Troop's Takes: He"s great but LeBron won"t be best
By Caleb Troop
Athens NEWS Sports Columnist
May 8, 2008
Tuesday night I learned one really important thing about professional basketball. Though I’m surrounded by an Ohio University campus full of Cleveland Cavaliers fans, I hope they consider my legitimately impartial message.
As much as I love LeBron James, in Game one of the Eastern Conference semifinals he proved to me that he never will be considered “the best” ever to play basketball.
Let that sink in, Cavs fans.
Good. OK, now I shall explain.
I have been on the James bandwagon from day one. Shoot, I even bought his jersey just minutes after he was drafted on the seems-like-yesterday draft day of June 26, 2003. As an unbiased observer who came to LeBron’s state from the NBA-less city of St. Louis, I wanted him to be the next one — “the best” one.
But sorry, he’s just not.
Exhibit A, you ask? Does his 12-point, 10-turnover performance against the Boston Celtics on Tuesday suffice? In the 76-72 game-one playoff loss in Boston, James was again faced with double and triple teams. While “the best” always produce great performances in times like those, James did not. Instead, James turned in arguably the worst performance in one of his most pivotal games of his career.
I still love LBJ for his abilities to draw fouls in the lane and create 23-cent pizzas for an entire city. I will continue to watch him this year, and every year from here on out until he retires. But as much as everyone labels him as the savior, he’s not. He just never will be Jordan, or anything close to him. You cannot make two of 18 field-goal attempts in any playoff game and be “the best.” You cannot be routinely just average at the free-throw line and be “the best.” You cannot be inconsistent beyond the three-point line and be “the best.”
“The best” also does not let an opportunity slip away, and that is exactly what James and the Cavs did on Tuesday evening.
Cleveland kept Celtics guard Ray Allen scoreless for the first time since 1997. Cleveland forced Boston into 21 turnovers.
Yet James could not win one for the Cavaliers.
“The best” would have found a way to score in the clutch. But James made just one of eight shots in the final frame. He missed three makeable shots in the last minute of the contest alone.
This is not to say one poor game suddenly makes James terrible and unworthy. No, it reminds me that to be considered “the best,” you have to be flawless and not miss opportunities.
Instead of treating James like this unstoppable force, fans and the NBA need to start treating him for what he truly is — just another superstar. Why is that not enough, anyway? Why can’t he belong in the category with Tim Duncan, Chris Paul, Dwight Howard, Allen Iverson and more?
James just is not Jordan. He doesn’t have the complete game, the genius coach, the supporting cast. He doesn’t have the soothing demeanor, the golfing cigars and Hanes commercials pizzazz.
Performances like the one on Tuesday should make basketball lovers everywhere realize this fact and move on. If we keep wishing, wanting and hoping for James to become the best ever, no one will enjoy his current tenure on a basketball court. Instead, they will become too wrapped up in 23’s next step toward being “the best.”
In just five years, James has captivated a too-often winless sports city and created hope. He has changed basketball in a way that has never been seen. Maybe most importantly, he has done all of this with class and without front-page headlines that include the words “jail” or “drugs,” unlike too many superstars in professional sports today.
But, as much as fans will still throw the B-word out there, it does not make him “the best.”
Caleb Troop is the sports columnist for The Athens NEWS and can be reached at ctroop@TroopSports.com.
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