As you may or may not have noticed, this blog has been a little dormant the last 2.5 months. That would probably be due to a little thing I would like to call school. Maybe you've heard of it. It has consumed much of my time as has life in general. In truth I have also been stagnant in terms of coming up with new and creative ideas to post on here. I wanted to do more than just ranking things and analyzing my home town teams. Which I kind of felt like this had become. So I am going to give this a go again and hopefully I can sustain it better this time. I want to take a more theoretical approach to these articles and throw out some thoughts to ponder. Oh, I'll probably still try to throw in some rankings and home town flavor, but I wanted to take a different approach that won't always be tied to sports. I want to craft stories into something meaningful, not just strict analysis of certain things. I want to try and take an outside the box approach to this and see where that takes me. I have never been one who'd you call an outside the box thinker, but I am feeling kind of frisky so we'll see where it takes me.
Here is my thought for the day. This one does revolve around sports but it can also be applied to certain aspects outside of sports I think. As with all things in the sports world this thought revolves around LeBron James. As you have heard, the Miami Heat lost the NBA title last night to the Dallas Mavericks. The Heat were probably the most hated in team sports in nearly 20 years. There were plenty of reasons for this that I won't get into at this time but I wanted to attack the core reason why I and I think many other basketball fans were disappointed in what LeBron has revealed himself to be in the last few years. By joining Wade in Miami, he joined forces with one of his top rivals. Lets stop and think about this. The most talented player to play this game in recent memory said he could not do it by himself and chose instead to team up with a contemporary of his. Someone who does not have near the ability that he does but has that inner drive that makes him great. What hurt the most as a basketball fan is that we deep down knew this was Wade's team and that LeBron would have to be the Robin to Wade's Batman. We knew it. We just couldn't believe we were seeing this. Whatever "this" means. The player LeBron is often compared to Michael Jordan would never do this. Maybe LeBron has been miscast his whole career as a guy whose supposed to put up sick scoring numbers and be a Jordan-type player. When in reality he is more like some combination of Scottie Pippen-Magic Johnson. Which isn't the worst thing to be. Being a ball hawk defender who guards the other teams best player regardless of position, a guy who can average a triple double every night if he wanted to is not a bad alternative to have, but I don't know if LeBron has the "smarts" to make this transformation a permanent one. He really should've developed a low post game by now instead of working on a jump shot. Which at best is unreliable. He would be an unstoppable force if he committed to the low post more than once or twice a game. Where he can use his 270 lb. frame to dominate anyone who tries to guard him. There is no reason that Jason Kidd should be able to shut him down. I think it was pretty telling that Dallas consistently put their best perimeter defender on Wade. They know what we've all come to realize. Wade is the best player on that team and he shouldn't be, but he is.
A basketball fan has got to feel cheated that LeBron took the easy way out and joined a team with Wade when he should have tried to go somewhere else (Knicks? Bulls?) to try to take on Wade and the Heat with a new supporting cast. He is wasting his basketball potential and we feel cheated. He could be so much better and that's what bothers people like me. I, as a sports fan, want to see every player reach their full potential, whatever that is. I know LeBron has the ability and that is what is frustrating. You know that guys like Kobe, Wade, Jordan, Magic, Bird pretty much maximized what they could do on the court. I don't know that we will get there with LeBron. I don't know that we should expect it either. He might not have it in him. Look, he may end up winning a title in his future, but who will be the alpha dog on those teams? If its him I don't think that team can win a title with his current, but undeveloped skill test. I want to see him reach his full potential because having elite athletes and players at the top of their game makes this game better.
I was talking with a friend the other night and we came up what it means to be a fan of a particular sport. We both agreed that if there is a team that you support than that is your first priority. You want to see them do well, bottom line there. Second priority as a sport fan and first if you do not have a team you support is that you want to see players reach their max potential. It makes the game better that way. Look I want to see Albert Pujols put up his typically historic numbers, he has so far established himself as one of the best hitters of all time, this cannot be doubted. Go look them up.
I want to see special things. That's a primary reason for turning on the TV and watching sports. You want to be entertained but I think you also want to see something special. It does not come around often and when it does you try to cherish it because you know its a rare occurrence. I said this concept of wanting to realize full potential can be applied to sports but also to things outside of sports. I want everyone, including myself, to realize this because it just makes everything in this world better. So think about that and let me know what you think.
MB
