An NBA "Winner"

If you’re looking for a way to kill the National Basketball Association, you should call a man named Lebron James of Miami, FL. I think he’s found it.

A little more than four years ago, Lebron was a free agent able to pick the team he wanted to play for, one of which was the Miami Heat. The problem was, the Heat was led by superstar scoring wing, Dwyane Wade, so any competitive athlete knew Lebron would not go there. Impossible. What hall of fame player would ever choose to play with, rather than against, another superstar that plays the same position with similar abilities just to win a title? That is the easy way out. Even Wade didn’t think Lebron would really choose to play there.

So what did Lebron do?

He wimped out.

He wimped out by joining the Heat all in the name of easy wins. He wimped out by choosing to form a super-team that would obviously win championships. He wimped out by playing with a team that didn’t need to play all three superstars in order to win most games. He wimped out by having to form an all-star team in order to beat teams with far less talent.

This wimping out has changed the NBA. Now, in order to beat the Heat, superstars are leaving their teams in droves to join other superstars in major metro areas (see Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, Dwight Howard, and Kevin Love) in order to compete for championships. It used to be that teams with one or two stars would be surrounded by good role players in order to win. It gave the NBA a lot of good teams, and a lot of teams that were not as strong, but still competitive. Now the NBA has the haves, and the never-in-a-million-years teams.

He said it was all about winning. Does winning with superior talent make someone a winner? Jeff Van Gundy predicted the Heat would win 70 games the first season with Lebron and company. If the Heat signed Justin Bieber to sit on the bench, does that make him a great basketball champion? If Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte beat The Jonas Brothers in a swimming competition, does that make them champion swimmers? When the U.S. Olympic basketball team wins the gold medal, is it a big deal? Of course not; they have the best players! When I beat my two year old son in wrestling, does that make me a legendary winning wrestler?

In the 2012-13 season, the Heat played without Lebron, Wade, and Bosh at various times in the season. Their record when one of the three players didn’t play was astounding. They had as high of a winning percentage, or better, when one of the three did not play, vs. when they all did. The Heat do not need all three stars to win. Wade, during the 2013-14 season, missed many games. It was well known he was able to take it easy to be ready for the Finals. Is that what the sport has become? A league with the best team not needing to try until the very last series of the season?

And in a little over a week, Lebron will win his third NBA title. The media, the non-competitive, and those that are too young or inexperienced will hail him as a great champion. I hail him as a great player that chose the easy way out. All hail Patrick Ewing, Charles Barkley, Allen Iverson, Karl Malone, Reggie Miller, Steve Nash, John Stockton, and Dominique Wilkins: players that wanted to beat the best to be the best, but didn’t quite get the diamond championship ring…a much greater accomplishment than joining other all-stars in the prime of a career to win cubic zirconia bands.