Wow, what in the world happened in Cleveland last night? I have never seen a top seed in the playoffs lay a dud like that at home in a big game. King James was non-existent and Antawn Jamison and Mo Williams were nowhere to be found. The question is where does the blame lie for this disaster?
Do we blame LeBron for not stepping up and imposing his will on this game? Do we blame the role players in Cleveland for not picking LeBron up when he needed them to? Or is this on head coach Mike Brown for not lighting a fire under this team?
LeBron becomes an easy target in this one. He is the reigning two-time MVP and has led the Cavs to the league's best record the last two seasons. Isn't the the "King" of the league supposed to step up and carry his team in games like this? How are we supposed to buy into LeBron as the best in the league when he seemingly cannot be bothered to do whatever it takes to win in the playoffs? For their part, guys like Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Kobe Bryant don't go down without a fight in games like this. Sure, there were games when their teams were not in it in the playoffs, but they never let that get in the way of doing whatever they could to keep their team in the hunt. I just did not see that from LeBron last night.
The thing LeBron needs to realize here is that the team is going to feed off of him. If he does not play with any sort of sense of urgency in a playoff series that is tied at two games a piece, then how can one expect that his teammates will? The question is how did this happen?
The primary response that jumps to the forefront from a lot of folks is LeBron is dogging some of these games on purpose. There are those who believe LeBron does not see the Cavs as being capable of winning a championship and is creating a built-in excuse for when he bolts via free agency this summer. Some say he is trying to make a point by showing the world how mediocre the Cavs are when he is not on his "A" game. The thing one has to wonder, though, is LeBron really so great that he can single-handedly carry a team to the best regular season record two years in a row? If the Cavs are able to claim the top record in the league, then there is no reason to think they should not be able to make the league Finals.
I have heard other people say that while LeBron is a supremely talented player, he simply does not have the cajones to win a NBA championship. The game has always come easy to him and he was never really challenged at the high school level, his teams always won, and was never pushed to the limit in high school. He showed up and did his thing while the opposing teams just sort of stood around and watched in awe, much like the first go-around with the Dream Team in the Olympics.
They are saying LeBron has the talent to win games when nothing is on the line, but he lacks that competitive inner fire to be a champion. I mentioned before guys like Kobe, M.J., and Bird. Those guys were stone-cold killers on the court. They elbow their own mothers in the face if it meant grabbing a rebound to secure a win for their team. They do not care whose feelings they hurt in the process they are intent on winning. You are never going to find a game where those guys simply mailed it in during a playoff game, it just never happened. Those guys live and breath winning and LeBron does not seem to. He seems to be more interested in other things off the court, much like Shaq was at one time.
Shaquille O'Neal won because of his immense talent, but he never truly dedicated himself to being an elite player; he was just so naturally big that he never had to work that hard at it. Much like James is so naturally gifted he does not need to work hard at being an elite player. Shaq was always the bully of the playground who simply imposed his will and when he wanted to win, he did. LeBron is much the same way right now. When he wants to win, he simply takes control and wins the game, but when he is disinterested or disengaged, then the Cavs simply fall apart.
Others will say LeBron is dogging it because he does not see this team winning it all with Mike Brown as the head coach. To say the least, Brown has made some dubious coaching moves in the past. He has never struck me as a leader of men, as a guy who is going to kick guys in the pants when they are struggling. He is not a guy who is capable of making the tough decisions that championship coaches are willing to make. Where was Brown's leadership last night?
Brown needed something to shake that team up and get them into the game. If it means sitting LeBron's butt on the bench because he is not engaging himself in the process, then so be it. Championship coaches are the ones willing to make that move if necessary. Mike, you have as much invested in Cleveland winning as anyone. You do realize that your job is on the line here, right? Nobody in Cleveland is going to care that the team has won 127 games, more than any team in the league, the last two years if you have no hardware to show for it.
And Mike, if this team ends up losing to Boston, your tenure in Cleveland is over and done with. Nobody is going to care that you were voted the Coach of the Year last year. The joke on that was he should have just handed that trophy over to LeBron because he was responsible for more of the wins than anything Brown ever did as coach.
Whatever the case may be, unless the Cavs rise from the dead, this will be the end of an era one way or another in Cleveland. At the very least, there will be a new head coach in Cleveland next season. The team is not getting over the hump. They have failed to make the league finals the last two seasons and this would mark the second time in three seasons they failed to reach the conference finals. They have done everything possible to acquire the talent to get to the league finals, so it will be time for a change if the team loses to the Celtics.
Now, I am not sure whether LeBron is going to be skipping town this summer. He is the hometown hero of sorts in Cleveland and I think he relishes that to a certain extent. There are those who think he wants to play in a major market city to further enhance his brand, but I am not sure I buy that one. In the age of the Internet and the NBA league pass package on cable, one does not need to play in a L.A., New York, or Chicago to get their brand out there? LeBron already has all of the plum marketing deals, what else could he possibly get by moving to a bigger market?
LeBron says he wants to win the hardware because that is how the game's greats are judged. The question is what team out there that will have the cash to sign LeBron offers significantly better talent to pair him with than Cleveland does? That will be the $64,000 dollar question this summer. If LeBron is serious about his desire to win championships and be considered one of the games best of all-time, there will not be a lot of options out there for him where the possibility of winning within a year or two exists.
All of this still begs the question: what the heck happened last night? What was going on in LeBron's head as he watched his team completely fall apart in the biggest game of the year for them?
Republished with permission from PopPickle.
Leave a Comment