Category Archives: Michael Jordan

1994 NBA Playoffs, 1995 NBA Playoffs, Chicago Bulls, Indiana Pacers, Indianapolis, Indianapolis 500, Michael Jordan, NBA playoffs, New York Knicks, Pat Riley, Patrick Ewing, Reggie Miller, The Month of May

The Legendary Months of May


Maybe the world changed. Perhaps it was the game itself.
Or maybe it was us.
But whatever the reason, that something, that spark, just isn’t there (yet) in the series between the New York Knicks and the Indiana Pacers.
Perhaps it is because that whatever emotions stir for the fans of these two current versions of the Knicks and Pacers, they can likely never compare to our collective memories the Hicks vs. Knicks battles of the mid-1990s.
Those 1994 and 1995 playoff series were multi-layered, fascinating events. That’s right, events. You just won’t be able to convince anyone in the state of Indiana those were merely just professional basketball games.
During that period of time, there was really something special about the Months of May. 
(You’re darn right I capitalized that!)
There was something in the air, an aura that something special was happening.
Between the anticipation of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing and all that goes on in Indy and at the track, to have the Pacers actually contending in the Eastern Conference against the assumed “Next-In-Line-Now-That-Jordan’s-Gone” champions, the Hicks were downright giddy.
It had all been played out by the pundits before it actually happened, because this was how it had always worked: the New York Knicks would take their rightful place atop the NBA Eastern Conference in 1994. It was just an understanding. They were the next in line.
Just like Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls had followed the Detroit Pistons and Isiah Thomas, who had followed Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics, who had overcome Moses Malone and the Philadelphia 76ers.
You take out the champs, your rival, your nemesis, you move on and assume the crown.
Um, except for one small problem: the Knicks never actually, you know, beat the Bulls with His Airness.
In turn, that became a problem for the Pacers. They saw the Eastern Conference just as wide-open as the rest of the world should have seen it. So for two years, the Pacers never backed down, never gave an inch, punched the Knicks in the mouth, gave Riley’s boys all they could handle. Somehow, the Knicks escaped, but the battle had left them damaged enough, they didn’t win the title.
Then came the rematch in 1995. And it felt like, at least in Indiana, the Knicks were a little too cocky, a little too New York, a little too…entitled. Again.
And yet another epic seven game series followed, punctuated by that skinny punk with his elbows out running his mouth for what felt like the entire month of May in the Garden. Reggie gave us eight unforgettable points in nine incredible seconds. Told Spike his boys were choking.
And we ate it up.
Back in Market Square Arena, sounds of race cars passing played way too loudly during seemingly every defensive possession. Slick Leonard’s “Boom, Baby!” phrase entered national prominence. Towels waved, race flags and Boomer became symbols of entire state for a four-week period that felt like another season shoved in between spring and summer.
In the end, the Pacers took the series before falling to Orlando in the Eastern Conference Finals – much like the Knicks the year before, too drained from the battle to resist the youth and legs of Penny Hardaway, Shaquille O’Neal and the Orlando Magic.
Then Jordan returned and nobody won anything for three more years.
While the Knicks and Pacers met a few more times in the late 1990s, essentially splitting the difference, the names and faces gradually changed. In fact, it happened all over the NBA.
The big man – greats like Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaq, Alonzo Mourning, David Robinson and even the Pacers own Rik Smits – began to disappear. Volume shooters and athletes who could play multiple positions began to take over the game, gone, or at least greatly reduced, were the specialists like Dale and Antonio Davis, Hubert Davis, Charles Oakley, Anthony Mason, Derrick McKey, Sam Mitchell, Byron Scott.
Pure shooters like Reggie? Well, not too many left of them either.
Around Indy, the Month of May has changed a bit too. After the Indy Car split, things got weird for a few years. Oh, make no mistake, the track still hops and it’s lively time in the Circle City – but it’s not quite the same.
Which is all the things that come to mind as this 2013 series between the Knicks and Pacers shifts back to Indy for Game 3 on Saturday night. We like the Pacers chances: a plucky team in 2012 that gave the eventual champion Miami Heat a good scare has become team with far more potential and experience.
And we still don’t like the Knicks around here. Once again, they seem a little cocky for having, you know, not really winning anything but a division title and an insignificant first round series.
So we’ll keep looking for something, a skirmish, a big shot, those race sounds echoing over the Fieldhouse PA – anything to make us feel it.
The Mays of 1994 and 1995 may be long gone, nothing but a fading memory brought back to life by old clips and the oddity that is Reggie Miller calling games in this series.
But it’s still May. It’s still the playoffs. Both teams have a chance, which raises the stakes, which raises the possibility of something happening to add to the lore.
Maybe the game changed. Maybe it was us. It can be different and still good.
Maybe the Month of May will live again.
Boom, baby.
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Allan Watts, American culture, Bill Self, da Vinci, Michael Jordan, motivation, NCAA College Basketball, Seth Davis, Shaka Smart, Thomas Edison, VCU

"Wake Up the Space"


Around Thanksgiving, VCU men’s basketball coach Shaka Smart could feel it.
Energy.
Smart was following his team onto the practice court in the Bahamas prior to the start of the early season Battle 4 Atlantis Tournament. VCU, always the underdog, was preparing to play in tournament filled with ranked and well-regarded teams like Memphis, Duke and Missouri. As in the past, VCU faced a tall order in taking on college basketball giants and super conference staples.
This was the kind of challenge the coach and his players lived for, and they had proven their mettle many times over, as NCAA Tournament darlings in 2011 and 2012, when the Rams advanced much further than expected by analysts. In 2011, as an 11-seed, they became the first team to play in the early “play-in” games to win five games and advance to the Final Four after toppling giants Kansas, Georgetown and Purdue.
So nothing about this stage was new to Smart or VCU. That’s why as the Rams made their way onto the floor in the Caribbean last fall, shouting, chanting and bouncing around, it brought a wry smile to Smart’s face.
“Let’s wake up the space!” he shouted.
As Sports Illustrated basketball guru Seth Davis has said, it’s one of my favorite sayings because of what it implies: make your presence known in the area and space around you with energy, enthusiasm and positivity. Do something unique and different.
Smart has done that, not just in his journey as coach at VCU, but also by bucking every notable trend in sports and turning down the steady flow of cash from the major conference schools who’ve courted him the past several years to stay at the school, which until joining the Atlantic-10 conference this season, played in the Colonial Athletic Association.
In other words, Smart decided to wake up the space of college basketball by staying at VCU. So many coaches have left the smaller programs for the bigger ones and look flat-out miserable in doing so. Don’t get me wrong, there’s great honor and tradition at places like UCLA, Kansas, North Carolina, Duke and Indiana.
But if you think Bill Self, who left Illinois for Kansas about 10 years ago, is happy this morning following last night’s massive debacle against TCU, I can assure you he’s not. He called his team the “worst” Kansas has ever put on a basketball floor. Now, he’s certainly attempting to motivate his team before the stretch run and it is unlikely he actually means it. Nor, I would assume, does Self necessarily regret taking the Kansas job – he’s been highly successful and won the 2008 National Championship.
Yet the point remains: what is happiness? What do we desire? What is our passion? What do we trade off each day in order to do what we think we must instead of what we should?
This does not just apply to men’s college basketball or sports. (And yes, that’s your official warning I’m about to get into the recess of your brain and make you think.)
The entirety of human existence and interaction, our American culture and government, our families – everything. Why do we sell out and sell ourselves short? Why do we conform?
Why is it so odd to us that someone like Smart didn’t take the money, the fame, the pressure and the challenge? Why do we see the Illinois job as a bigger challenge or more prestigious than building VCU into a basketball power from a small conference? Because every assumes or acknowledges it to be so? Who is everyone? Former coaches, analysts and players who couldn’t make it as far as Self?
We spend a lot of time critiquing those who do it better, instead of learning to carve our own niche.
Someone shared with me the other day a video by Allan Watts, a British-born philosopher, writer and speaker, who basically broke down Eastern philosophies for Western society in understandable ways. He theorized and spoke often about this very thing.
We’re in a bad way, as a culture and society. Current and recent events simply serve as reinforcement to this truth. And our best chance of change, hope and shifting our current individual and collective paths are those four words by Shaka Smart.
In all of human accomplishment, we have ignored what we were told could not be done or should not be done and pressed on. Why? The word impossible should not exist because we cannot completely ever prove such a thing. Oh, we have data and research and historical precedent, but the future is not known; we write our individual and collective stories with each passing day.
So the world was flat, eh? We couldn’t possibly escape the clutches of Great Britain’s massive empire? It looked like Hitler could not be defeated before World War II. How could we possibly travel to the moon? You want to build a place in space to dock a vessel, refuel and have someone stay for months at a time? Sure, we’ll call it the International Space Station.
People used to die from the common cold, now we don’t miss a day of work. We’ll always have to go outside to a shed to use the restroom. The only way to cross water is on a boat? Tell that to the Brooklyn Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Panama Canal. What about the radio, the television, the microscope, the cellular phone, the personal computer, the internet, glasses, airplanes, cars, GPS, electricity, the light bulb, the Sistine Chapel, penicillin, vaccines, supplements and 3-D?
And so VCU was told it was impossible to advance – from the CAA, from a “play-in” game, from the 11-seed – to the Final Four. But VCU said they could. There was data to prove this theory and any evidence to the contrary looked foolish. But Smart and his team woke up the space, changed the data, wrote a new chapter in history.
Tell me again why we can’t cure cancer? Why someone won’t break some sports record? Why we can’t travel through time? Why we cannot eliminate world hunger or tackle every issue facing our society and government today?
We cannot because we don’t wake up the space. We don’t break free of our set way of thinking that someone else can do it, but I cannot. The only difference between you and that other person is they didn’t stop believing, didn’t stop chasing their passion and didn’t listen to others who had also stopped dreaming.
This is what my wife and I constantly try to remind our children. Some days I’m certain we fail and use the world can’t or shouldn’t. But we try.
Our oldest son, who’s 11, wants to play college and professional baseball. I do not know whether this will happen or not. Many others have this dream and few make it. Are the odds long, the chances small? Of course they are. Will it take extraordinary dedication, effort, persistence and sacrifice? Most certainly.
But it’s not impossible and we will never tell him so, even if everyone else around thinks it’s a pointless endeavor and unrealistic. You know what? We make our reality, that’s what it’s realistic. We will do our best to make sure our four children grow up believing that nothing is impossible and they can do anything.
Can you imagine a world different than the way it is now?
What if Edison had believed all those who said it was a waste of time to fiddle around with creating light, who told him he was playing God and it was morally wrong to do such a thing? Think of a world where Shakespeare was told to stop writing, da Vinci painting, Mother Theresa giving, Michael Jordan from shooting a basketball.
Throughout time, humans have reached a point where they stopped seeing what was and imagined what could be. Take indoor plumbing: Basically, someone got tired of going outside in the cold, the rain, the wind, to, well…you know.
We should follow our passions, our inspirations. But the vast majority don’t because we’re stuck in believing that we must have money, and having money to survive and pay for the things we need means doing things we don’t like. But do we need all that we have or want, or do they serve as placeholders and soothing agents to what we gave up in the first place?
As Watts said, “you will spend your life completely wasting your time. You’ll be doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living – that is to go on doing things you don’t like doing – which is stupid. Better to have short life, that is full of what you like doing, than a long life spent in a miserable way.”
And as he further elaborates, really, we just perpetuate the cycle, educating our children to live the same kind of way we do – ripping away the ability to dream. We’re making drones, worker bees. And none of us want that. But do we have the want to want it bad enough to be different?
So let’s begin to change it, ourselves, in whatever ways we can.
What do we want to do most? What passions do we have? Where does your energy reside? How do you let the world know you’re here?
Can you feel it?
Let’s wake up the space.
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Charlotte Bobcats, Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan, NBA

Rare Air

Not that this should surprise you, but we live in a very cynical world. We easily turn on people, especially those in the public eye.
Except in the case of one man: Michael Jordan.
Why has no one really – and I mean really, truly – taken Jordan to task for his lack of prowess in owning and guiding the Charlotte Bobcats?
Simple.
It’s Michael Jordan. His Airness. The true G.O.A.T. And attacking “The Man” isn’t fun or easy. But he’s making it easy.
The Charlotte Bobcats, shortened 66-game season or not, are one loss away from becoming the worst team in the history of the NBA. The Bobcats sit at a measly 7-58 – a .108 winning percentage. The Bobcats have lost 22 straight games.
This cannot be qualified as tanking – you have to have tried at some point during the season to actually notice a drop in productivity to qualify as tanking. These guys just plain stink.
They aren’t even close to the vicinity of competitive, with an average margin of loss is 13.9 points per game. The next closest team isn’t even half that number – the Cleveland Cavaliers lose by an average of 6.8 points. They’ve tied a record for most consecutive home losses by at least 20 points with three. The Chicago Bulls beat the Bobcats about a week ago by the ridiculous score of 100-68 – and the Bulls were without reigning MVP Derrick Rose.
If I wanted to write 2,000 words on their level of sucktitude, I could. Easily. But I’d rather question the motives and the heart of their owner. Actually, to be honest, I’d rather not.
This is Michael Jordan. And I’ll always remember Jordan as Air Jordan.
I owned countless posters. I wore out the tape of “Come Fly With Me.” I had the shoes, the shorts, the t-shirts. Like pretty much every American kid, I idolized and adored Jordan from 1990-1998.
And all I want to do is channel my inner Apollo Creed and give him the speech from “Rocky III”: What the hell is the matter with you?
He is Michael Jordan. What is he doing? I could care less about his legacy. As a player, it’s complete and cannot be touched.
I just want to know what he is thinking. Why buy the team? Is he bored of smoking cigars, gambling and playing golf? Apparently not – because he’s still doing these things while owning the Bobcats.
He hired and fired Larry Brown, but hey, who hasn’t, right? But to replace Brown with Paul Silas, who should have been put out to coaching pasture years ago, begs the question: are you trying to lose? I mean, who better to coach a team of young players than a coach who has trouble relating to young players and the current generation. And the only proof I need of that is the fight he had with Tyrus Thomas less than 10 days ago.
We’ve metaphorically killed nearly everyone else during or after their playing careers, but we’re afraid to touch on how inept Jordan is as an owner. And perhaps it’s because of the reverence we treated him with – both as young fans and the media. For so long, he could do no wrong.
He punched teammates in the face – well, he’s just trying to lead and motivate! They should raise their game!
He has a huge gambling problem – well, even the best need to blow off some steam; besides, it’s his money.
He cheated on his wife, perhaps multiple times – no one understands the pressure of being Jordan, so who am I to judge?
Well, we should judge him. And we should have shamed him a little more. Perhaps that would have balanced out the massive ego – the same one that ran amuck in 2008 at his Hall of Fame induction ceremony, where in his speech he came off as selfish, bitter and hostile.

Jordan only pays attention when the media does, or when he feels like it or when it’s raining and he can’t play 36 holes. For all the game has given to Jordan, what has he given back to it? Fantasy camps where he charges thousands of dollars just to get a glimpse of him?
Look at his peers. Magic and Bird are uber-ambassadors for the game. Bird coached and is now a GM. Magic coached, owned and mentors players. Even Isiah has tried; he may have been terrible and put the New York Knicks back a decade, but he did try – he was just bad at his job.
Jordan just doesn’t even seem to be trying. He complains about costs of being an NBA owner and staunchly sided with the owners (somewhat expected, but highly ironic) during labor negotiations last year. It’s tough to take him seriously as an owner who complains about player greed when Jordan made $36 million for the Bulls in 1997-98.
Perhaps that’s his problem – he’ll never think of any player as highly as he thinks of himself. And while this is probably true – it also has a damning effect on his ownership abilities and personnel evaluations.
Some people point to his involvement with the players – like practicing with them. But Jordan doesn’t practice to mentor – he does it for himself. To prove that he’s still got it, to prove to everyone else he’s still got it. He’s still that guy who uses every slight to prove something, except he’s searching for it in ways that won’t lead to good things in this stage of his life.
He drafted Kwame Brown in 2001, then unretired, then rode the 18-year-old’s ass for two years telling him how bad he was. Doug Collins idly sat by and watched. The same Doug Collins who’s done amazing things with the young Philadelphia 76ers in a tough Eastern Conference the past two years. Collins is the same coach, except in Washington, he was the No. 2 guy to Jordan. And he wanted Michael’s approval.
Everyone wants Michael’s approval. Even his friends. I’ve always wondered why Charles Barkley was friends with Jordan, with all the smack talk Jordan peppered in Barkley’s direction. Chuck doesn’t take crap from anyone, except Jordan. Everyone else ends up verbally abused or thrown through a plate-glass window by Chuck. But not Jordan.
Jordan loves all of this. He loves being the ultimate alpha-dog. It’s another ego boost. Which is why it seems like Jordan refuses to surround himself with good basketball minds that might disagree which his choices of roster moves. He doesn’t want to be told he’s wrong.
Jordan recently disputed this notion. He said he has people who tell him no and who challenge him. Funny thing is, you never hear about it. All you see are the results piling up. A horrible team ran by a cheap boss who’s employing a coach who picks fights with his players.
He better be careful. Charlotte had problems holding on to a team once before, with the Hornets. And fans don’t come out in droves for years on end to watch disinterested and terrible basketball teams. If he thinks the money and cash flow are tough now, wait until next season’s ticket sales come in.
I guess I just remain shocked. When he took over as an owner, I imagined he’d have problems with the players by demanding too much from them and expecting the same extraordinary effort he put forth. I figured he’d try to buy and lure some of the best players, especially the ones wearing his brand. And I assumed he’d become one of those guys out in front of the media, demanding better effort, posturing as always. But the thing is, he’s the complete opposite of that: absent, buying cheap players, a quiet and aloof owner.
Are these the new Jordan Rules? A massive, out-of-control ego that passively engages in business affairs?
To give him the benefit of the doubt any longer is to give him too much credit now. If you think this season is an aberration and has been an angle to get Kentucky phenom Anthony Davis, I’d counter with that I’m starting to wonder if he has paid enough attention to know who Anthony Davis is.
Michael Jordan always was groundbreaking.
But this…thisis truly rare air.
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1984, George Orwell, Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali, PGA, Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods

The Doublethink on Tiger Woods

Am I missing something?
Did Tiger Woods senselessly pass away at the tragic age of 35? Did Woods retire to take up his other passions, like professional sweet pickle canning? Was he named in a hacking of all the Citi bank and Sony accounts?
If not, then I cannot figure out why we have collectively tossed him to the side in favor of Rory McIlroy.
Many in the media are doing a little bit of revisionist history right now. This is different than kicking a man when he is down, as was the case when his sex scandal broke 18 months ago. No, this is just poking an injured bear.
With Tiger gone, golf is thirsty for a new topic, something to keep it in the limelight. With Rory McIlroy’s destruction of the field at the U.S. Open 10 days ago, it got one.
By all accounts, McIlroy is a nice young man who signs autographs and smiles. Nearly everyone on the PGA Tour gushes over the kid. They praise his work ethic and his game.
Remind of you of anyone? When Tiger broke into professional golf’s big leagues in 1997 and won the Masters, I vaguely remember hearing similar things about him.
Now everyone is taking their shots, taking Tiger to task for spitting on the course, for cursing on the course, for not signing autographs, for throwing his clubs.
Honestly, that always endeared him to me more than anything else. The fact that the most talented golfer in the world did the exact same stuff I did, that my friends did, made him all that more likeable. And if you can tell me with a straight face you’ve never cursed on the golf course or tried to snap a club over your knee, well, you’re either a liar or a much better person than 99.9 percent of golfers out there.
I am a hacker. And golf is a frustrating game, period. The nod, the tip of the cap, that’s great and all, but it isn’t the reality that most casual golfers face. We fist pump, we do the bull dance from Happy Gilmore, we generally act like fools.
Golf is a 19th century game trying to make a name for itself in the 21st century. It’s expensive, time consuming and difficult to play. And the general public needs to have a reason to watch. Tiger gave us a reason to watch, as does McIlroy currently, like Nicklaus and Palmer before them.
But I do not see a reason to disparage Woods. Or to take a mulligan on how we viewed him until Thanksgiving 2009.
He wasn’t as reviled as everyone now likes to believe. In fact, he was often voted the most popular athlete in any given year. To take what makes him Tiger and use it as evidence of an egocentric athlete gone bad is a bit revisionist.
At one point, we viewed his fist pump as raw elation, not showmanship. We thought he was focused on the course, not some jerk who wouldn’t wave to the gallery or acknowledge their autograph requests.
Really, Tiger was and is no different than any other recent “greats” in their sport. As I’ve said many times, Michael Jordan berated teammates and punched one in the face, yet this was seen as Jordan the ultimate competitor who would not tolerate anything less than his team’s best effort. Jordan had a messy divorce and a gambling problem, it was just a little better hidden from the public eye.
Maybe we really did only love Tiger for his dominance, but isn’t that true of all the greats? We don’t really know any of them. Remember Don Johnson’s character in “Tin Cup”? He’s a jerk out of the public eye, a smarmy smoker who calls women “darlin’” and makes snide remarks about nearly every person he meets. To the cameras though, he’s a gentleman and a scholar.
How do we know McIlroy isn’t like that behind closed doors? The truth is we don’t, just like we didn’t with Jordan or Tiger. Muhammad Ali verbally abused his opponents and we revere him for it. Could Ali even survive today’s media onslaught? Would we even praise Wilt Chamberlain for his play had it been widely known that he carelessly slept with so many women?
The point is, we love all athletes for their dominance and little else. And we love the dominance because they are doing things we can only dream of doing.
Why does an athlete have to be endearing or embraceable? Because it makes us feel better about ourselves? Where is there a requirement that you have to sign autographs? To give something of yourself to the same media who will berate you, shred you and belittle you at the first sign of imperfection?
At some point, our beloved Rory will stumble, either on or off the golf course, and the media will question his passion, his dedication, his true skill or his morals. And we’ll move on to the next big thing.
This isn’t meant to be an endorsement of Woods, either. Yet at the same time, do you really want to poke a guy named Tiger? Something tells me Woods isn’t done yet and we may be just fueling the fire building inside him.
In which case, if Tiger does come back and win more majors and breaks Nicklaus’ all-time record, the media will once again embrace him, do a rewrite on this latest rewrite and pretend they always loved Tiger’s will to win.
George Orwell had it right in his book, 1984. Our media is a dystopian society, coercing and eliciting our reactions. We’re rewriting history constantly, engaging in doublethink, where we tamper with reality and manipulate how we once thought and felt about someone or something. We’re losing our curiosity and our ability to enjoy the natural process of life.
Right now, Big Brother has its bulls-eye on Tiger Woods.
Frankly, I’m excited to see how Woods responds to all this, if McIlroy really is the real deal.
Unlike Winston Smith, I refuse to sell out. The media can’t make me think I always disliked Tiger Woods and that McIlroy is the next Tiger, but with a better attitude and a winning smile. The truth is I loved watching Tiger Woods golf for over a decade and I can’t deny that what people now tell you is bad about him, I thought was fascinating.
And I can tell you that Rory McIlroy has a long way to go before he becomes Tiger Woods.
But for once, can we just all hang back and see how it plays out, instead of trying to compartmentalize the moment? That just might be the most fascinating development of all.
And if it happens, well, just pass me the Victory Gin.
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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. 

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