Heavy is the Crown

I hated “The Decision” just as much as anyone else... if not even a little more.

My favorite pro athlete as a child (and still to this day) was the NHL’s Steve Yzerman, an elite 2-way center who transformed himself from a prolific scorer to one of the most well rounded players in the history of the sport over the course of a long, hall of fame career including multiple rings and countless all-star selections, awards and accolades. He also did it with one team from start to finish… a feat that is almost unheard of in modern pro sports.

More importantly than his preference to stay a Redwing forever was his character; it wasn’t just a matter of fierce loyalty, it was also a function of measured humility, of gratitude for being able to suit up to play to begin with, let alone perform on a hall of fame level. When Yzerman was drafted by the Wings in 1983, they were known as the Dead Things. They were one of the worst teams in the league and routinely were losing more than three quarters of their games. He was drafted as the explosive franchise changing star and he did not fail to deliver putting up gaudy numbers as a pure scorer during the Golden Age of prolific scorers. 

If that is starting to sound a lot like LeBron up until the point in which he bolted for Miami, good for you for being receptive to not-so-subtle comparative prose hehehe 

Yzerman did not win his first championship with the Wings until the 1996-1997 season. He had already been in the league for a decade and a half. In fact, by the time he won his first championship he was really no longer the explosive superstar of the team. He was now the mature leader type who did all the little things you don’t see on stat sheets. His patience and commitment to his franchise and its plan for success resulted in a dynasty, a legacy for him and a feel good story for all pro sports.

LeBron James could have easily had that same legacy. That’s not to say that LeBron owed it to anyone to stay in Cleveland; he really didn’t. After all, it isn’t as though Gilbert was surrounding him with the talent and resources to win rings in Cleveland the way Ken Holland did for the Redwings in Detroit. LeBron played out of his mind, carrying a mediocre team coached by a decent coach to multiple strong playoff runs and a Finals appearance. But his supporting cast wasn’t enough.

Let’s be very clear: leaving Cleveland isn’t his indictment. It was how he did it. The decision. The show. The bravado. The excuse that the self-awareness that all truly special athletes/artists/performers must have in order to be epic justified it. Instead, it was awkward, immature and ultimately divisive.

“The Decision” made the pursuit of a championship ring a side story, becoming such a distraction that every sign of struggle or failure, no matter how trivial, snowballed into a media avalanche of hate. Then when the Heat reached the finals just to lose to the Dallas Mavericks, the avalanche landed squarely on LeBron's head with such a thunderous THUD that it could be heard across the blogosphere in the form of ruthless memes and the butt of many a joke

It is incredibly difficult to perform as a champion would when you are public enemy #1… especially if you are LeBron James and have been crowned King before you even became of age. It’s a pressure that has broken child-kings throughout history beyond the scope of professional sports. Heavy is the crown when weak is the brow.

But that failure against Dallas really should have been the end of it. His punishment was exacted. His heart was broken. His guarantee looked silly. He tasted defeat and shame. Tarred and feather, this was his trial by flame. And he truly arose from it a better player, a more complete teammate with more resolve, drive, focus and dominated everyone and everything en route to the finals. There were moments this past postseason when LeBron appeared to be in some sort of idiot savant glass box, detached from the world around him, a sentient being in a matrix of hater apparitions. He’d drive to the hole, use his superior size and strength to overpower smaller defenders and destroy the bigger ones with his quickness. He kept getting fouled and finishing and getting fouled and finishing. His aggression was so ridiculous that he started to attract double and triple teams at an alarming rate leaving a team chock full of sharpshooters open so often, they’d have to be total noobs not to eventually find a rhythm over the course of four playoff series.

And by the time it mattered most, say in the Finals, they were in such a groove that almost every time he drove, pulled the double and kicked it out… to Battier… to Chalmers… to Cole… to Jones… to Miller… to Bosh, even… they’d drain em. Over and over and over again. The Thunder progressively got buried under a barrage of jumpshots afforded almost entirely by LeBron James. All he needed was heart and last year’s public undressing provided him with plenty of it.

It’s easy to hate LeBron after what he did the move to South Beach. There’s something about people that are, for lack of a less cliché term, larger than life, that are aliens to our perspective… we need them to be humanized in order to relate to them and in order for us to accept them. The irony is that at the same time, we admire them for the complete opposite, for being completely not like us and yet we still want them to express all the same sensibilities.

At any rate, I’m putting the pitchfork down and I’m leaving the mob. Listen, there are all sorts of bandwagons and angry hater mobs that rally around a central figure to unload such a mass of attention/hate are really no different, if not worse. And at this point, he has done nothing but kick everyone’s ass and there’s really no indication that he won’t keep doing it for a while. So I’m stepping out of the mob as of right away. He got his ring. He did it by dominating on both ends of the court and without bravado and without any discernable character flaw. Pure determination, desire and power. 

I have no expectation of him, neither bad nor good.  If he challenges for another ring and gets it, that’s great. If these two teams meet again and KD (my favorite current NBA player, by the way) exacts his revenge and defeats LeBron, then he would have vanquished a great opponent and gained a great victory.

For now, the crown is as light as a feather. He wears it upon a brow no longer troubled, one hardened by nine seasons of expectations, criticism and lauding.  Soon, the euphoria will subside and he will once again feel its weight, its expectations and work to defend his newly minted championship. 

This time, I see no reason to believe he won't wear it regally as was expected all along. 

The Return of Tiger and the Conundrum of The Next One

Hello again.

I recently noticed a couple of undesirable trends with the blog. The first and most obvious issue is that I had stopped writing altogether lol. Secondly, it was clear that my sports writing became increasingly restricted to game predictions/picks and, more specifically, to the NFL. That is unacceptable to me and urges to answer any question I may have ever had about my dwindling readership (or, ultimately, lack there of).

So in an effort to regain the touch I had developed over years of attentive, armchair sports analysis, I’m going to return to what I did best: discuss sport in all its glory, all its facets, all its phases, its societal reach, its psychology, and of course clue you in on who is going to win what and where ;)

The Return of Tiger and the Conundrum of The Next One

Every once in a while an elite talent emerges in a sport that redefines it and elevates the game and all those who participate in it and follow it to a new level. This is sometimes per generation; sometimes the timeframe is much longer. Tiger Woods is that sort of athlete and it is no surprise that he transformed Golf in much the same way that Michael Jordan transformed Basketball and Wayne Gretzky transformed Ice Hockey.

The existence of these sorts of personalities has another unintended effect. Not only does it beg the question of who the “Next One” is but it also, subconsciously, almost demands that there be one. And there is where the problem lies.

As many pundits in every corner of the globe have been saying (to no avail, sadly) there can never be another Tiger. That is even if another golfer were to arise that was even as good as Tiger let alone better than him. And by better we don’t mean just in pure ability. This “Next Tiger” would also have to be as prolific, break damn near every record in the books, dominate the marketability of the sport and also act as a global icon. This person has to do all these things simultaneously. The task is far more daunting than just being better than everyone else…

Tiger Woods, like Michael and like the Great One and like Babe Ruth, is universally untouchable. They cannot be duplicated or supplanted as the Primes of their respective sports. This makes the constant labeling of every new prospect that comes up as the next Tiger all the more inane. It’s the unfortunate byproduct of his accomplishments.

So awesome are his accomplishments that as soon as he starts to slip from said pedestal of awesomeness, everybody is quick to shovel dirt on the man as if he is in the twilight of his career and is finished. It’s impossible for anybody who has been paying attention to what Tiger has been able to do in the past decade and a half to think that sort of ability is suddenly extinguished. He shows flashes of it as he regains his footing after an awkward series of events off the course and a nagging knee injury and the lingering complications.

The problem here is that when you’ve performed as greatly as Tiger has, your bar of expectation has been raised far beyond what is even reasonable. Even for somebody as pristinely gifted as Tiger Woods. Tiger suddenly has to be as good as mid 2000s Tiger for as long as he is alive. This is the curse of the fan’s expectation. We saw it destroy Metallica's public opinion. It almost destroyed Michael Jordan's when he came back to play for the Wizards. It is trying to destroy Tiger's.

To the sensible fan, this is of course completely unfair to Tiger. Tiger answered it best when he was recently asked if he was “back” after a spectacular performance at the Memorial Tournament; instead of being the old Tiger again, he simply suggested he was a new different Tiger. Maybe not the same Tiger, maybe a better Tiger, maybe not a better Tiger. But does it matter?

Most of Jordan’s accomplishments (if not just about all of them) will never be broken. We will never see another player completely transform the sport of Basketball and globalize it the way that he did. Gretzky’s career numbers are even more unattainable than Jordan’s. In fact, Gretzky probably has the single most unattainable stat line of any athlete in pro sports history (with maybe the exception of the Babe only because Babe Ruth was equally as prolific a pitcher as he was a hitter and the game has changed to where nobody ever gets to hit and pitch in that sort of volume anymore). But Gretzky’s single season and career marks for goals, assists and points are so mindbending, that even today’s finest stars don’t have a ballpark chance of catching them.

This is also Tiger and will be cemented further when his career really is over… which by my unofficial eyeball estimation isn’t anywhere near the horizon. Rest assured, my friends, there will not only never be another Tiger Woods. There will likely never be anyone as good at the game of Golf ever again so please… enjoy it while we are seeing it live.

Be well.