I like everyone else was excited by the possibility of watching the Los Angeles Lakers and the Cleveland Cavaliers play in the NBA Finals. I relished the thought of watching LeBron James and Kobe Bryant do battle, I wanted to believe that this would be the passing of the torch from one MVP to another, and I wanted to see two players who were unstoppable defile the other team at will as the competitive stakes were raised. That reality is no more, the series will remain a hypothetical one, but I have just glimpsed into the future and seen something far more interesting, the transformation of the gentle giant into the beast whose hunger will devour all in his path.
No, I am not talking about Dwight Howard and the Orlando Magic and how they actually have a shot to beat the Lakers thanks to the soft interior defense that was their undoing last season in the NBA Finals against the Boston Celtics. I am talking about the player who stormed off the court after scoring 44 points, grabbing 12 rebounds, and handing out seven assists. I am talking about LeBron James.
James left the court and the locker room in silence. Not dumbfounded silence, but a hushed demeanor teaming anger. I have never seen him angry. Even when he plead with the media for the Cavs to give a supporting cast following the 2007 NBA Finals in which they were unceremoniously swept by the San Antonio Spurs he did not seem inconsolable.
Then he was a 6 foot 8, 250 lbs. 22-year-old disappointed but not distraught. Now he is different. I do not care what he said in the press conference yesterday. He was pacing from one leg to the other, his face was restrained before he entered back into nice NBA ambassador mode, and then it hit me. He has had his first taste of excruciating bitterness.
A bitter person in any arena, on the hardwood or in life, is not a person to be trifled with. This series may have been the final piece to the development that makes LeBron the best player in the history of the league and the sport. He already has the drive, he has always been willing to pass, he developed his jumper, he worked on his three point shot, he emerged as a great defender, and now he has acquired that taste of failing to meet expectations.
Few truly great players have been jovial. Magic Johnson had a marketable smile that went from ear to ear and helped make everybody feel comfortable loving the game when half the league was railing the white lady, but you saw his fierceness in those battles with the Celtics and those brawls with the Detroit Pistons.
Players like Michael Jordan and Larry Bird are well known for their competitive nature and their ability to hold onto a grudge and use that state of anger to punish opponents at will with voracious efficiency.
Now LeBron has been bested by his good friend Dwight Howard and next season I expect to see a James who does not simply dominate haphazardly because he is an athletic freak in a league of athletic freaks, but because he openly will want to assert his authority and solidify his claim as the best basketball player in the league and a champion.
The anger, the admittance that he did not want to congratulate Howard after loosing a great fight, that signaled the end of the rest of the young stars hope to win any titles over the next decade. Dwight better get his now, otherwise he will join a whole new generation of Hall of Fame players without an NBA championship.
I know that ABC and David Stern wish that LeBron and the Cavs had succeeded for the sake of television ratings for the NBA Finals this year, but what they are getting in return is a league that will once again have the rest of the country watching as everyone tries to dethrone the King.
