A quick upfront disclaimer here. Every image in this post is an affiliate product, which means if you click on it you’ll be taken to a website where, if you like what you see and buy it, or anything else on that site, I’ll earn money from. Hey, at least I’m telling you about it, and it’s Lebron after all.
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That would be Lebron James, the MVP of the latest NBA Championship Series won by the Miami Heat in 5 games over the Oklahoma City Thunder. I felt so good for him, as I was cheering for Miami to win this series as kind of a “take that” at Cleveland and everyone else who was hating on Lebron for being, well, Lebron.
If you click on that link about you’ll see that I wrote about him last year around this same time, wondering why there’s so much hate for the kid from so many quarters, and even this year there was a lot of that.
It’s with some relief that it seems that a lot of that hate is dissipating now, even from seasoned journalists who are finally owning up to the fact that maybe their beliefs were a bit off about this guy. When all is said and done Lebron has been nothing but a guy who’s tried to please others, tried to do the right thing, was one of the best players in the league but had to learn that, when it comes to crunch time he just has to be the man and get it done.
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He did that very well in both this series and in the last two games of the Boston series where there was pretty much nothing anyone could do to stop him and nothing anyone could do to score on him when he decided to shut them down. Let’s see, who’s that guy people were trying to compare him to last year? Well, he’s still not that guy, and he’s not Kobe Bryant either, but he’s finally on his way to being legitimately seen in that rarefied air.
See, I like to think I know a jerk when I see a jerk. Terrell Owens is a jerk. Mike Tyson was a jerk. Some people say Barry Bonds was a jerk; I think Barry just wanted to be left alone. I tend to believe that how a person acts in regular life is more a story of what they are than how they act when still in “athlete” mode. We all have our own criteria.
Lebron James has never been a jerk on the court, and he’s never been a jerk off the court. As I was saying to someone a couple of days ago, even after he left Cleveland he’s gone back to help with fundraising for one thing or another because he still sees that as home. Does that sound like a jerk?
I’m really glad Miami won since neither the Lakers or the Knicks could get it done. And I have one last thing to say, that being that the players on the Oklahoma team (man, even a few years down the road it seems strange that a professional basketball team is in Oklahoma) were the classiest group of guys I’ve ever seen after losing a championship. I was never so proud of a bunch of young guys stepping up and being real men, unlike some of the players on the Boston Celtics (hate them) team after losing to Miami in the Eastern Conference finals. The cream always comes to the top.
Overall, my favorite player of all time is still Wilt Chamberlain, my favorite player right now is still Kobe, but I’ve got nothing but love for Lebron’s game and his character; I gotcha back ‘Bron! 🙂
