by Lundberg - August 11, 2010 - - Comment Now »
I realize that I have an unhealthy obsession with LeBron James related news (according to TV, twitter and everyone I talk to, I am not alone). As a result, I told myself that I wouldn’t react to LeBron’s tweet tirade. I lied. I’ve let myself down.
In case you haven’t seen said tweet, here it is…”Don’t think for one min that I haven’t been taking mental notes of everyone taking shots at me this summer. And I mean everyone!”
Them’s tweeting words right there. And they got me to thinking (cliched transition, check!), what if everyone is wrong? Because if there’s one thing about me other than my unhealthy obsession with this topic matter, it’s that when everyone starts believing the same thing, I start believing it has to be incorrect in some way.
What if LeBron didn’t leave to join up with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh? What if Wade and Bosh wanted to join up with LeBron? Semantics, yes but what if the Heat were always supposed to be LeBron’s team? What if Wade saw that he was getting older and was tired of being bounced in the first round and convinced James that he would sacrifice his alpha dog status in order to lure LeBron’s talents to South Beach? (The true answer is probably the simple one. That these guys don’t really think about stuff like this and just wanted to play together and win…all the time.)
Either way, LeBron has played some of his best ball when irritated. I specifically remember him torching the Toronto Raptors and blaming Chris Bosh’s girlfriend and her friend saying, “They’re the reason the Raptors lost. They kind of ticked me off.” And now he seems to be channeling the MJ-style of motivation (JA Adande was roundly criticized for raising this point). But he’s right, this is exactly how Jordan riled himself up…see his Hall of Fame induction speech. I’m not comparing the two other than this particular instance but to not see the similarity here is lunacy.
Jeff Van Gundy believes the Miami Heat (N.W.O.) will break the Chicago Bulls 72-win record. I tend to agree with him. LeBron’s team won 66 and 61 games in back-to-back years and he just replaced Mo Williams and J.J. Hickson with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. Plus, according to him, he’s got a ton of extra motivation due to his mental list. And if he’s paying attention to the same stories I’ve been paying attention to, then his mental list is in the Hall of Fame (Jordan, Magic, Bird, Barkley=Hall of Fame mental list).
Tags: basketball, heat, lebron, nba, Sports
