Like another famous Howard, Howard Bryant of ESPN tells it like it is in his column on LeBron James. Bryant writes how the media, owner Dan Gilbert and even the fans are to blame for the creation of LeBron James and how things worked out when he made his announcement to play for the Miami Heat earlier this month....
LeBron JamesLike another famous Howard, Howard Bryant of ESPN tells it like it is in his column on LeBron James.
Bryant writes how the media, owner Dan Gilbert and even the fans are to blame for the creation of LeBron James and how things worked out when he made his announcement to play for the Miami Heat earlier this month.
Bryant also writes how despite the similarities between LeBron and many of the all-time greats before him, LeBron is different in several ways.
What James embodies is the ultimate victory for Marvin Miller -- the revolutionary director of the Major League Baseball Players Association from 1966-82 -- and the complete emancipation of athletes in team sports from the paternalistic and condescending structure that dominated the history of American professional sports. James is the talent, the one who moves the needle. His presence creates the value. The team, the league, the press and media, and the fans derive their power from him, and not -- as the game had always wanted athletes to believe -- the other way around.
James has long telegraphed this, with his aloofness toward Cleveland, but no one was listening. We were too busy thinking about what he was going to do for us. We were too busy being witnesses to a phenomenon we did not understand -- until now.
Bryant points out how LeBron always came off as being different, and not in the superstar kind of way. He was always curiously detached as a Cavalier. LeBron, writes Bryant, was petulant after postseason losses, refusing to shake hands with his opponents, a suggestion that he had no real equal.
Now that he has left, Gilbert has telegraphed his fatal servitude with petulance of his own, accusing James of quitting in an infamous letter to fans. And Gilbert had previously acquiesced to James' entourage, allowing James to control the travel schedule of the team. The hype and narrative suggested James was of Ohio, of Akron, of Cleveland. There was an easy storyline that was being written for him, Joe Mauer style, that the local kid was making good in his backyard but with one critical and humongous exception: James never, ever truly played along.
Also, writes Howard, James never vocally or physically committed to Cleveland, or the organization, by signing a contract that would defuse the issue of his suspect loyalties. Nor, in the daily crush of victories and defeats, did James ever offer the kind of support that suggested he was one of 12 players.
Talent does that. It makes you different from the rest. James would never blend in because he's simply too good. The problem was that James believed his talent made him less accountable when things did not go Cleveland's way. He put the organization on the defensive, consistently asking it what it would do for him, even though the team made acquisitions following its 2007 Finals appearance and won 127 games over two seasons.