D. Wade & The Pips

The NBA free agent parts have settled and Miami had a championship celebration to show off Dwayne Wade's new back-up ensemble.  There's a fantastic article by Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! sports recapping everything that happened.   That's the article that's critical of anyone; here's the soft, spongy, cotton candy laced part: a week ago, Dan Le Batard of Miami Herald wrote an article so glowing and in awe that you thought Wade, James & Bosh were heroes victoriously returning from the battlefield.  I'll parse that in a little bit.

In the meantime, David Haugh is back from vacation and is weighing in on the Bulls.  He wrote his latest article on the premise that..... The Bulls would have been better if they had signed the big three as opposed to the players they ended up with.  Here's a simple analysis of the article, "a-duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh."   I usually put more thought into comments like that, but Haugh didn't really put much thought into this article.  There's also the fact he previously wrote that Chicago would be fine without James.  There's was also the article about James being impressed about the pluck the Bulls showed in the playoffs.  And then the Bulls failed with the signings.  Its really inconsistent... but that's another blog post (stay tuned loyal reader).

But here's the love letter.  And here's some Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.  Thoughts after the song...




LeBron James: Loved, hated, misunderstood
LeBron James' decision to join the Heat has been ripped from coast to coast (except in Miami). Here's why it was both rational and gutsy.


BY DAN LEBATARD
July 11, 2010

Maybe you didn't hear it above the poison and passion. Maybe you couldn't see it amid the fame and flashbulbs. Maybe the ego excess and general overindulgence made clarity impossible no matter how many hundreds of TV hours of droning dissection were devoted to the cause. But both LeBron James and Dwyane Wade said something interesting and identical when trying to explain the decision they made in joining forces with the Miami Heat. They both volunteered, out of nowhere, that the choice they made was not at all emotional.

That is interesting.  Wait, because....

Head over heart, in other words. That's not often where sports reside. James and Wade were being clinical, practical, reasoned. But every hostility that engulfed James after his choice was the opposite of that -- not only soaked in emotion but overwhelmed by it. Hatred. Fury. Envy. And name-calling from coast to coast. One NBA coach referred to James as a ``fraud.'' Cleveland's crazed owner called him a coward traitor in a raging public letter.

There was a lot of emotion involved.  It was an odd decision, after Lebron's marketing, the King James image, the giant banner of him arms spread open, and his path pointed towards being the greatest player ever: now a backup singer to Dwayne Wade in Miami.


These are visceral reflexes, and reflexes are rarely logical. One is not thinking clearly when setting fire to an expensive jersey, but the first word in ``fanatical'' is always ``fan,'' and fanatical is not a logical state of mind. So James went from one of the country's most beloved athletes to one of its most reviled in a single hour of flatulent television, a fall from grace faster than that of Tiger Woods, and for a crime I'm having some difficulty identifying.

Fun Fact: "fan" is short for "fanatical."  But the PR, the way it was handled, embarrassing Cleveland for an hour, having teams come to him and having a one hour special in which he decides not to be the focus anymore-- that's a fall from grace they might teach in future marketing classes.   It'd rival the success of the satellite phone, the Pontiac Aztec and Crystal Pepsi.

You also don't have to be guilty of a crime for people to stop liking you-- the whole "fanatical" part is a big part of sports.  Players play heroes; players play heals.  It's your emotional investment in your team and the sport:  kind of the whole point of cheering.

ANALYZE THE ANGER
Sports are emotional. So too are its fans. It is part of what makes both so fun. But, because of that, what has happened to James outside of South Florida doesn't seem any kind of reasonable. The volume of the anger, and the intensity of it, doesn't fit at all with the actual choice he made. You can be put off by the way he made it, even though no amount of humility and contrition would have soothed the crushed people of Cleveland, but let's examine just his action, if that is even possible given the storm of noise that swirls in the reaction. Actions echo and endure more than words, right?

There was a lot of anger.  But the action of public embarrassment and bad tv and ego trips are actions, right? 


Here, unemotionally, is the choice James made:
He chose to take less money. He chose to sacrifice being the singular star of his team in order to share the stage -- and in a city that belonged to another star, no less. He chose to admit to all that he needed to lean on a friend for help. He chose to go from the easy and forever love of little Cleveland to unholy criticism that would wildfire-spread from the burning jerseys in his hometown to a smoldering that would engulf our entire sports nation. He chose to go from hero to villain. Chose it. Think about that. He chose to go from love to hate. And he chose to subjugate his enormous ego in the name of team. In other words, he put winning above all else -- above money, adoration, even home.

Actually, not that much less money.  There's no state income tax in Florida and, from what I've heard, he ends up only giving up about $.5 million a year.  The number may be wrong, but its still not as a big of a salary cut as Le Batard suggests.

I guess it is a sacrifice to give up being the star-- that's why people are mad.  He actually sacrificed the Lebron brand name (at least temporarily) to go play in Miami.

The leaning on a friend thing-- that equates to him not thinking he could be the centerpiece of the winner.  With weird cognitive dissonance, he had an ego trip show to have the pressure taken off him. 

He put aside being Jordan, Chamberlain, Bryant to be Lamar Odom, Robert Horry or other role players.  He put winning above everything else.  He confused being on a winner with being a winner.  When the great epic tales are written, they are about the hero and not the sidekick.  He might have "sacrificed" and that's whats disappointing as a sports fanatical. 


And that's a bad thing? Doesn't America usually love that kind of rah-rah sacrifice in sports? Don't those ideals usually get transformed into Hoosiers instead of Hatred? Given his standing, the reigning two-time MVP in his prime at 25, it is only a decision that is without precedent in the history of American sports. If people wouldn't laugh you out of the room because he is making $110 million for bouncing a basketball, you could make the argument that what James did, if indeed he was aware of the backlash it would cause, was damn near noble and brave. Pioneers rarely get to be popular while in the middle of the pioneering. Real leadership always risks unpopularity.

The Hoosiers story is one of the underdog-- not the gifted athlete not achieving greatness.  Actually, in the story you're envisioning, the Hoosiers beat Wade, Lebron and the Heat.

And the backlash for calling it noble and brave is because its a stupid idea.  Its not brave to hedge your bets and try to lower the risk of losing. It might be smart if you want a championship and play with your superstar friends, but its definitely not brave or noble.

EGO PLUS TV
That ain't going to feel any kind of good. And we're going to want the giant to apologize or empathize or feel some sort of connection with his worshippers. But, sorry, ego is a big part of what makes the giant the giant, and bloated television fed that insatiable beast for months. And, besides, he isn't sorry. The giant has told you, in words and now in deeds, that all he craves is winning. Maybe, if he's at all aware or compassionate or empathetic, he'll regret the way he presented this decision one day. But he clearly doesn't regret the decision itself.

Well, maybe winning and putting on a public spectacle.  Once again, he values being on a winner than being the reason the team wins.  If he really craved winning, he would've put up more of a fight against the Celtics.


Alright.... this is starting to get too long and my comments are starting to seem repetitive.  And there's a lot of writing about how great the trio is.  Time to skip some paragraphs and go to lighting round mode:

VIEW IN ORLANDO
The Orlando Magic general manager, like a lot of people in the sport, criticized James. Said he thought James was more of a competitor than that. Taking the easy way out. That's how this is being viewed elsewhere.

Well, he did wear #23.  You'd think he'd want to be the best. He was the King, as you were just pointing out. 

RAW REACTION
We forget that this kind of instinct is greedy and not easily controlled, no matter how superhuman its owner. Jordan, patron saint for winning, punched teammate Steve Kerr in the face. Bryant made a big public mess in demanding a trade. They did this emotionally when frustrated.

Jordan's competitiveness and intensity did go overboard, but taken on the court he did win 6 championships.  Bryant, because he demanded the trade, ended up forcing the Lakers' management to get better players around him. His competitiveness and intensity got him 2 more championships after that.


LEBRON VS. KOBE
So, of course, he was called names. Bryant would have had the courage to go it alone, it was argued, even though when Bryant really went it alone he kept losing very fast in the playoffs and begged for a trade and made a public mess trying to get out of his situation to, um, be with better teammates. That was the same Bryant, incidentally, who was only in that position to begin with because he couldn't co-exist with Shaquille O'Neal and preferred to go it alone.

Kobe was still the undisputed leader of the team. No one was arguing that better players aren't needed to win-- you just don't do the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" move and join the players you should be showing you can beat.  Is Lebron better than Wade and Bosh- yes. Its just joining them on Wade's turf isn't the competitiveness fanaticals usually crave.

Thanks for hanging in this long.  I'll be back with a short David Haugh piece soon.  Enjoy.