King No More...

I'm no big fan of NBA basketball, anyone who knows me will tell you that. At the same time, it is hard to deny the sheer athleticism present in the men who play the game at that level.

I was fortunate enough to be living in the midwest when Michael Jordan transformed the Chicago Bulls from an NBA afterthought to perennial league champions. While I'm not quite old enough to remember and appreciate the talent that existed in the days of Bob Cousy, Wilt Chamberlain, and Jerry West, I have had the opportunity to see the likes of Julius Irving, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson make the game of basketball appear to be a thing of grace and elegance.

Michael Jordan was something more.

In a game that, for me at least, can too often turn in to little more than a human ping pong game, Jordan made the game come alive. True that he brought great athleticism to the court, but even more significant was his ability - through tenacity, fierce competitiveness, and sheer force of will - to make those around him greater than they perhaps could or should have been. Jordan lead Chicago, step by step and piece by piece, from nothing to a playoff team, from a playoff team to a contender, and from a contender to a perennial Champion. Despite his frustration in the early years, he stayed with the franchise and allowed the work to be done that would eventually lead to the championship fruit born both by his own labor and the efforts of the team management.

For quite some time it seemed to me that I would likely never see another player who could do what Jordan had done in Chicago. Some have suggested that perhaps Kobe was a player close to Jordan's ability, but what Kobe would always lack was the opportunity to so completely transform a team and a city the way that Jordan did.

And then came LeBron...

I remember the Sports Illustrated issue that had the cover picture of a still High School aged LeBron James, and the story that suggested perhaps we were seeing the dawning of a new NBA king. I remember the high school games broadcast on ESPN, showcasing the amazing physical specimen of LeBron, and how he seemed to be literally a man among boys.

Cleveland was indeed a perfect stage if LeBron were to become the next Jordan. It even had the added storybook factor of becoming a "home town boy makes good" scenario. Surely the Cavaliers were every bit as hapless as the Bulls had been prior to Jordan's arrival. And while there was significantly greater hype surrounding LeBron's arrival to the team than there was with Jordan's arrival in Chicago, it was still certainly a case where the potential success of the Cav's was going to rest heavily on what LeBron would be able and willing to do in the coming years.

Jordan and James do not play the same position. Their games are not really even all that similar except in one respect - both are fierce competitors who hate to lose, and who had shown the ability to make others around them better.

The beginning years of LeBron's NBA career seemed to be unfolding in a very Jordan-esque way. Slowly but surely the Cavaliers began rising in stature in the NBA. The team's management, much in the manner of the Bulls and Jordan, began the process of trying to put the right complimentary pieces around the driving force of their young star. Much in the way of his hero, LeBron bristled at the slow pace of the rebuilding, leaning on the team to work harder at building a better team around him.

Soon there were playoffs on a regular basis, and even an almost surprise NBA finals. Unfortunately, in their first trip to the final series, the Cav's fell short. It was about this time that word began spreading through the media that LeBron would not be patient in Cleveland forever, that perhaps he was destined to move to a bigger media market where his many talents would be even more on display.

When the Cav's made an earlier than expected exit from this year's playoffs, the frenzy was on. Speculation ran rampant throughout the press that now was the time for LeBron to make his move.

And then...the debacle of Thursday nights LeBron Special on ESPN.

It's no surprise that professional athletes have egos. I'm not even sure that it's possible to be an athlete at such a high level without having a certain level of ego and arrogance about your abilities and what you can do. But I think that most of us have an unspoken mental line over which we expect even our professional athletes will not cross.

The LeBron show blew that line away for me.

The fact that one of the best players in the league has chosen a new location to take his game is not the problem. When I was a kid, players played for their team forever, but that reality has been long gone from professional sports since the 70's.

The problem for me is that LeBron has tossed away any chance that he can ever become the new king of NBA basketball. The problem is that no matter what he does in the coming years, LeBron can never claim to have done what his hero Michael Jordan did.

No one will be surprised if Miami wins a championship. Few will be surprised if they don't indeed win several championships.

But LeBron will not have been the driving force that compelled this team to championship status.

He will never be able to lay claim to have perservered and led this team from nothingness to greatness.

We will never be able to marvel at his patience and cooperation in working with this teams owners as they built a perennial NBA championship team.

LeBron James will undoubtedly go down in NBA history as one of the great players in the league.

But I think it's safe to say that we can finally and definitively remove the label "King" from his name.