Category Archives: Dwayne Wade

Chris Bosh, Dallas Mavericks, Dirk Nowitzki, Dwayne Wade, LeBron James, Miami Heat, Michael Jordan, Michael Wilbon, NBA, NBA Finals

In The Garden of Good and Evil

A guest writer and I tackle the sordid story of the 2011 NBA Finals and LeBron James:
 
Thanks, LeBron
By Wes Carmony
America owes LeBron James a thank you card.
I wouldn’t go as far as sending a gift, but a short, punchy exclamation of appreciation at the very least. We all owe him, probably no one more than Dirk Nowitzki.
Through James’ complete lack of self awareness, his preening, his championship predictions and yes, even his brilliant play, James managed to turn the Miami Heat into the greatest wrestling heels of all time. The only thing missing was LeBron distracting Joey Crawford while Dwayne Wade struck Dirk with a metal folding chair.
The man who has managed to become the most polarizing athlete of our generation turned one of the most beloved NBA superstars in the game (Wade) and an unassuming, soft spoken All-Atar (Chris Bosh) into super-villain running mates.
“The James Gang”, were led (though often times from the back) by the most physically gifted basketball player since Wilt Chamberlain. The Heat transformed the 2011 NBA Finals from a mere sporting event into a referendum on good versus evil, team versus individuals, instant gratification versus the sustained effort.
I am not a Mavericks fan; truth be told I don’t particularly care for anyone on their team.
Jason “Jet” Terry annoys me, JJ Berea reminds me of a Y-Leaguer who plays way too hard and fouls all the time. Dirk is soft, Shawn Marion and Jason Kidd are washed up and possibly decomposing. Their coach, Rick Carlisle, is a retread; their owner, Mark Cuban, a loudmouth. The Mavericks are not particularly fun to watch, and I predicted they’d be ousted in the first round of this year’s playoffs.
Yet I watched every minute of every game of these NBA Finals. Down the stretch of every fourth quarter I sat on the edge of my seat, heart pounding, pleading for the lanky German to toss in another twisting, fall away 18-footer. 
Thanks LeBron. Without you these finals would’ve been an afterthought.
As much as I rooted for you to fail before you got to these Finals, I see now how wrong I was. You wanted to be a global icon, a brand, something bigger than the game. Well, you are all of those things. You are perhaps the single biggest villain in the history of team sports. Well done.
As an avid NBA consumer this past decade, I’ve watched Dirk Nowitzki and thought the same thing everyone else thought: he’s soft, shrinks in big moments, probably a good player, but not an all time great. 
Not anymore. 
Some would say winning an NBA title regardless of the opponent would erase all of those stigmas, I call BS. Dirk presided over two of the larger post season collapses I’ve ever witnessed. Being eliminated in the first round by the 8th seeded Warriors a few years back, just days after receiving what should have been Kobe Bryant’s MVP trophy for one, completely derailing in the 2006 Finals against the Heat for another.
I suspect we won’t be hearing about those failures anytime soon. Dirk’s legacy is forever changed, partially through his own brilliance on the court, but even more so by the man he denied a title.
A Mavs victory over the Chicago Bulls wouldn’t have sparked the same rhetoric, the same reverence, or the same cache Dirk now enjoys.
Dirk owes LeBron the biggest thank you of all.
Without LeBron, Dirk is just another aging superstar capturing an elusive ring on the back nine of his career, a nice story to be sure, but one we’ve seen before.
Without LeBron, the story could just as easily have been about the Los Angeles Lakers collapsing in the second round, Derrick Rose’s growth as a player, or even the Mavs winning their first ever championship.
Instead the story is about one man standing against all that is wrong in the (sports) world, hard work and substance overcoming glamour and preening, good triumphing over evil.
Dirk isn’t just an NBA champion, he’s a hero to all of us who wanted the “good guys” to win one. 
Admittedly it sounds a little clichéd, a little fantastic – after all it’s just a sporting event. But my goose bumps and racing heart would argue otherwise.  I watched a player I never particularly cared for hoist the championship trophy last night and felt tears well up in my eyes. I’m guessing I wasn’t the only one. 
In the aftermath of the collapse, James sat at the podium and responded to a question about the effect of all of America rooting against him. He said (in true heel fashion) that essentially we would all have to go back to our little lives, our same problems tomorrow, but that he’d still be LeBron James. And he’s right, but I have to be honest, my little life is a little brighter today because of his failure.
Thanks LeBron, we all owe you one. 
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The Hypocritical Oath
By Brian Moore
Our own hypocrisy has led to this moment – one where LeBron James is evil incarnate, some combination of The Emperor from “Star Wars”, Mr. Potter from “It’s a Wonderful Life” and Gordon Gekko from “Wall Street”.
Oh, sure, James has blood on his hands for his own wrecked image. The prediction of six or seven titles did not help. The preening and mockery of the “Welcome Party” last summer did not make us all warm and fuzzy. And “taking my talents to South Beach” became an epic punch line within days. As did giving money to the Boys and Girls Club of Greenwich, Connecticut.
He’s not innocent in all this. James wanted to be the man with his words and actions.
We are all witnesses to so many different things. Poor shooting. An ego run amok. Possible shrinkage in tight games in the fourth quarter. But also witnesses to our own hypocrisy.
I certainly can’t defend James on the shooting, the non-aggressive play, the shying away in big moments. I cannot defend the preening, the ego, the narcissism. I can’t and I won’t.
But I can’t defend our sick obsession with James, either. We kill James – and I mean shred him – for doing things others have done and continue to do. The only difference is they get a pass.
James got killed for walking off the court a few years ago and not shaking hands with the opponents following the end of a playoff series. Um, didn’t Dirk bolt off the floor with seconds remaining last night? He ran off the floor so fast, I thought he was heading to the restroom due to something he ate. Oh, that’s different because Dirk has been cast as the hero and the hero can’t do something in poor sportsmanship when he just won the title. Give him a pass.
Right this way, Dirk. Sorry LeBron, your hairline is receding at 26. You’ll be blasted for that in a column tomorrow. Plus, I didn’t like your tie.
That is not meant to be a defense for James’ actions – just pointing out the double standard.
These NBA Finals were a referendum on good versus evil? Please – it was a referendum on basketball.
I can poke holes in James’ game – the lack of aggressiveness in Games 4 and 5, the disappearing act in Game 3. But anyone notice Dallas shot something like 98.2 percent from the 3-point line? Anyone notice scrubs like Brian Cardinal and Ian Mahinmi contributing jumpers, charges and threes? JJ Barea playing out of his mind?
This all factors into the equation – or at least it should.
But we choose to only see LeBron James vs. Dirk Nowitzki. Or James vs. the Mavericks. Or James vs. the fourth quarter. Or James vs. Wade. If it’s truly a referendum on team vs. individuals, why are we doing this?
I’ve been saying this repeatedly: James is not in the same category as the greatest players of all-time. He’s a special hybrid of Scottie Pippen and Magic Johnson, perhaps the most talented athlete we’ve ever had in the NBA. He does not have the mental make-up of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant or Larry Bird.
If you move past the emotional, which is difficult for most, just realize what he is: Scottie Pippen upgraded with a dash of Magic. Now, take out the part of the driven, motivated, blood thirsty reputation. He doesn’t have it. He is what he is.
If he was like Jordan, and punched teammates in the face – well, we’d rip him for that, too. At 26, James has his legacy discussed and valued like a piece of stock on Wall Street.
Granted, he doesn’t help himself often, by you know, speaking. But this isn’t just a LeBron problem – it’s a we problem.
The media picked up on the reaction to “The Decision” and spun it the best way possible to reach the crowd. We’re a blood thirsty bunch, real sharks in the water – always looking for an enemy. If we smell something foul, we make it putrid and vomit inducing.
Our collective hatred of the Heat and dislike for James has made us sound like the people shouting for Barabbas. Dirk Nowitzki should thank James. Dirk’s career, however spotty in the past, is now made because he slayed the dragon. But was it really a dragon?
We’re forgetting why James went to Miami. By joining the Heat, he openly admitted he was not good enough to do it on his own. James wanted and needed help. He waved the white flag and joined another star’s team.
We should acknowledge every team needs multiple stars, we just didn’t like the way LeBron did it. That’s what this is all about: we don’t like how LeBron James handled himself, now and in the past. That’s totally fine. We are allowed to dislike how people handle themselves.
James and the Heat are hated – but they’ve sold the most the most jerseys in the NBA this season.
People say, “I can’t root for a team that came together like that – a bunch of superstars playing on the same team!” Weird, we all were pretty big fans of the 1992 U.S. Olympic team, aka, “The Dream Team”. Oh, that’s different though, because we’re the United States and it was to beat all those dirty foreigners, right?
I hear Jordan would have never left the Bulls to play with another superstar. He didn’t need to – the team drafted a top 50 player (Pippen, who who was an MVP candidate and led the Bulls to 55 wins in 1994, during Jordan’s first retirement). Charles Barkley practically burned down the city of Philadelphia trying to escape the 76ers in the early 90s, until he was traded to Phoenix, where a much better team awaited him. Then, in the late 90s, he joined Hakeem Olajuwon, Pippen and Clyde Drexler in Houston. Magic Johnson came to a team with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, then they drafted James Worthy. Bird had McHale and Parrish, as well as Dennis Johnson and Danny Ainge.
When you are desperate to win multiple championships – which is what you have to do now in the post-Jordan era – all bets are off the table. I hope we go after Carmelo Anthony, once the New York Knicks add Chris Paul in a couple years. And we’ve never really had a problem with Boston putting three stars together.
So it has to be about the whole marketing of “The Decision.”
By my friend’s own admission, if the Mavericks would have beaten the Chicago Bulls, it would not have meant as much. Doesn’t that tell us something?
Aren’t we a little too wrapped up in this? We should see ourselves for who we are, too.
Dante Stallworth ran over someone with his car and killed the man a few years back. He served about 30 days in jail and is playing football.
And this is where our outcry, venom and moral outrage lies? With LeBron James and the Miami Heat? You know what will be funny? When time passes and everything comes full circle.
People will stop paying attention and it will die down. Comedians like Jon Stewart will start cracking jokes about how ironic it was we took this whole thing so personally and seriously. “60 Minutes” will do some piece called “The Lonely Life of LeBron James” or he’ll save some cat from a tree and James and the Heat will become sympathetic figures at some point. James will have some good games, remind people of a better version of Scottie Pippen, Wade will led them and the Heat will win a title or three.
And the media will shower LeBron and the Heat with praise, call him unselfish and one of the top 10 players all-time.
We’re all witnesses, all right.
To the biggest hypocrisy I’ve ever seen. 

Got feedback? E-mail bri_moore@hotmail.com to share.

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Andrew Bynum, Dwayne Wade, Indiana Pacers, J.J. Barea, Jermaine O'Neal, Lamar Odom, LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers, Rajon Rondo, Ron Artest

Something About Stones and Glass Houses

As sports fans, the collective lot of us sure have selective memories. How we define dirty play and label people has become mesmerizing.
It’s really a psycho-analysis of deeper issues. Take this past week in the NBA, for example.
Los Angeles Lakers center Andrew Bynum and forward Lamar Odom are facing somewhat deserved backlash following their actions that resulted in ejections during the Lakers Game 4 loss to the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference semifinals.
As the back-to-back defending champions went out with a whimper, Odom and Bynum decided to take their frustrations out physically on their opponents.
First, Odom body blocked Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki and was ejected with a flagrant foul – grade 2. Then, less than a minute later, the 285-pound, 7-foot Bynum delivered a nasty forearm shiver in the chest of Dallas guard J.J. Barea – while Barea was in mid-air. Naturally, Bynum was booted for his actions.
The NBA suspended Bynum for five games at the start of next season and fined him $25,000. Odom will likely receive a similar fate, only reduced in the number of games and fine.
Was it wrong? Yes. Was it dirty? Yes, absolutely.
But there is a growing number of people who are outraged by Bynum and Odom, calling them dirty players and the Lakers a classless franchise.
In fact, here’s a quote from a friend of mine:
“These guys are classless, embarrassing, and horrible examples to all the kids out there playing ball. I now officially HATE the Lakers.”
Really? Do we really want to go down that path?
Because I think we’re entering a dangerous area as fans when we start generalizing and making disingenuous blanket statements about people.
Bynum and Odom’s actions were certainly in poor taste, they were dirty plays and were uncalled for. They deserved to be fined and suspended. But until that moment, neither had shown anything remotely similar in their on-court behavior.
It’s ironic that the immediate media and fan backlash was nearly the exact opposite when compared to the infamous Indiana Pacers-Detroint Pistons brawl in November 2004.
The “Malice at the Palace” began with about 46 seconds remaining in the game, when Pistons center Ben Wallace was fouled from behind by Pacers forward Ron Artest. Wallace took exception and shoved Artest. As you would expect in the NBA, this led to a lot of pushing and shoving from the players on both teams.
Artest went over and laid down on the scorer’s table and put on a radio headset to speak with Pacers radio broadcaster Mark Boyle and a fan threw a cup of Diet Coke at Artest while he was laying on the table. Artest responded by bulldozing his way into the stands and punching the wrong person. Shortly behind him was teammate Stephen Jackson, who went into the stands, fists flying.
More players – from both teams – headed into the stands, with fans running onto the court to escape the frenzy. Artest was confronted by two fans on the court and teammate Jermaine O’Neal took a running start and decked one of them in the jaw. The game was called off, as the scene was complete chaos, with folding chairs and debris being hurled onto the floor. Nine people were injured.
Shall we reassess what we determine as classless and an embarrassment to an organization?
Not yet? Well, then by all means, let’s keep going.
The Pacers-Pistons post-game commentary was certainly interesting. Studio analysts John Saunders and Tim Legler laid the blame on the Pistons fans, with Saunders calling the fans “a bunch of punks.” Rarely at a loss for words, Stephen A. Smith said that some of the fans should be arrested. He made no mention of the players.
We all lose our cool, the difference is how far do we take it? Is either of these situations, Bynum/Odom or the “Malice at the Palace” acceptable? Of course not. But the point is there are varying degrees here and apparently it only took us seven years to forget that.

Within 48 hours, Bynum had called Barrea several times to apologize. He issued a public apology during his exit interview on Tuesday. 

“My actions…don’t represent me, my upbringing, this franchise or any of the Laker fans out there that want to watch us and want us to succeed,” Bynum said. “Furthermore, and more importantly, I want to actually apologize to J.J. Barea for doing that. I’m just glad that he wasn’t seriously injured in the event and all I can say is, I’ve looked at [the replay], it’s terrible and it definitely won’t be happening again.” 

Take that in contrast to this, from Jermaine O’Neal following the Pacers-Pistons brawl in 2004:

“We all knew the league is 80-85 percent black; we all know that,” O’Neal told the Indianapolis Star. “We didn’t talk about the baseball player [Texas Rangers relief pitcher Frank Francisco] just breaking a lady’s nose with a chair because she was talking. They didn’t talk about that for weeks, did they? Every day for six weeks, you see something on TV about it. They didn’t talk about [former St. Louis Blues player Mike Danton] trying to kill his agent. These are people that are not black, and that touched me a little bit because that’s totally unfair for this league to be judged off one incident.”

Race should have little to do with it. 

I said should, because on some level, it might. That brawl in 2004 brought some issues that had been bubbling for years to the surface, most notably, the declining relationships between fans who were (and are) mostly white and a league full of players who were (and are) mostly black. In addition to a league covered by a mostly white media and owners of teams who are white. So I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that there could be some truth to what O’Neal said at the time. 

But race was used by O’Neal in the wrong way – as a distraction from the point at hand. Maybe the fans shouldn’t be throwing cups and maybe the players shouldn’t go charging into the stands looking to lay a Mike Tyson hook on someone. 

Just a thought.

Dirty plays have always been a lightning rod of conversation. We always want to know how mad the person on the receiving end was. We call the dirty play disher a cheap shot artist and embarrassing. But when it goes too far, it makes us uncomfortable, so we just write it all off as one and the same. 

It is not the same.

We call it dirty and classless when it happens on the court – when everything is at a distance. Remember the Miami Heat and New York Knicks brawls? Jeff Van Gundy wrapped around the legs of players? How about Charles Barkley fighting Shaquille O’Neal, or Kermit Washington decking Rudy Tomjanovich? 

If those situations happened post-Palace brawl, we might have reacted differently. Perhaps the outcry would have been much like it has been this week for the Lakers, Bynum and Odom. 

What can we take away from all of this? That we’re more sensitive now to on and off court physicality?
That may explain why nearly every game, if two players get wrapped up or someone goes down, there’s an overreaction – and then a chain reaction. 

Case in point: Boston Celtics guard Rajon Rondo gets hurt (dislocated elbow) after getting tangled up with Dwayne Wade in Game 3 last Saturday night. The fall is ugly, the injury nearly vomit inducing. Rondo comes back later in the game, is limited, but guts it out. When he returns, many members of the Heat, including Wade, check on him to make sure he’s OK. Game continues, Celtics win.

After the game, someone asks Wade, who’s sitting next to LeBron James, about the play and mentions the word “dirty”. James scoffs and mumbles, “That’s retarded.”

Boom – new controversy: LeBron James is insensitive to those with mental disabilities.

Sure enough, James started off his Game 4 post-game press conference issuing an apology. 

Sure enough, that story will grow. Someone will call it classless and embarrassing. 

The cycle will just continue until we’re all oversensitive to every little thing. 

On second thought…too late.

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Dwayne Wade, Eric Spoelstra, LeBron James, Miami Heat, Phil Jackson, Scottie Pippen

The Heat’s Dis-Factor

Discombobulated. Disjointed. Disgusting.
Those are just a few of the words that were thrown around last night by NBA pundits and analysts after the LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh, the Miami Heat’s “Big Three,” lost their opener against the Boston Celtics, 88-80, on Tuesday night.
And anytime you’re “dis-“ anything, it’s not good. In fact, with all the dis-ing of the Heat, I have expected the old “Oregon Trail” game to pop up and alert us of someone succumbing to dysentery on the wagon trail.
Let’s not overreact here. It was one game. The trio played a grand total of three minutes together in preseason. As Heat head coach Eric Spoelstra said, it’s going to take time to work out the kinks.
“In practice, it looked a lot different than this,” Spoelstra said. “There is going to be a process with this. There’s a lot of expectations and a lot of pressure out there, but we have our own timetable, and we knew this wasn’t going to be easy.”
Hold that thought. We’ll come back to it.
James noted that it was like they were trying to be too unselfish, which was a concern last July when “The Decision” was announced – who’s going to defer, who’s the alpha dog, what are their roles?  For one night, there was no alpha dog, just an ugly display of three guys who used to be “The Man” on their respective teams trying to figure out their spots, find their rhythm and when they should attack or defer.
Before we write it off as a massive failure, as some are trying to do, let’s give it time. For example, James did take over the game for a stretch in the third quarter with both Paul Pierce (who was hurt momentarily, as he always is in a nationally televised game) and Wade out. He ended with 31 points. During that time, it was obvious – at least to me – that he was playing the Scottie Pippen role perfectly.
If that came off as an backhanded compliment, well, it was.
Pippen used to do that perfectly. Defer to Jordan, create for Jordan, himself and others, then when Jordan was resting, take over for stretches. That’s James true calling now. Play the point-forward, create, slash, post-up. In fact, he’s better, talent-wise, in that role than Pippen. Essentially, however, that’s what James is going to have to be to make it work in Miami.
People forget how good Pippen was. During the year Jordan was out in 1993-94, Pippen was an MVP candidate that led the Bulls to a 30-5 record at the All-Star break. He averaged 22 points, 9 rebounds, 6 assists and 3 steals per game. He was the All-Star MVP and though everyone remembers him that season for the freak-out during the Eastern Conference semifinals, when Pippen refused to play when Phil Jackson drew up a play for Toni Kukoc for the game winner, Pippen was basically what LeBron James was in Cleveland.
(Side note: Jackson doesn’t get enough blame for that issue. Pippen waited for years to be “The Man” and all that came with it, including plays for game winners in the playoffs draw up for him. Jackson slapped him in the face with the Kukoc play. Did Pippen overreact? Absolutely. Did Kukoc hit the shot, making Pippen look enough more foolish? Of course. But Jackson’s gotten a pass on the way he handled the situation for way too long.)
So we get it. It’s a work in progress. It will take time. As Wade said post-game, “Sorry if everyone thought we were going 82-0. It wasn’t going to happen.” His sarcasm aside, Wade is right.
Then why are people so…annoyed?
Perhaps it’s because we expected more from James. We are all witnesses, right? He’s the Chosen One. The King. And he chose to play with the best instead of beat the best. James is entitled to do what he wants, listen to whomever he wants and play wherever he wants. It’s his life, not ours.
Yet when you take on the role of Chosen One and tell people you’ve spoiled them with your play, you’re going to get backlash. When you host a special called “The Decision” and spurn Cleveland for the beaches and bright lights of Miami, you’re making those people recall all the hurt and pain of losing big games and championship and years of futility. To make matters worse, it was a stone’s throw from your hometown of Akron.
Is it partly our fault? Fine, we’ll take some of the blame for it. We want athletes to act a certain way and do certain things and they don’t, so we get mad and turn on them. We can say that we would have done differently, but maybe that’s just because none of us have the option, so it’s easy to say how professional and classy we would have been.
I can tell you right now, without hesitation, if three or four of my friends and I played in the NBA and had a chance to join the same team, I would do it in a second. I play in a Y-League each winter with five good friends, who all played college ball, and we never had the opportunity to play real games together, due to the high schools or colleges we went to or our ages. It’s small potatoes compared to this, but we’ve won by 30 or more every time we step on the court. It’s really not fair, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun.
Though the talent difference and situation are not relatable, the feeling completely is. When you break it down like that, I’m not only a witness, but probably a hypocrite. We want to see Magic vs. Bird, Jordan vs. Magic, etc. We don’t want James and Wade against Kobe. It just doesn’t seem like a real slugfest, superstar vs. superstar, so therefore we feel cheated. And that makes us not like James very much right now.
That’s silly, I admit. The man can do what he wants. And our selfish reasons for wanting true greatness and the next Jordan are a part of this animosity and venom we have for James.
But there’s another part, the part where James isn’t helping himself. The latest Nike ad, for example. Is it cool? Oh yeah – a minute and a half of pure retaliation to all the haters. Eating a donut, winking and saying, “Hi Chuck” – and obvious nod to Charles Barkley, who called “The Decision” a punk move. It’s basically a sarcastic “What Should I Have Done Differently?” to the masses and for a little while, you kind of feel sorry for what James has gone through.
Then you remember: he brought this on himself. Though the whole process, the recruitment, the comments, “The Decision” and even what could be termed “The Unveiling,” when Wade, James and Bosh all donned Heat uniforms, posed, high-fived Miami fans and did a little press junket in July – James has gulped up and enjoyed nearly everything until “The Backlash.”
James has selfish reasons too. And he’s allowed. Just remember, the more he plays into it and continues to even respond, the longer it will take for people to get over it and just watch this team mesh in a possibly better overall version of Jordan, Pippen and Rodman. It won’t be easy, as Spoelstra said. It shouldn’t be easy, championships are supposed to be hard. And that was our original problem with James taking the easy way out.
We wanted to witness the struggle and the resolve to win a title as an alpha dog. But that’s our problem. 
James’ and his cohorts problem will be to not play this up as something larger or more challenging than it is. They can’t make this seem like some great struggle to gel together, find their roles and win. It may take some time, but it shouldn’t take until February. We’ll deal with this “poor us, we have to learn to play together” attitude, but only for a short time. The Heat really should be good and fun to watch. Watching James become the greatest distributor and creator in a hybrid Pippen/Magic Johnson role should be fun. The joy is in watching that transition.
If we can’t enjoy watching all of that happen with James and the Heat and all we’re waiting for is a train wreck because we want to witness the downfall, well, at that point, there’s another “dis-“ word in mind.
Disinterested.
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