Most of us are still recovering from the elimination of the King from the playoffs. I am realizing that I am becoming more and more of a LeBron fan if thats not obvious already. But I am not disappointed because LeBron is eliminated or the Cavs didn't make it or whatever. I am disappointed like most neutral NBA fans who wanted to see Kobe-V-LeBron. This league has always been a star driven league and that match-up right there would have been bigger than anything we have seen in years. I also want to see the NBA do well and succeed. The playoffs this year have seen huge TV ratings and a Lakers-Cavs finals would have put things over the top for David Stern. Of course he is happy that at least the Lakers made it out of the West. The hype may be gone a little bit, but the better team really won the Magic-Cavs series and I think the Finals are going to be good. Orlando is no joke.
More on the Finals later. The big news today was LeBron walking away after game 6 without shaking hands with the Magic players and also skipping the post-game presser. The Cavs were handled easily by the Magic in this game. Even LeBron couldn't do much as he had to settle for 25-7-7. All-star type night for most players, but mediocre at best for LeBron if you look at what kind of numbers he has been putting up all series long. It had gotten to a point where the Cavs had nobody else even remotely dependable on their roster. It was literally 1-on-5 for the most part and they were not going to beat the Magic in Orlando with that kind of an offense. Not when Dwight Howard manned up and dropped 40-14-4 on the Cavs on 14/21 shooting. Dude is a beast inside especially if he is hitting those free-throws. The Cavs had absolutely no answer to this guy all series long. Z-Man is too slow for him, Varejao is too short for him and Ben Wallace is both.
Thus ended a memorable series and it was LeBron's individual brilliance that made this series interesting. I was half-expecting the NBA to "fix" game 6 and send the series back to Cleveland for a game 7 like they did in 2002 for the Lakers against the King. I will never forget that game and apparently neither will most hard-core NBA fans. You hear about that game a lot even today on the radio whenever people talk about officiating. One reporter even called it a "monumental miscarriages of NBA justice". May be the zebras could have made it happen on Saturday if only the Cavs had kept it close! They were down by 20 by half-time and even the Commish couldn't have saved them. As I am typing this, I am realizing that I might not even have been that upset if they had engineered a game 7 and force-fed Cavs to us in the Finals. Goes to show you why sports leagues operate and officiate the way they do. At the end of the day, it's just entertainment and even a purist like me may not get that upset with "fixed" games unless I have a strong rooting interest one way or the other. For instance, the 2002 game pissed me off big-time because I am a Laker-hater.
In any case, LeBron lost and walked away not to be heard at all. My initial reaction was that it was not a big deal. I was more offended by him missing the press conference. To me, he is obligated to do that. He owes it to the fans, reporters and the league. I didn't think much of him skipping the hugs-and-kisses portion of the post-game program though I do realize that it is an integral part of being a good sport. The game was on a weekend and hence the chatter about this was building up slowly. All the heavy hitters in the media were off for the weekend. Then LeBron came back on Sunday and spoke to the media wearing a Yankees hat (why?). I thought that conversation was strange and made things much worse. I was expecting him to give out some stupid, semi-apologetic, inane explanation and put the incident behind him. But he came out and tried to justify his behavior. He said it doesn't make sense for him to shake-hands with the team that just beat his team up. That was OK. Kinda sounds like a tough-skinned old-timer. But then his reasons were stupid. He called himself a "winner" and a "competitor" and thats why he won't do that.
Thats wrong at so many levels. First and foremost, "competitor" might be one of those over-used words that I hate. What do you mean when you say "he is a competitor" ! This is the NBA. It's not like the other guys are there just for the post-game buffet. They are some of the most competitive, athletic specimens in the World. The media in our culture goes over-board with these so-called intangibles. I would rather have guys like Kobe, LeBron and MJ call themselves the "most talented" rather than use stupid adjectives like "competitor". Secondly, you just lost a playoff series. Wrong time to call yourself a "winner" - not that there is a good time to call yourself a "winner" anyways. So basically LeBron made it worse with that presser and come Monday morning, all hell breaks lose. The media is all over him and Adrian Wojnarowski on Yahoo sports just ripped him apart in an article titled "Royal Pain" that called him a "loser". It's funny that the conversation started over the weekend with a comparison with Kobe. Some media members were like "LeBron is getting away with this. People would be all over Kobe if he did this". I feel like reverse psychology or something has kicked in since and people are now giving this story a lot more attention than they think they are. To be fair, LeBron probably deserves it, but since this is the first serious blot on his record, it feels strange. This post-season has been a huge learning experience for LeBron on several fronts. I hope it's all part of the growing process.
Now on to the finals.
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