Gordon Gee Says NCAA Investigation is Complete
June 10, 2011WFNY Podcast: Tribe Roadtrip, NBA Finals and Cavaliers Draft
June 10, 2011Somewhere Dan Gilbert is likely putting the final touches on a gift basket for Mark Cuban. Perhaps a few vouchers for free Fatheads are being included, maybe a case or two of Great Lakes’ Dortmunder Gold, a bottle of the finest Riesling that he owns, and a particularly passionate thank you note, written in comic sans, of course.
The last time Dan Gilbert put so much emotion into a letter, it was the now infamous Decision night letter he sent out to Cleveland fans. It was in that letter that Gilbert made his bold guarantee that the Cavaliers would win a Championship before LeBron does.
If only Gilbert were a Hollywood producer rather than an NBA owner. If this were a movie, things might actually have played out in a similar fashion to the present. The Cavaliers are brutally betrayed by one of their own, hit rock bottom, and suffer through just a miserable season in which so many things go wrong. Meanwhile, LeBron goes to Miami and after taking some time to gel, begins to just run over the rest of the league en route to the Finals where inevitability began to take shape.
In the movie version, the Heat would lost at home, the Cavaliers would win 2 of the top 5 picks in the draft lottery and Kyrie Irving and whomever else the Cavaliers draft would lead the team to the NBA Championship, giving the franchise, the city, and the fans the ultimate vindication. And Dan Gilbert would send Mark Cuban the nicest gift basket ever seen, to thank him for holding off the Heat juggernaut and giving Gilbert’s proclamation a chance to become reality.
Unfortunately, this is probably the moment where reality is separated from fiction. Speaking from a purely insular point of view, it’s obvious that Cleveland fans want Dan Gilbert to have every opportunity to be proven right. And maybe, just maybe the Dallas Mavericks can pull off one more win to give Gilbert one more year to try to back up his letter.
The truth is, though, that the Heat winning a title is as inevitable and overwhelming as the prospects of a sex scandal involving a politician. It may not happen this year, but it’s going to happen. LeBron James and Dwyane Wade are simply too good to not at least fail upwards into a title. Honestly, they’ll probably win multiple Championships and will win several in more convincing manner than this year. And when that first one happens, Dan Gilbert will be mocked.
The question that keeps coming back, though, is does it matter? Some have said LeBron needs a Championship to validate his decision to leave Cleveland, but what difference does it make? LeBron always needed to win Championships for validation purposes. Perhaps the reason for validation has changed (slightly), but even in Cleveland he needed that validation and that validation is probably part of why he left in the first place.
And so it was that as Game 5 of the NBA Finals was drawing to a close, there was LeBron James, decked head to toe in his villainous black uniform, looking as lost and as small as ever. And if you looked just a little closer, you might actually be able to see the weight of all that validation crashing down on him.
In many ways, LeBron fled to Miami to escape the prospects of spending a career at home and never validating his greatness. Never truly answering on the promise of his much hyped arrival into a league looking for a post-Jordan identity. No matter what LeBron did in Cleveland to elevate the city, the franchise, and even the NBA as a whole, it was just never enough for people. He needed to play in New York, some said. Others felt Chicago would be best. Some wanted to see him keep trying to win at home. No matter where he turned, though, people were begging him to give them validation. They demanded satisfaction on what his career was supposed to be about.
LeBron brought so much of this onto himself, so he’s never come across as a particularly sympathetic figure. Certainly not in Cleveland, anyway. Yet for all the satisfaction Cleveland fans should have taken in watching their most famous prodigal son fail once more in the moments that mattered most for his new team, there was also a sense of waste about the whole thing.
LeBron took what he surely thought was the easy way out. It’s probably safe to assume Cleveland fans wouldn’t have as big a problem with that had he been able to convince Wade and Bosh to come to Cleveland and try it the easy way in Ohio, but never the less, in a city that pride’s itself so much on its blue collar work ethic, loyalty, and sense of community, it was too much to swallow.
Which brings us to the present, a fork in the road in this prototypical protagonist vs antagonist Hollywood storyline. Who knows if LeBron will eventually win “not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven” Championships, but for right now, as we head to Game 6 in Miami, Dan Gilbert is quietly watching and hoping that “not one” is won for LeBron this year.
Dan Gilbert doesn’t need to be right. The Cavaliers will still play basketball, the fans will still cheer, and maybe someday that elusive Championship will come to Cleveland even if Gilbert is proven wrong. And for every Cleveland fan who has come to terms with LeBron’s departure, they will find satisfaction just in knowing that the outcome of the next 2 games has zero true impact on the Cavaliers, which is a realization that feels like a victory in itself. After all, living vicariously is never the same thing as a real experience.
But Dan Gilbert surely wants one more win for Dallas. And deep down, so do most (if not all) Cavalier fans. LeBron will get his eventually, and it will probably be before Cleveland gets one, but it’s fun for Cavs fans to be able to say that Dan Gilbert still has a chance to be right. Besides, it would be a shame for Dan Gilbert to have to waste a perfectly good gift basket.
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Photo Credit: (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
21 Comments
I know this is the wrong place for it, but does Dwayne Wade officially lead the league in leaving games with injuries, only to return later in the game?
@Roosevelt – not until Paul Pierce retires. he used to pull the stunt a bunch early in his career and topped it all by having his teammates literally carry him off in the ’08 Finals only to return.
either it’s by virtue of the grind their play puts on their body or they have a little flair for the dramatic. or both.
note: then again, Paul Pierce played around 2 months after being stabbed multiple times(11?) and had a bottle smashed over his head. maybe it’s safer to go with the toll it puts on their bodies.
I don’t know that LeBron and Wade will just ‘fall’ into a title. Yes, they are 2 of the 6 best players in the NBA (with Durant, Kobe, Dwight and, yes, Dirk). However, you never know what the future will hold.
As Wade demonstrated in game5, he has been injury-prone since his last title and the incredible toll that his style of play puts on his body means that his prime-window will likely be shorter than many players. He could be injured for a playoff run or for a crucial game and that could be all that is needed for the Heat to miss out on one year for a championship (or more).
There could be a NBA lockout next season with no championship. There is another season that could be missed in a quest for a championship.
The new CBA could have tighter restrictions on how the Heat can continue to improve their team. I doubt there are provisions to actually ‘break the team up,’ however they might not be able to build their bench either.
They may not be the last superteam. The Magic could determine that they have no chance at resigning Dwight longterm and deal him to the Lakers for Bynum and draft picks. The Celtics or Bulls may reload with a gift-wrapped star as well. The Thunder or Grizzlies may become a true small-market power.
Yes, it is likely that the Heat will have another or multiple more chances at getting their championship. But, as Cleveland fans, we should know better than most that if you lose out on a championship in your grasp there is no guarantee you will get another shot at it (’97 and ’07 Indians come immediately to mind).
I look at this way. Every year the West is loaded with good teams. Plus teams in the East are improving as well. Who is to say Miami will make it every year? I agree with mgbode about winning when your there.
Did anyone else start wondering during this series if maybe LeBron didn’t quit last year, and he just doesn’t know how to perform in extremely high pressure situations, that he just can’t do it? The moment that did it for me was watching him last night, matched up 1 on 1 against Jason freaking Kidd at the 3 point line on the left side… and he dribbled, head faked for space, and the stepped back and bricked a 3? I mean, c’mon. How can LeBron not drive on Kidd? He really just has no idea what he should be doing out there.
@5 – I kind of thought about that myself. I honestly think he’s exhausted. I think the mental and physical drain has reached him and it’s affecting his play. Whether that was the case last year remains to be seen.
@Dwiggles: That’s ridiculous. Every second game, the media and the fans change their minds on Lebron. It was obvious since game five against Detroit that he knows how to “close” if there’s even such a thing. They cut through the Eastern Conference like a hot knife through butter, including that comeback from 11 down with three minutes left against Chicago. In the fourth quarter last night, the ESPN gamcast headline was “Heat regain lead behind Lebron’s four assists in the fourth”. Now that he misses three shots, he suddenly doesn’t know how to “close”?
@7 – I agree. During the Bulls series ESPN was lauding Lebron as the next MJ and screaming from the mountain tops about his closing ability. Wilbon was on PTI telling us all about how the ‘Lebron can’t close’ chatter is rubbish. And now, after they’ve dropped a few games and his 4th quarters have been abysmal, all we hear about is how Lebron can’t close etc. There are gigantic swings of thought around how the guy performs. I almost feel bad for him….almost.
Off topic but I would like to know why the last 2 years when LeBron has struggled in the playoffs rumors come out about an NBA player sleeping with someone close to him. Last year it was Delonte slept with his Mom. This year it’s Rashard Lewis slept with his g/f. Is this going to be a trend every year that LeBron struggles in the playoffs?
Could it be possible that no one is sleeping with anyone and LeBron just can’t handle the pressure when it really counts?
@ #9 – Maybe LeBron is frustrated because nobody is sleeping with anyone.
I am so sad there will not be a season next year…I was looking forward to the Mavericks appreciation night with the Dirk bobblehead.
All I know is, the MeBron Apologists have been working overtime since last night’s fourth quarter disappearance, talking about how he still has two chances to ‘validate’ himself when it’s clear the MVP for the Heat is Wade (and if the Heat win and Wade is the MVP, I can live with it) … but reality is reality: if MeBron did in the last two games what he did in the last two Game Fives this year, they’d be partying down in SoBe.
But that’s the thing, isn’t it? It’s easy to be the best player on the planet by playing in the clutch when your team is up 3-1 — but it’s entirely different when ‘your’ team desperately needs you to be the best player in order to get to 3-1 or stop your team from going on the brink. And, in the last two seasons, the simple fact is there for everyone to see: MeBron has not stepped up, he’s faded into the background.
Not only that, but he hasn’t even TRIED to be in the mix. Magic, Bird, Jordan, Kobe, Wade (and now we can see Derrick Rose and Dirk) may have failed, but they failed by trying and missing before then succeeding. MeBron stands there in a puddle of his own fear and lack of nerve. He’s done it before. We’ve seen it.
And until he stops, the only conclusion that can be drawn is, he’s not one of the Chosen Ones.
This is puzzling… we saw him against Detroit in 2007… we saw the series against the Bulls. There’s something going on here that I just can’t explain. Lebron is clearly gifted and capable, which is why last year was so frustrating for me. To see it happening again with Miami is surreal and thoroughly confusing, especially after he recently sold out his Cavs teammates about fading under pressure… this is just all too strange for me.
How Wade hasn’t just taken over and not passed to Lebron is beyond my understanding. There’s nobody in greater Dallas that can guard him, especially when the refs are calling all the touch fouls.
The Detroit game is becoming the exception. Look at the games with the Olympic team…surrounded by all of that talent he faded in the gold medal game vs Spain as Kobe and Wade led the charge. All of the playoff games since 08 where he is clearly the best player on the floor but is just so passive it makes you scratch your head.
So, when LeBron fails to win a championship this year, can we officially stop being mad that the guy left Cleveland? How many more non-championships would have brought us?
I think mgbode made a great point. There’s a window here for Miami and they can’t take it for granted they’ll be here again. I’m sure the owners will slam the players in the next CBA, potentially with a hard cap and/or reduced cap level. Injuries happen all the time in the NBA, and d-wade/lebron are ripe for them with their style of play. And frankly other teams may just get better. The Bulls for one are probably only a piece or two away. Same for a few western conference teams.
If you think about it – the Heat had it pretty easy in the post-season. Boston and LA finally started showing their age. Chicago looked great but was clearly a year or two away. Orlando hasn’t taken it to the next level. I think the competition will only improve.
A man can dream 🙂
Really well written piece. This is why I enjoy WFNY so much.
Its not inevitable at all that the Heat win a title especially if they don’t win this year. Dwayne Wade will be 30 next season and if there is a lengthy lockout who knows what happens. So if they don’t win it this year or next you are looking at a 31 year old Wade trying to win a title. If the Heat do not win it this year to me its likely they win 1 or 2 titles at most. Not exactly the Six or Seven Lebron predicted. Wade is a great player but he will have an ugly decline phase because he is smallish being only 6-4, not a good outside shooter, has a history of nagging industries, and relies heavily on his unwordly athlectic ability which obviously will start degrade quickly in the next couple of years unless you believe he is immune to the laws of nature.
Dan the man Gilbert feels it. LeBron feels it. Every Clevelander who cares about the NBA feels it. Dan calls it bad karma. Miami got the studly talent, but the complete LeBron was so much more than talent.
He owns the talent, which he had every right to take to South Beach. His heart, his very soul is burrowed deep within the confines of his fans in Northeast Ohio. The new LeBron is shallow and self-serving. He can no longer dig deep and “Bring it” to share with his fans.
We are witnesses to so many miracle moments best personified by Game 5 against Detroit – Wow …! Like Abraham and his betrayal, LeBron will lead his groupies to the gates, but he will never, ever see the “Promised Land.”
Im not sold this series is over. Not by a long shot. Im still very worried that the Heat could take it and LeBron can put out two 40 point/10 board/8 assist games.
That said…
I am relishing his disappearance. If he doesnt win it this year, it will go a very long way in discrediting The Decision. All in for the Cavs for Mavs!
I don’t think Lebron loves the game like Kobe or Magic. To me he plays basketball because he is soooo much more talented then everyone around him. When it gets down to the point where he needs to reach deep and will himself to victory it’s just not there, cuz he doesn’t really live and die for the game like the greats. I remember watching Kobe in a finals press conference after a loss he was angry, Kobe HATES to lose. You don’t see Kobe smiling saying things like ‘we played well enough to win, again… they just made more plays than us’
LeBaldy wants to win but he doesn’t HAVE to win in his mind. His goal is to make as much money as possible and become a successful business man…
Wade is much more of winner and leader than princess james will ever be