LeBron isn’t buried yet.
As bad as it’s been — as he’s been — LeBron James can still survive this. With two fourth quarters to go in these NBA Finals, redemption is very much a possibility. Even if his latest 12 minutes were flimsy yet again. Even if he wilted with the Heat’s four-point lead with 4 minutes 36 seconds left.
He can get out.
And if he does, he’ll be on higher ground than he could’ve been without it.
Same old, lame old James
Twilight hasn’t been James’ moment. Not in these NBA Finals, when he’s averaged 2.2 points in the fourth. Not when James should be hunting, trying but failing to pull the Heat back. Not when James should be cruising, instead blowing four late leads in the last 7 minutes of games. Not when Miami lost three of them, trudging to the precipice of historic embarrassment.
And he wasn’t last night either, inexplicably so. He went 1-for-4 in the fourth quarter, his three misses all from beyond the arc. How does that happen? How does James let it? The sluggishness. The tentativeness. The shot selection. (Or opting out of them.)
Think about the improbability of what’s happening. This is God’s gift to modern athletics, made mortal. This is the 99th percentile of basketball IQs looking lost. He can’t shoot. He won’t drive. He’s powerless, all at the hands of a few guys you might not remember in as many years. Nice players, DeShawn Stevenson, and Shawn Marion particularly. But not clock-stoppers. They’re not supposed to be.
Not on James.
Checkpoints unchecked
James conditioned us what to expect of him throughout the playoffs, proving something at every stop.
He handled the 76ers, jelling with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh and a system he finally believed in.
Step One.
He belted the Celtics, mostly a function of his doing, mostly in spite of forgettable performances from Wade. That victory was mental, drawing the fan acceptance James longs for and dropping the one group he wasn’t sure he could.
Step Two.
Then James ground the Bulls to powder, chiefly because of what he did late. He averaged 8.8 points in the fourth-quarters of a series against the Eastern Conference’s top seed, the league’s best defense and its MVP — in the only five games there were. If you sift through the criticism of the past 11 days, you’ll find instant-lore in the Eastern Conference Finals, Derrick Rose reduced to rubble.
That, simply, was closure. If any doubt lingered about everything he could be, what seemed as inevitable as a championship, James quieted it.
Step Three.
But that’s been somewhat compromised. All the progress he’s made, strides taken, believers made, doubters-be-damned, floats in limbo. And it’s more than just ominous for his teammates, a target for detractors, a hitch in what should’ve been a road to certain redemption.
It’s in the back of his mind.
Back to Step One.
Compartmentalizing the distractions
You’d have to be heartless not to empathize with James. You can turn your nose up to his antics, the camera posing and powder throwing and faux Jordan face making. You can pass on his selfishness, the ill-fated telethon he regrets, and the incessant me-talk he doesn’t notice.
If LeBron James reigns as the epitome of polarity and sports, that’s why.
But the whispers following James are more than distractions. They’re the kind that tears at the fibers of your being. (And, considering the pattern, legacy.) The thought of his girlfriend and mother of his children straying, and into Rashard Lewis bed had to consume him. The thought of a mother and teammate betraying him but a year ago — the stage and the stakes taking a back seat to selfishness, by people he thought trustworthy — had to crush him.
That has ripples, his eight-point Game 4 ceiling being among them.
But that doesn’t give him a pass, just like Dirk’s 102 fever didn’t for him — something both James and Wade reminded us all before Game 5 — or injuries or internal turmoil and personal conflict never do. It’s cruel, in a way, how sport can transcend natural disasters (Hurricane Katrina) but not the human nature’s darker side.
That’s equal parts our makeup and passion — we can’t help our impulses or our love of sports. But it’s also precedent: overcoming is what greatness is.
Brett Favre threw for 399 yards and 4 touchdowns, soaked in sweat from Monday Night Football in Oakland, tears from losing his father hours earlier. Tim Tebow rattled off 10 wins, 24 touchdowns (to just four interceptions) and a BCS National Championship, after failing his team — his words, not mine — in a loss against Ole Miss. You might not think it mattered. But Tebow did. Terrell Davis rushed for 102 yards in Super Bowl XXXIII with such a crippling migraine he couldn’t see.
Then of course, there was Jordan.
Like James, none asked for those. But even when stars’ choices beget their problems, the greats manage to compartmentalize. That’s how Kobe Bryant shuttled back and forth from Eagle, Colo., and 2004 postseason games, and vaulted the Lakers to a near four-peat. That’s how Ben Roethlisberger parlayed three training camps’ of noise — one for the motorcycle wreck (2006), and two for rape allegations in 2009 and 2010 — and a four-game suspension into a 9-3 record as a starter and Super Bowl berth.
That’s what legends do. Where James has to start.
Blame to go around
Everything James has done, what’s defined the past year of his life, puts James’ head on the chopping block. When he perched on a stool July 11, 2010, he asked for this. When he headlined the Heatles’ baptism by strobe lights and pyrotechnics and arrogance, he assumed responsibility.
That’s why when Dwyane Wade vanishes — like he did in the Celtics and Bulls series, and in the second quarter last night — his head doesn’t roll. That’s why when Erik Spoelstra abandons an unbeatable game plan unsolicited, we forget to notice. That’s why when Joel Anthony doesn’t record a rebound, it’s glossed over.
The Mavericks three-point frenzy isn’t surprising, even if they hit some stupefying 68.4 percent of their 19 3s. They did it to the Lakers, and demolished them with it. That’s precedent. And they haven’t since. That’s the law of averages, and unreliability of jump shooting.
There’s a full pitcher of culpability, and more than just James’ cup to fill. But that won’t happen. It shouldn’t. This is what James wanted: relevance. He got it, grander and fiercer and less forgiving than he could’ve imagined.
Talking the talk
There’s typically more to lose between games than there is to win. There’s writing your opponents’ bulletin board material (cue: DeShawn Stevenson and Jason Terry), getting yourself in trouble (Plaxico Burress seems a relevant example) and related knuckleheadedness.
Then there was James, rolling the dice in 160 characters or fewer. “Now or Never!!” he tweeted hours before Game 5, contradicting the tenets of PR, but also his naysayers.
If James was shying from a spotlight he couldn’t choose (close fourth quarters), why would he inflect the one he could (simple answers at a press conference)?
In case we didn’t know, couldn’t realize or refused to, James made it crystal clear: He wants this. The ring, yes. But the role moreover. So far as he saw it — and still does, given his “my team” euphemism for the Heat after Game 5 — he was the ringleader.
That divides the criticism. It has to. It’s one thing to attack his game, call it unreliable or un-clutch or unworthy of Jordan. It’s another to question where his head’s at and the depth of his heart.
Still, the Heat go as he does. These finals prove that.
That magnifies whatever he puts together, pitting him with a sleeper of an opportunity. Most obviously, losing either of the next two games hangs on him, and much heavier than it would’ve before. Would’ve been thing if we dubbed Game 5 the “most important game of [James'] career.” But he said it.
Bouncing beyond
But if the Heat win these finals — if James does, after recognizing the gravity of the moment — his legacy will be catapulted.
In the same breath: Has anything actually changed? If his Game 5 performance paralleled that of Games 1-4, isn’t just lumped together at the bottom of the same abyss?
A step farther: In a sense, it works in James favor. Digging himself deeper stack the odds higher, making a turnaround that much more glorious and gratifying and (I’m gonna say it) great.
He can’t change Games 1-5, but James can use them. However bad it is now, however we’ve hammered and questioned and speculated, that frame of reference would make a 180 that much more remarkable. I’ll say it again: however far he’s sunk only lengthens the distance and brilliance of an ascent.
More simply: If James blows the cowboy hats off the Mavericks in two straight games, he’ll have arrived. Critics quieted, debate closed — because of what both said.
James was downed and made desperate by Dallas.
But how we’ll remember him isn’t doomed. Not yet.
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