There is going to be no getting around the LeBron James story once the 2011-12 season begins. Sure, the free agent hype surrounding Chris Paul, Dwight Howard and Deron Williams will take headlines during the season nationally. Those free agent campaigns seem to pale in comparison to the anticipation that was James’ free agency in the summer of 2010.
LeBron opened himself up to criticism by signing with the Heat and the way he did it. If 2010-11 was about resentment and anger toward what James and the Heat did and hoping for their failure, the 2012 season might very well be about how James and his team respond to the Finals defeat. That may not satisfy all of James or the Heat’s critics, but if we are talking about James’ legacy in the league, the 2012 season might be the turning point.
James played the hero and the goat in the 2011 Playoffs. In the Eastern Conference Finals against the Bulls, James averaged 28.5 points per game, 8.3 rebounds per game and 6.8 assists per game in the four wins to close out the series. He had an other-worldly performance for the Heat to close out Game Five.
This was the postseason that James overcame his demons to defeat the Celtics and took over at times in the Conference Finals. James was set to have a big Finals series. It seemed that after a relatively easy Game One victory in Miami, James was set to lift the trophy and silence all his critics. He was finishing games and, most importantly, he was winning.
Then the Mavericks defeated the Heat in six games. They shattered the mystique surrounding this Miami “super team” and sent James into an offseason where just about everyone was questioning what he was really made of and whether he could lead his team to a championship.
Honestly, the answer to that question is probably not an “if” but a “when”. James is too good of a player not to reach another Finals and not to get one title. There is no player of overbearing stature like Michael Jordan or Magic Johnson or Larry Bird to prevent a whole generation of players from winning a championship.
As it stands though, James’ performance in the Finals was extremely disappointing. It must have been difficult to live with during this extended offseason. As a reminder, James scored 17.8 points per game, shot 47.8 percent from the floor, grabbed 7.2 rebounds per game and dished out 6.8 assists per game. Those are good numbers. But when you are scrutinized like James is, they are not good enough. James, fairly or not, took the brunt of the criticism for Miami’s loss in the Finals.
So the story of 2012, now that James has gotten so tantalizingly close to a title, closer than he has ever been to the golden trophy, is how does James respond to this failure and this criticism? What will LeBron post-Finals look like?
I remember an obscure quote from Magic Johnson way back in 2003 after the Timberwolves lost to the Lakers. Johnson said in the postgame show following the Lakers’ Western Conference championship-clinching victory that a young team like the Wolves had to learn to win and that the failures in 2003 were going to help them in the long run. OK, so Latrell Sprewell went off the deep end the following year and Minnesota traded Sam Cassell away for Marko Jaric. But I imagine Kevin Garnett hungered for the opportunity to get back that deep in the playoffs. The next time he did, he instilled the lessons he learned and his already innate passion to get the Celtics a title.
It is something several of the people who have followed his career, including Fox Sports Florida’s Bill Reiter, note too. James has to grow from this failure to reach his true potential.
“This season is LeBron’s chance to make the transition, to prove his deficiencies have been tackled, to show that the demons that helped him cough up an NBA championship in June have since molded him into the player his talents deserve.
First: The man must admit to himself — only, but truly, to himself — that the collapse the Heat endured in the Finals was more than chance. He cannot fall back on the mistaken belief that life, and basketball, is a numbers game. That his stats eventually will play themselves out in the Finals and that the Heat’s Finals fiasco was nothing more than a mathematical aberration.
LeBron must accept he is not an equation destined for championships; he is a man overwhelmingly capable of winning them. No more, no less. No guarantees written in the stars, or embedded in stat sheets studied by men smarter than I, that he will one day win it all.
And so secondly: LeBron cannot fall back on the adulation of those in the media, some of whom are prominent and influential, who croon softly for his benefit that LeBron is too great to be questioned.”
James has faced a lot of failure in his career already. His Cavaliers team got swept out of the Finals in 2007 before James even really knew what it meant to go deep in the playoffs. He suffered a heartbreaking loss to the Celtics the next year, refused to shake hands after the Magic eliminated the Cavs in 2009 and then had to dodge criticism of his effort in the series loss to the Celtics in 2010. James has had plenty of chances to learn from his failures.
This one might be the greatest of all to overcome however.
James put a lot of the pressure on himself with the way the departure from Cleveland to Miami was orchestrated. He did not deliver in Year One. He is hoping Year Two is a different story for him and the Heat. Even with a 66-game schedule ahead of him — one that some in the future might decry as illegitimate to anyone who wins the title — James has a chance at redemption and a chance to make good for his previous failures.
Because once you win that title, no one can take it away from you.
