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February 9, 2016For years, it was only possible to look back on the Cavaliers’ disappointing —sometimes inexplicable— playoff failures of 2009 and 2010 within the context of The Decision. However, LeBron James came back to Cleveland —old wounds healed and old heels wounded— so it might be time to reassess the greatest historical consequence of those Mike Brown era postseason collapses. I am referring, of course, to the inevitable showdown that never materialized: LeBron vs. Kobe. The King and the Mamba, squaring off in the NBA Finals. Basketball was cruelly deprived of a generation-defining confrontation, and no make-nice farewells or All-Star Game hugs will ever set things right.
Kobe Bryant will make his final visit to Cleveland on Wednesday night. I suppose I should clarify that he is merely playing his last game in Quicken Loans Arena as a visiting player. He could certainly “visit” Cleveland again, but I’m also guessing it’s not going to be a high priority for him. Bryant is 37 years old and, despite a recent flurry of high-scoring games, he is having a somewhat brutal swan-song season. His current Player Efficiency Rating (PER) of 14.13 is No. 160 in the league —a notch above Timofey Mozgov and a few spots behind the likes of Jeremy Lin and Michael Carter-Williams. Despite shooting a league-worst 27.7 percent from three-point range, the never trigger-shy Bryant is averaging more three-point attempts per game —7.0— than any other season of his career BY FAR. Sure, he is trying to carry the worst assembled team of his career, and he has no reason to give any f%#@s. But, much like watching Willie Mays stagger around as a New York Met, or Joe Montana clinging to life with the Chiefs, or …Peyton Manning winning the Super Bowl… it’s just sad to see a legend rubbing that last bit of tread off the tires. Of course, Kobe is only shooting a hair worse from long-range than LeBron this year, but that’s neither here nor there.
Kobe’s last great season was 2012-13, when he shot a career-best 50.4 percent from the field with 27 points, 6 rebounds, and 6 assists per game. Let us hope that LeBron is still putting up such numbers in his age 34 season. Even with those gaudy stats, Bryant was far from the explosive player of his youth. The Mamba’s individual “peak” statistical seasons were nestled mostly in between his early Shaq-aided championships and later Pau Gasol-aided titles. Four of Bryant’s top five seasons in both PER and Win Shares were the years between 2005 and 2009. In 2008-09, he played in all 82 games, averaged 27/5/5, and led the Lakers to a title. A year later, at the same age LeBron is now, 31, Bryant put up the same line, 27/5/5, and earned his fifth career championship to cement his status as a legend. There were no signs of “diminishing skills” just yet. Kobe was Kobe, and, across the 13-year overlap with the other transcendent player of the 2000s, there was no better moment for the two to meet.
Somehow, despite every NBA Finals series since 2007 including either a LeBron or a Kobe, fate couldn’t get its two measly ducks in a row
Somehow, despite every NBA Finals series since 2007 including either a LeBron or a Kobe, fate couldn’t get its two measly ducks in a row
But it didn’t happen.
Those last two L.A. Finals appearances I just mentioned, through some cruel joke, came not against LeBron James’ on-the-rise Cavaliers —or even black-hat LeBron’s Miami Heat. Instead, the Lakers were presented with an unworthy Orlando Magic club (beaten 4-1 in 2009), and a rematch with a past-its-prime Boston Celtics Big Three (an entertaining but still unsatisfying 4-3 series in 2010). Somehow, despite every NBA Finals series since 2007 including either a LeBron or a Kobe, fate couldn’t get its two measly ducks in a row.
Kobe Bryant’s last stand as an elite NBA player called for the match-up with the man who’d long been anointed his successor. And LeBron James, for his part, was more than ready for the big stage. He’d had his playoff coming out party in Detroit in ‘06, and his first taste of the Finals in 2007. By the 2008-09 season, he was 24 years old and individually unstoppable.
Much like Bryant, LeBron’s best PER and Win Share seasons actually landed right before his championship seasons in Miami. In 2008-09, he posted a career-high 31.7 PER, averaging 28/8/7 while leading Cleveland to a franchise record 66 wins. The Cavs then promptly swept Detroit and Atlanta to earn a match-up against a Magic team which had upset the favored 62-win Celtics in the conference semi-finals. The Kobe vs. LeBron series never looked more within reach.
WFNY’s own Jacob Rosen went as far as breaking down the matchup between the Cavs and Lakers along with this now disheartening line: “Many experts are already predicting that a Lakers-Cavs NBA Finals is already a foregone conclusion.”
Then, Rashard Lewis and Michael freaking Pietrus went bonkers, each hitting over 47 percent from three-point range in the series. Orlando wiped Cleveland’s team of destiny off the floor in one of the more atrocious insults to good storytelling in modern sports history.
A year later, James actually increased his output, posting an insane 30/7/9 line with a league-best 31.1 PER. He also had a wax museum figure version of Shaquille O’Neal on the club to add a little spice to that unavoidable, “finally gonna happen” battle with Kobe that awaited the Cavs in June.
As if anyone in Cleveland need be reminded, however, something went wrong again —this time in the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals against a beatable KG and company. Across the six game series, Rajon Rondo —not widely regarded for his scoring prowess — averaged 21 points a game to cover up for the shooting struggles of Ray Allen and Paul Pierce. Meanwhile, LeBron —backed by an admittedly uninspiring supporting cast of Fat Shaq, Mo Williams, Antawn Jamison, and Anthony Parker— seemed to lose his composure late in the series. Fans who would spend the next four years claiming James “quit” on the team likely remember the nine turnovers in game six, rather than the 27 points, 10 assists, and 19 rebounds he posted in the same contest. But, no matter how you sliced it, Cleveland had failed to hold up its end of the bargain yet again, and Kobe’s Lakers carried on for an umpteenth meeting with the Celtics.
Dreams of a James-Bryant Basketball Super Bowl weren’t dead, but, were being moved to the intensive care ward. As James gradually found his way through the labyrinth to NBA playoff success in the wake of The Decision, Bryant entered his mid-30s and saw his body start to breakdown. The perfect storm required to re-align the two superstars’ fates simply wasn’t in the forecast. The window had been there, wide open, for two seasons. That’s a potential 14 games we could have had of head-to-head, no-holds-barred, King James vs. Black Mamba playing their obnoxious brands of hero ball with everything on the line.
Some say it’s a shame that Michael Jordan never quite had that true rival in the way Magic had Bird or Wilt had Russell. It’s a greater shame still that LeBron James DID have a player worthy of sharing his spotlight on the grandest stage, but they just never managed to book the same theater on the same night.