mind games with James
Pip's trash talking was pretty underrated. "the mailman doesn't deliver on sundays"

thanks for the great post, andrew

[Andrew]

Andrew, my father said the same thing about the Wilt/LeBron. Mike Francesca mentioned it on his show too. Now I love Wilt, but you may have hit the nail on the head.

It makes you wonder about these great expectations and the dangers of hyping athletes before they've made the big time. Set the bar that high early for players who have gifts like that of a Wilt or LeBron and you're basically saying "This is what you should do, you're too good to fail." Now, I don't think it's fair to lay all the blame on society or the media, but I have to imagine that would be a factor in fostering a fear of failure and aversion to taking responsibility. Wilt was recruited by over 200 colleges, LeBron was known by the basketball world years before entering the NBA was possible. I don't think the similarities are a coincidence.

More from Sir Charles.

Audio version here. I think Barkley's right, I like the point he made about referring to the haters too much, not taking responsibility/making some headscratching remarks and thinking that winning a championship was that easy. He should know, he was on a 60 win team that went to the Finals and later joined forces with Hakeem and The Glide, at a time when they were all slightly past their prime but still star players.

without reading this thread all i will add is i am sick of people saying the heat blew it and not giving dallas any damn credit. reminds me of the pistons win over the lakers

True, but after such a competitive Finals where the Heat lost games in the fourth quarter including blowing a fifteen point lead in Game 2, it's fair to ponder where they went wrong and how this or that could've changed the course of the series. The Mavs won the series just as much as the Heat lost it and you can't take that away from them, but the Heat had the talent and opportunity to win, there were times when they seemed to have Dallas on the ropes but they couldn't put them away.

How quickly they forget.

Gave me goosebumps.

Me too, that was awesome. Thanks for the heads up on that.

Pippen was just playing mind games with James
Pip's trash talking was pretty underrated. "the mailman doesn't deliver on sundays"

thanks for the great post, andrew

You're welcome, and thanks. I reckon it's an interesting parallel.

That's an interesting point too now that you mention it, the idea that Pip was putting pressure on LeBron by making the comparison as he was heading into the Finals where MJ so often shone. I don't know though, to me it seems like he got caught up in the moment after LeBron beat up on the Bulls in the ECF but if that was a psyche-out, it was a great one.

[The X]

We learned that Scottie Pippen may just have jumped the gun slightly.

How quickly they forget.

Gave me goosebumps.

I miss Lebron in a Cavs' jersey

Great video, thanks for sharing

Lebron needs to listen to Chuck & learn some post moves.

[Andrew]

A sports psychologist weights in on the matter. Interesting read.

[shadowgrin]

We learned that Scottie Pippen may just have jumped the gun slightly.

How quickly they forget.

Gave me goosebumps.

I definitely agree with this video's premise, but to be fair, you could make Kwame Brown look like the best player of all time if you set it to this music.
Ceebulsk450

[thewhitemamba]