Behind The Box Score

When the waning moments dwindled to a close in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals, LeBron James immediately left the Amway Arena. Upset and confused over why the team with the best record in the NBA had been upset by a trio of men named Pietrus, Lewis and Turkoglu who all answered to one: Howard. Cleveland was favored to run through the East, a conference suffering the loss of Kevin Garnett and everyone expected Cleveland to have a home court advantage similar to Duke in college basketball.

For the Cavaliers, the fans of Cleveland, an economically downtrodden city which on home games, the city reels in a million dollars, this loss wasn’t supposed to happen for Cleveland, a city suffering a championship drought of 45 years. The expectation wasn’t too much for James, but too overwhelming for the cast of teammates who were inconsistent in the Conference Finals and couldn’t come up clutch when needed. Mo Williams struggled mightily throughout the first three games, not even averaging 10 points a game and turning the ball over more than he ever had. Zydrunas Ilgauskus was no match for Dwight Howard, who muscled his way, sometimes even fouling Big Z but they never call a foul on him, to the bucket and was the reason for the Finals clinching win where the former #1 overall pick poured in 45 points and 18 rebounds.

Many gave James flack for his early exit in both the playoffs and the arena, but there was reason behind it. James, who works as hard as anyone in the NBA, has had a very rough offseason to date. First he received harsh criticism for leaving Amway and the bashing got worse when tapes came out that he was dunked on by Xavier’s Jordan Crawford. When Nike refused to release the tapes, most pointed the finger to the King, calling for his head. In reality, the holding of the tapes was a company policy and James wasn’t even dunked on, another attempt by ESPN to tarnish the image of James, who has never done anything bad in his career. After not showing up at the ESPY’s, an overrated event hosted by washed up actors that need something to do, James was picked on by Samuel L Jackson who by the way just purchased another pair of sunglasses. With ESPN favorite Kobe Bryant in the house, the event, hosted at the Staples Center, imagine that, James was put down for his inability to win a title. For the first six years in his NBA career, LeBron has had a large task at hand. Put the entire state of Ohio on his back, carry the 16 win Cavaliers of 2002 into the playoffs and turn the frowns of a depressed city upside down. Coming into his rookie season in 2003, the King as he was proclaimed by ESPN in his senior year of high school, had expectations like no other. With the injury plagued Zydrunas Ilgauskus being the only player from the team that season, LeBron has been the epicenter of a new movement for Mike Brown’s Cavaliers. GM Danny Ferry has been criticized often for his lack of trades, signings,etc but if you look at it, Ferry has done an outstanding job. With LeBron in ’03, the Cavs had no other scoring options, or at least consistent options with Ricky Davis, Darius Miles, Dajaun Wagner and Jeff McInnis being the top scorers. If you recollect, Davis has been a bench player for a number of years, Miles has been in and out of the league, Wagner who suffered a career ending disease in ’04 hasn’t played since and McInnis has been with as many teams as the Royals’ Bruce Chen. Ferry has built a good ball club at least for Cleveland, who had the worst football team in the AFC North last season, and a baseball team who is last in their division and just completed the transition to a minor league team, giving away the reigning Cy Young winner and the only clubhouse leader the Indians have had in recent years. In a city still bringing up the days of Jim Brown and Otto Graham, LeBron will once again try to represent Akron, rise for Richfield, fight for Chiagrin Falls, gamble for Glenville, battle for Berea and owe it all to Ohio for a Cavaliers championship in the upcoming season. With a reloaded roster that boasts the signings of wing players Jamario Moon and Anthony Parker but the biggest acquistion of all is the King’s new witness, four time champion Shaquille O’Neal. Shaq will be there for the King to help him deliver a title and will do more than witness when LeBron is holding court. Expected to body Dwight Howard and get in the head of Kevin Garnett, Shaq who took down the Big Show on WWE the other night, will be another scoring option for a team that has one of the best teams in the Association. With LA losing Trevor Ariza but signing headcase Ron Artest, the task at hand is very tough but LeBron has shown he is up to the challenge. Remember “The Shot?” Nobody in the history of the Cavaliers has ever made a shot so difficult and the images last in the minds of fans everywhere. Even in a series where LeBron averaged over 40 points a game, he still put the team on his back. With three new weapons that last season combined to score 33 points, 22 rebounds and 6 assists a game, anyone in Cleveland’s way better move or be moved. Shaq may be nearing the light at the end of the tunnel, but with every dark cloud there’s a silver lining, he knows. When critics said the Heat made a bad move trading for him from the Lakers, when Kobe showed how selfish he is driving him out of town, Shaq took superstar Dwyane Wade to new heights and gave South Florida something other than drugs and murders to talk about.

When people compare LeBron and Kobe, there really isn’t any comparison. As a whole, LeBron has done more through his first six years than Kobe ever did and just imagine what he will be able to do in the future. Throughout each players entire career, James has averaged more points, rebounds, assists, game winning shots, points in the paint, and the only thing Kobe beats LeBron in is rape. The whole comparison is brought on by ESPN, who in recent months has been criticized for not reporting on Ben Roethlisberger and letting Pete Carroll have his way. It’s about time someone sums up the debate right here, right now. First off, LeBron was expected to do much more than Kobe coming out of high school and has proven to be everything he was hyped up to be. With no pressure, Kobe eased into the most talented team in the NBA with the Lakers and couldn’t win a title until MJ took his six rings and left the Windy City. Kobe had a very talented team and had the presence of a younger, swifter and more athletic Shaq that made up for the flaws in the Black Mamba’s game. Bryant is one of the most selfish players in the league, averaging the most shot attempts a game for the past six years, calling out his teammates and coaches on the air and demanding a trade for the player who without him, Kobe wouldn’t have done anything in his career.

On the other hand, LeBron took a team that had the worst record prior to his rookie season, a team full of players with less than a years worth of college experience and a coach that seemingly didn’t care. Winning 32 games in his rookie season, James helped continue the upward movement while playing hard each game and being the first one in and the first one out of the gym. Through the years of ’05-07, James played on a team that won at least 45 games each season. When Larry Hughes was expected to be his wingman, the signing of the St Louis alum didn’t go as expected. Yearning for the spotlight, Hughes was detrimental for the team and James could have acted like Kobe, crying for a new team and asking for Hughes to be traded. But he didn’t. Patience is a virtue and that’s what the King took to heart, Hughes and a cast of others were finally removed and a new mold was in the process of completion for a team that plays each night in Quicken Loans Arena, THE BEST arena in the NBA that has such a home field advantage, the Cavs only lost two games at home all season.

For LeBron, his game and way of life is more than basketball, it’s for pride. Bryant grew up with a father making good money playing in the NBA and never was faced with the struggles that young men in rough neighborhoods have to face. Growing up in several different homes, James went through his childhood without a father, a mother that gave birth to him at 16 and in the fourth most dangerous city in Ohio. With the only father figure in his life incarcerated for robbery, James could have very easily circumvented into the life of drugs, money and crime but James proved to be better than that. Patience is a virtue, and James waited it out. When he was given his first play hoop at the age of three, James dunk on it at the highest level. Viewing sports as a way out, James saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Similar to the song “Tie My Hands,” James was surrounded by dark clouds but each one of them had a silver lining, dominating every sport he played in up until his freshman year of high school. Recruited by every school in the country for football, James was the second rated player in the state of Ohio behind Maurice Clarett, a disadvantaged young man that has found a new way of living serving a five year sentence in prison. Clarett is another example of a Northeast Ohio depression filled story, as an All-Big Ten freshman RB his freshman year in 2002, leading Ohio State to their first national championship since 1968, Clarett could not end his marriage to the streets and that led to his downfall. In his blog, on wordpress, Clarett has found a new way of being and imagines doing good. James had this vision all along, it wasn’t what he looked at in his life, it was what he saw. Realizing his abilities and putting them to full use, James has led his career exactly to where it is at. So when you put down this young man, yes he is only 24, first go back and realize where he has came from. Leaving the Amway Arena may be disrespectful but this man never cheated on his wife, he never was charged with robbery and he never raped a woman. LeBron has come from a rough background and through basketball had made screensavers all across the country. As the third richest athlete in the world and most popular athlete on the planet, James found a way out and kept his head up through the bad. So when you say the Eastern Conference Finals loss was a heartbreaker for LeBron, realize the strength of this man. On his fifth Christmas in Akron, James’ grandmother dropped dead and was never coming back. With LeBron and his mother, Gloria, living in the house supported by his grandmother, this was the beginning of hardship, nothing compares to that tragedy, not even basketball.

With a little support anything can happen, and with the moves Danny Ferry has made throughout the past year, LeBron has a team that can take down anyone in the NBA. So when you go out and say LeBron will never win a title and accomplish anything other that his stats, he will prove you wrong just like the haters and people that tried to bring him down growing up in Akron. You’re no better than them, and the King will hold court once again, this time on the home floor of Quicken Loans Arena, hoisting something other than the MVP Award, this time the NBA Title.