Hop off the Lebronwagon

Wow, you would have thought Jordan was back. That was the impression I’ve been getting ever since LeBron’s Game Five 48-point explosion that set the NBA world on fire. But before we all go hopping onto the Bronwagon, let’s just calm down for a second. While he did score 28 points consecutively, and while he really did make a historically great defense irrelevant, was it really the memorable performance everybody made it out to be?

I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me, but I’d rather watch Kobe go off for 81. I’d rather watch Jordan push off Craig Ehlo, forever casting him in the background of a decade’s worth of Gatorade commercials. I’d rather watch Reggie Miller score as many points as he could get out of that alien-body in 12 seconds. I’d rather watch Larry Johnson’s four-point play. Those are the memorable performances in my mind. Heck even the Allan Houston three pointer after a Stephon Marbury miss to force overtime against the Dallas Mavericks three years ago in the regular season will stand out more.

The point is that LeBron was just dunking, and not dunking it in a Vince Carter
way that you would remember either. They were uncontested basic dunks that my brother often does in warm-ups. When you’re six-feet and in high school, it’s really cool. When you’re 6’8 and in the NBA, it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. In fact, the most Vince Carter thing about his whole performance were the mindless, flat, fadeaway jumpers he took “cuz he was fillin’ it.”

There was no excitement. There was no point in that stretch where I had to step back, take a breath and just admire it. It happened too quickly. And whule, no, it doesn’t have to be flashy to be effective, it does need to be flashy to be memorable. After all, how many Tim Duncan and Shaquille O’Neal playoff highlights do you really remember?

And after all of that was said and done, Detroit was still in the game! After LeBron became a cyborg, he became human on defense. Jordan never did. Kobe never did. Duncan never did.

Don’t give me that crap about LeBron’s teammates or lack thereof. Jordan didn’t exactly have Hakeem Olajuwon in the middle. Heck, he didn’t even have Zydrunas Ilgauskas. And look at the Spurs. Other than Tim Duncan, who on that team was supposed to amount to anything? Michael Finley…14 years ago?

I look at the draft as a litmus test for how good the scouts believe a player would be. I understand that Tony Parker is quick, but he wasn’t supposed to be this good. Same thing goes for Manu Ginobili. But Tim Duncan (and Eva Longoria) has made them into household names and perennial All-Star contenders, and more importantly, perennial championship contenders.

Isn’t that what LeBron was supposed to do so well in the first place? To elevate the games of his teammates a la Magic Johnson? I mean, for all the times we’ve questioned the playing ability of Damon Jones and Eric Snow, did we totally forget that Robert Horry is horrible in precisely 47 minutes of every game? Yeah. Because Tim Duncan IS that good.

Not to take anything away from LeBron’s performance though. On that stage, in that arena, against that team, yeah; it was great. Did it surpise me? Not at all.

At no point did LeBron impress me really. I KNEW he could jump out of the gym. I KNEW he was a 22-year-old guard despite looking like a 30-year-old power forward. I knew this, and expected it in Game 1. After all, he could have powered home a dunk for the ages on Tayshaun, but instead he decided to defer to his fat 3-point shooting power forward, Donyell “No I’m not Ludacris in 10 years” Marshall. Then I was so sure that he would dunk it in Game 2. Instead, we got a Vince Carter type fadeaway five feet from the rim.

So he had failed twice already. So why does this become like he didn’t mess those situations up. If he does, this game doesn’t even take place. The Cavs would have swept the Pistons dynasty and the Knicks would be introducing Rasheed Wallace as their Power Forward right now. (I wish)

To me this is like A-Rod striking out 50 consecutive times in clutch situations. We know he has the talent. We knew it. Now in the World Series, he finally hits a clutch grand slam. Does it instantly make him clutch? Does it instantly make him great? What if instead of A-Rod, it’s Josh Phelps. Does he become an all-time great too? No. Just ask Miguel Cairo.)

Michael Jordan said it all recently when he said, "Making 'The Leap' is where you do it every single night. It's expected of you, and you do it. ... Not one game, not two games. It's consistent. Every defense comes in and they focus on you and you still impact the game. I think he's shown signs of that."

Signs. That’s it. Maybe he will become great one day and pass down this advice to the next LeBron. But he’s not there yet, and don’t be surprised if Tim Duncan shows him that. But instead of forcing the weight of the world’s expectations upon him, why don’t we just sit back and let him develop into the player he’s destined to be.

Jason Paderon is a co-founder, columnist, and cartoonist for ChewThemOut.com. Additionally, he was a news reporter for the Staten Island Advance. He can be reached at paderon@chewthemout.com.