On Sunday night after the Heat lost the NBA Finals in six games to the Dallas Mavericks, LeBron James took to the podium. In his postgame press conference, James admitted he failed in the Finals. Here's the quote. I was standing there.
"Any time you feel like you get to the top of the mountain and you fall off, there's definitely a personal failure. It was a failure in '07 when we lost to the Spurs when I was in Cleveland, it's a failure now for myself losing to the Mavericks. Absolutely."
Now, he starts to veer off into "we failed" which can easily be taken as an abdication of blame. But that last sentence, "it's a failure now for myself losing to the Mavericks" is an admission. You're probably asking "He lost the NBA Finals because he played badly despite having the most talent and all that preseason preening. Of course he failed. So what?" Well, the so-what is that everyone walked away from James' presser thinking that not only did he not think he'd failed, but that he insulted the common man. That quote from above? Not talked about anywhere. Here's the one that was quoted everywhere, which Ken Berger roasted him for, the "money quote" of James' final postgame presser of 2011:
"Absolutely not. Because at the end of the day, all the people that was rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems they had today. I'm going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that.
They can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal, but they have to get back to the real world at some point."
Here's how that read to people. "My life is awesome and you can hate on me all you want but tomorrow I wake up in my mansion as the best basketball player in the world and you still have to hump it to your day job." Then probably some expletives. That's how it came off. On Tuesday at the Heat's final media availability of the year, James tried to explain, or backtrack, depending on your level of hatred for the man, his comments. From ESPN:
"It was interpreted different than what I wanted...Everyone has to move on with their lives and I do too. I wasn't saying I'm superior to anyone else."
How can he possibly say that? He says right in that quote that he's better than everyone else! Just go back and read it!
...
Oh, wait, no he didn't.
I took the original comment as basically saying "If you're going to spend your life taking joy out of other people's failures, that's pretty sad. And it doesn't change the fact that both of us have to get up tomorrow and I can't live my life based on what other people think." That's how I interpreted it. I'll pause and let you comment at the bottom of this post about how I'm a LeBron-lover and how I "sniff LeBron's jock" and the other bazillion things that are said anytime someone doesn't pile on top of James. How could I possibly not think LeBron James is arrogant?
Here's a secret. I do.
I am not Ken Berger, who has spoken with hundreds of NBA players. I've never had, nor will I ever have a one-on-one interview with LeBron James. I don't know how he treats his girlfriend, his kids, his family, his friends. I have what I've read about, what I've seen on television, and the handful of encounters that I've shared with him. And in my estimation, James is the most arrogant player I've ever come across. It's in everything, from how he puts his gear out in a 10-foot radius pregame, to how he treats ball boys, to his postgame comments, to "The Decision" and everything in between. And unlike a lot of people, I don't think you need to be arrogant to be great. There have been humble superstars. Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, the two players James is most often compared to, do not fit in that category, but there have been truly humble legends in this game. James' behavior reflects a childish self-centered outlook on life, the product of being worshipped since you were 13 and having no one to get into your face and tell you not to believe everything everyone tells you about how great you are.
But am I going to destroy James for trying to clarify his comments on Tuesday? No. Because I'm going to take each word and action James makes with the same level of consideration. His past actions and comments play a part in my perception of him, but I'm not going to wholly abandon my capacity for reason, compassion, or respect just because James "asked for it." Because that's not going to do anyone any good. The obsessive hatred America has taken on for James, who has never once been arrested, charged, or faced allegations for a morally reprehensible act by the standards of our society, is something which has grown into its own beast. People that hate him say they blame the media for hoisting him up when if you look around, every site is capitalizing on the money to be made in crushing James. And he deserves to be crushed for his play in the final five games of the Finals, for the celebration in preseason which did not net a championshp, for his attitude which is offensive. But there's a limit. There's a degree, and we've long since past it.
No one's going to talk about this quote from James at Tuesday's presser:
"I'm not satisfied with my performance."
To talk about that would be to say James said what he should say. Yes, it's assumed he should say that and I'm not claiming that he deserves a cookie for doing the right thing (HT: Chris Rock). But the perception is that James never says the right thing, and when he says something which is interpretable, like the superiority comments, it's automatically taken the worst way possible. We've reached a point where people clamor over one another to try and stab him with comments and vitriol. It's sport, regardless of the facts involved. Forget for a moment whether James deserves this specifically. Is anyone really worth this much time and energy in destroying? Is there any reason to pump this much disgust and disdain for someone who at no point has been accused of anything worse than "being a total jerk-face?" There are plenty of jerk-faces in life. Why is this the guy that's worth devoting hours of our lives to annihilating? You think the media feeds it? I'll tell you again, try checking the stats. James and Heat hate is a goldmine right now that keeps on giving. The media is basically the emperor, giving the thumbs down for the public execution due to the chants of the colliseum. James put himself in that position. That doesn't mean we should oblige him every single time.
Maybe James is backtracking on the "superior" comments, maybe in a moment of exhaustion and defeat, he lashed out against "the little people." But at the same time, James is charged with "not caring enough." So which is it? He doesn't care enough to try hard, or he cared so much that he emotionally decided to lash out against people he considers lesser than him? The answer is neither, because LeBron James is not a comic book villain. He's just a guy who is in a PR ditch and the more he tries to dig out, the more he buries himself. For someone who is controlled so much by his handler, its stunning how poor a job they do.
Yet I'm not going to sit here and take the side that James is just trying to cover the unbelievable arrogance he showed in that quote. No matter how much pressure there is to do so from the media and the fans, I'm going to keep considering James moment by moment. Right now he's a great basketball player who failed to win a ring, like so many before him. And I'm going to take his comments which don't incite us to flamethrowing just as much as those that do. Otherwise I'm not doing my job of trying to see the whole story. I'm only seeing what I want to see.
And there's nothing more LeBron-James-like than only seeing what you want to.
