Before we continue where I left off, I want to share some interesting news. Last night on the Letterman Show, Betty White gave Top Ten list on “Betty White Tips for Living A Long and Happy Life”. Here's what she had to say:
"No. 10 – Get at least 8 hours of beauty sleep, 9 if you’re ugly.
No. 9 – Exercise. Or don’t, what the hell do I care?
No. 8 – Never apologize. It shows weakness.
No. 7 – The best way to earn a quick buck is a slip and fall lawsuit.
No. 6 – Avoid tweeting any photos of your private parts.
No. 5 – Schedule a nightly appointment with Dr. Johnnie Walker
No. 4 – Take some wheatgreass, soy paste and carob, toss in the garbage and cook yourself a big piece of pork.
No. 3 – Try not to die
No. 2 – Never dwell on past mistakes – especially you LeBron
No. 1 – Don’t waste your time watching this crap."
If an 89 year old is taking a jab at you, you seriously got some issues for that to even come close to happen. I really don't know what's worse or just plain stupid, Lebron being a egotistic choke artist, Charlie Sheen's rant on "Winning", OJ Simpson, or Tiger Wood's putter (both ways, you know what I mean). Anyways, I just had to get that out there...let's get back to the story.
2006–2007
This season was full of promise, but just taking a glance at the Cavs roster that year, it wasn't going to jump out at you. On paper, the team was mediocre at best. Come on, your next best 2 players were Larry Hughes and Zydrunas Ilgauskas. Do you really think this team is going to cause some noise in the NBA and have Finals written all over it? Let's be honest to ourselves, yes they have Lebron James, yes he can single-handily put a team on his back and let them ride, but this is reality and at some point the camel will break its back.
We all know how good Lebron James is, I'm done talking about statistics so I'm not going to tell you what he did that year. Even though after this season he and Oscar Robertson are the only NBA players in history to average 27 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists per game for three consecutive years. That's something Jordan never did, so just at this point you can start imagining people are making bold claims Lebron may, can,will, definitely be better than Jordan. I heard it, you heard it, we all did at some point. BUT, we also know or need to understand regardless whether or not him and Oscar were able to accomplish this, stats alone will never win you championships. Maybe, it can help you win games, but never, ever championships. Oscar only won once, just once, even with all the accolades he was able to do, while Jordan won 6 times.
Lebron got to the playoffs, swept the Wizards in the first round, and in the second round, the Cavs beat the New Jersey Nets in 6 games. In the Eastern Conference Finals, the Cavs came back from a 0-2 deficit to win it in 6 games. Now, I watched this series like a hawk and I can definitely tell you, if Lebron wasn't there or somehow he got injured, NOT only would this series be done in 4 games, but obviously, without a doubt, it would have been in favor of Detroit. Like Mark Jackson would say, "Hand down, man down." I also would believe that if Lebron wasn't there, the scores would have been on average Detroit winning it 100 to 30, and that's just on average alone. Lebron was that good in this series, and I, for one, can tell you he man'd up from the previous year. He learned something from last year, and took this team to the Finals, single-handily.
Although the Finals was a different story. First off, the Cavs were no where near favored to win it. The Spurs coming off an impressive victory over the red-hot Suns were primed to win this thing. The Spurs were to me the best defensive team in the NBA at the time, and if not the best, then at least top 2. Also, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili have been to the Finals and won it in the past. And, Greg Popovich is too good of a coach to let one guy (Lebron) beat him.
I don't like the Spurs, I liked them back in 94-95, but got humiliated by the infamous Dream Shake and the Houston Rockets. So it was obvious I was routing for Lebron. The Cavs got swept, they got embarrassed by a better, deeper, stronger, and wiser team. Lebron looked confused, he looked helpless, he had this look like "if only I had better players would I not only be able to compete, but I can win this thing." I was hoping for the Cavs to at least win one game, that's all I really asked for when it got to Game 4. One win, and maybe another win in Game 5 to push it to Game 6. Trying to be optimistic and hopeful; however, I and several fans got let down and the body language of Lebron showed me he didn't quite believe this team of HIS can win one game of the Finals.
Other than that, I listened to him during his press conference after getting swept. It was actually very nice because he talked a lot about facing a better team, even going as far as congratulating the Spurs and specifically Tim Duncan even though Duncan didn't win the Finals MVP that year. Lebron talked a lot about disappointments, needing to get better, on improving himself and the team, but with him saying all the right things his body language was saying something else. He wanted better players, simple as that.
2007-2008
Again, we all know Lebron had another great season. Again, this Cav team didn't look like championship contenders on paper. Lebron was able to take the Cavs to the playoffs, again. They got to the Eastern Conference Finals to face the all out defensive, look at me now, fake injury player, "we're the Big 3", Boston Celtics. One team I despise the most, Boston Celtics. I respect their history, their players and their organization, but I hate them (NOT a fan of green). So, I was definitely routing for Lebron in this series so the NBA fans can see what everyone wanted to see and that was a matchup of Lebron vs Kobe. Who wouldn't want to see that? Yeah, Boston vs LA was another good matchup, but I wanted to see something that still to this day haven't seen before (Kobe and Lebron, Finals).
Lebron helped this measly Cavs team to force 7 games. Impressive, but you can tell by watching the whole series who was the main force in the offense, and probably the ONLY force. Lebron was doing everything, scoring, rebounding, passing, stealing, you name it, but as we all know, one man can't do it by himself. At times, I really thought it was 9 on 1 throughout the games. It was horrific, it was something where I frequently changed the channel if I didn't want to see Lebron lose, and here we are at game 7 which surprised me. I really thought the Celtics should have just swept the Cavs and get on with it, but you can tell the Celtics were not worried about Lebron at all. That was the formula though, make Lebron teammates score, they knew they could not contain Lebron, but they also knew they could contain the others.
In game 7, Lebron did everything he could do to get this team back to the Finals, but it wasn't enough. Writers everywhere was routing for Lebron to win, ESPN (aka Lebron's other company) were writing articles in favor of Lebron. But most critics will tell you, while they wanted Leborn to win, they knew the Celtics were the better team so they picked the Celtics to win it. At the same time I was hearing people talk about how Lebron is going to come and show us a Jordanesque performance. The main stage was set, this was Lebron's time to shine. For his name to be written in glory and get his team to the Finals once, again. And what happened? He lost, his team botched, he couldn't take them, and a once in a life time matchup between Kobe and Lebron would have to wait yet, again.
It was disappointing to watch, especially towards the end of the game. With little more than 2 mintues remaining, the Cavs were down by one. Both Lebron and Paul Pierce were having stellar games. It was an epic battle throughout the game, and yet when the Cavs were asking or more like begging for clutch they got none. West misses a three, then Lebron misses a three, basically for the remainder of the game Lebron missed ALLL HIS SHOTS and make 1 out of 2 free throws. Tell me that is clutch, just, please tell me because when you miss 3 critical shots at the end of the game that speaks volume on how you are NOT clutch. What's even more sad is that throughout the season, Lebron was the leader on 4th quarter scoring earning the reputation as Mr. Clutch. Even though this is the Boston Celtics he's playing against, he should have enough confidence and focus when it comes to scoring in the 4th quarter. Let's face it, Lebron wasn't able to take over the game when the opportunity did present itself to him. It was there for the taking and Lebron just let it slip away. I was starting to really 2nd guess on when this "better than Jordan or Magic" was going to show up. And yet even after the series, people was still supporting him, still riding his back, basically still saying things like "it was his teammates, his supporting cast is of no good, Lebron did his best but came up short, Lebron is still young, he'll learn and he'll get his chance, Lebron is going to win numerous championships." Him getting his championships in the distant future is probably what I heard the most not only from writers or critics, but also from fans, and other current and former stars in the league. People making excuses for him and I was starting to get sick and tired seeing the same thing over again when I was being so hopeful for him to rise above and show us that "yes, I, Lebron am this good." Something, but got nothing.
I do want to apologize, I know in my previous post I said I'll make this into a 3 part series, but I decided to make this a 5 part series.
For my next blog: Part 3 of Lebron Fan to a Lebron Hater, Lebron yet again failing
I am not the owner of any of the articles and pictures. The sources and materials are owned by Yahoo Sports, ESPN, CNN, and Wikipedia.
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