The Cleveland Browns have the second-best weight room in the NFL
August 5, 2015For the Love of Lonnie
August 5, 2015Michael Johnson was my first favorite Olympian. Atlanta, 1996. He won gold in the 400 meters and set an Olympic record. Three days later he won gold in the 200 meters and set a world record — breaking his own in the process. He didn’t run so much as glide; his feet barely touched the ground. His head stayed perfectly still as each limb furiously pumped away. He had style. He dominated the ’96 Olympics like Secretariat did the ’73 Triple Crown — and he did it in a gold earring, a gold chain, and gold shoes.
It was through Johnson and Atlanta that I learned to love the Olympics. The only thing better than discovering new heroes was seeing the ones I already had star on the world’s biggest stage.
When I was a bit younger and a bit more naive, I one thousand percent loathed when American professional athletes didn’t represent their country at the Olympics. Maybe it was because of Michael Johnson. Maybe it was because I really liked Cool Runnings when I was little. Maybe it was because the Dream Team was the coolest team ever, except for maybe the Miracle on Ice team. Whatever the case, I wanted to see the guys I watched on TV every year playing together in the red, white, and blue every four.
Football players have always been exempt, as American football has yet to be embraced worldwide — get psyched for Jags-Bills, London! Baseball players have been too; there’s a chance that I’ve seen an inning of Olympic baseball in my life, but there is not a chance that I remember it. Soccer is defined by the World Cup rather than the Olympics, and while I enjoy international hockey, I don’t have a ready knowledge of the game beyond a few stars. So all I’m really talking about here is basketball players, and as a Clevelander a year away from 2016, I’m talking about LeBron James.1
LeBron will attend Team USA minicamp in Las Vegas starting August 10, but he is expected leave shortly thereafter. The annual LeBron James Family Foundation Reunion event is on August 13, and that is thought to be the reason for his brief stay. There is next to no shot that he plays in Brazil. Team USA boss and former Phoenix Suns owner Jerry Colangelo speculated that LeBron would want to take part, and just days later wondered aloud if LeBron was committed to doing so.
We’ve seen enough cautionary tales to know the risk and reward of playing in international ball
We’ve seen enough cautionary tales to know the risk and reward of playing in international ball
For what it’s worth, it was strongly suggested in 2013 that LeBron was done with Team USA.
Ugh. James is The Best Player in the World © and he’s begging off the games of the thirty-first Olympiad. Thousands of athletes from hundreds of countries participating in dozens of events to see who is the fastest, strongest, most skillful, and best on Earth, and the very best American in one of those events won’t be representing the United States. It stinks. Would Michael Phelps sit out the Olympics? Would Dan and Dave? Would Bruce Baumgartner?
I jest. The worst part of LeBron James not playing for Team USA in Rio is not that the world will be deprived of watching him. It’s that it makes sense.
It makes sense. Of course it does — it’s almost too self-evident to warrant mentioning. What does LeBron have to gain? A little PR bump? We’ve seen enough cautionary tales to know the risk and reward of playing in international ball. Paul George quite literally broke his lower leg in half playing in an intrasquad game a year ago — be advised that the video is not for the faint of heart. Dante Exum of the Utah Jazz reportedly tore his ACL playing for Australia against Slovenia just this Tuesday. Plus, you never know where the world’s next Matthew Dellavedova is going to come from. Who’s to say that some hedgehog of a shooting guard from Angola or Montenegro wouldn’t dive into James’ knee?
George’s and Exum’s were freak injuries, not the sort you can plan around, and that’s the point. Such an accident could happen just as easily against the Nuggets in November, but that’s company time. That’s money making time. As Dr. Evil’s Number 2 says in Austin Powers, there is no world anymore — only corporations. LeBron is a corporation unto himself, and it behooves him to save himself for the business of the NBA season. The Olympics, it pains me to say, are a pomp-and-circumstance-laden intramural contest in comparison.
There’s just no compelling reason for him to play. He could try to buff out the memory of the embarrassing 2004 bronze medal team — no one could stand him then, reportedly — but one could argue that he’s already done that. He won gold with so-called Redeem Team in Beijing in 2008 and was a leader in London with the 2012 squad. He’s notched the only triple-double in the history of Team USA and is its all-time scoring leader. He was part of modern American basketball’s international nadir2, and then its redemption.
He does have a knack for the dramatic, doesn’t he?
This is all to say that I’m disappointed that we are unlikely to see LeBron James playing in the 2016 Olympics. I’m not disappointed in LeBron — I get it. I’m just disappointed. We always want to see the very best, and that’s never more true than during the world’s greatest athletic showcase. As much as I want him to go to Rio and wear USA across his chest and win the gold and solidify his place as a great basketball player and a great American athlete, I understand why he won’t. And frankly, it feels a little icky understanding that, especially compared to what I once thought the Olympics to be.
And yet, there’s hope. While LeBron won’t be there, perhaps a new Michael Johnson will.
- Apologies to athletes in all the other sports. You make us all very proud. [↩]
- Though not wholly responsible for it — just four players on that roster were older than 24, and two of those were Stephon Marbury and Allen Iverson. [↩]
4 Comments
Well done Will. I hate to admit, but I also tear up at the end of Major League.
I’ll be selfish…Ring for Cleveland first, second, and third.
Team USA can win without him.
Time for Anthony Davis to lead the new guys.
If the Cavs win, then the terrorists lose.