Former NBA guard thinks Heat forward should accept that he's the bad guy.
View full sizeFormer Indiana Pacers player Reggie Miller, left, greets former Cavalier star LeBron James before the start of a game in 2005.Brian Mahoney Associated Press
Dressed as a cowboy, a snake passing near his foot with an Old West setting in the background, LeBron James certainly looks the part.
“Should I accept my role as a villain?” James asks during the scene in his recent Nike commercial.
Absolutely, says someone who played it perfectly.
Reggie Miller was once the NBA’s best-known bad guy, armed with enough bravado to come into Madison Square Garden and shoot down the New York Knicks and shut up Spike Lee all at once.
And when James plays in Cleveland on Thursday for the first time since his bitter departure, Miller said he shouldn’t let all those boos bother him. The hatred from the fans might hurt James, but it also could help the Miami Heat by taking the pressure off his teammates in what has so far been a disappointing season.
“I used to encourage that, and I hope he takes this approach. I wanted to take the focus off my teammates, so I would do and say things,” Miller said during a phone interview.
“When you have 20,000 people yelling and screaming at you, four other guys can concentrate on the floor. So every time I touch the basketball and everyone is yelling and chanting and doing things towards me, well, four other guys can concentrate. I knew I could concentrate through that and I hope he takes that approach.”
But Miller, the former Indiana Pacers All-Star who will be part of TNT’s trio calling the game, concedes not every player can handle being the guy wearing the target.
James insists he can, saying he “had those boos when I was a Cleveland Cavalier and I’m having them again as a Heat.”
Nothing like he has gotten this season, with the worst still to come. Besides the hostile environment he will face Thursday, James is two weeks away from a trip to New York, where fans who used to adore him will turn on him after he chose the Heat over the Knicks in free agency.
Making it tougher for James on Thursday is some of the taunts will be coming from the same people who once idolized the Akron native.
“I’m sure he’ll be fine, but he can’t worry about, ‘They don’t love me here anymore, I gave them seven fantastic years and this is it?’ He can’t get caught up into that,” Miller said. “What he needs to do is focus on how he can right the ship of the Miami Heat. . . . He just needs to focus in on the task at hand and that’s winning the basketball game.”