Heartbreak

Yes, I’m one of those fans. I’m one of those fans who feels the pain emanating from the television, who feels the frustration and letdown of a dream season dig into their heart and mourns the death of what could have been. I watched that happen tonight as the Magic took down the Cavaliers in the NBA Eastern Conference Finals on their way to meeting the Lakers in the Finals. I watched as the man who I thought could do it all, simply found out he couldn’t.

I stared at my television in disbelief, and listened to my phone ring off the hook with all those damn Laker fans in my family calling to rub my face in the fact that Kobe was going to the dance and LeBron wasn’t. How could this have happened? As I have moved from my office chair to my bed, back to my office chair…I have come up with my own thinking of why, and what needs to happen to correct it.

It’s not the team. There is an element of heart and soul missing with the Cavaliers. These players have the talent, but I didn’t see any hunger. I didn’t see that they wanted it more than the other team. What I saw is that they believed that they were going to get it, and they thought that was enough. My Cavs often stood around and watched LeBron go to work…acting like they were witnesses instead of his teammates. That will never win them a championship.

I have followed LeBron’s career since he came out of high school. I watched his high school games on ESPN when it became apparent that he was the Chosen One. I watched the Cavaliers select him #1 in the 2003 draft. I watched him single-handedly win Game 5 against the Detroit Pistons in the 2006-07 Eastern Conference Finals. Watching those games, I saw his hunger. I saw that passion and fire that I didn’t see tonight. Tonight, all I saw was…nothing. All those other things that make up a champion, I didn’t see from him. And if he doesn’t have them as the leader of the team, then how are the other players expected to have them? I will concede that at the end of Game 5 of this series, I looked at him on TV and immediately thought, “He is tired.” And why wouldn’t he be? He has been carrying the load for this team the entire series. Shouldering a team, I’m sure, is exhausting…and that is what I saw on his face after Game 5…exhaustion. But I wanted to believe that he would still deliver, because as a fan, I needed to believe in him and the team. But deep down inside, I knew… 

But there was something else beside being weary that I noticed. That little piece of the puzzle that was missing when I saw him walk away from the court after losing to Orlando tonight without extending a hand of congratulations to the other team is the heart and soul of a champion. After reading story after story about how he was selfish and a crybaby for walking out without talking to the media, I decided that I could care less if he said a word to the media. What I do care about is the fact that he walked away without showing his team the true meaning of leadership. The heart of a champion beats in victory and defeat…even through a crushing blow such as this one, you must learn to face it and be the person that we, as fans, have known you to be.

LeBron is still the best in my eyes. He’s got a little brush of tarnish on him with this walking off the court thing…but I believe that he will recognize his mistake and quickly make amends for it. Once he realizes (which I think will come as he matures) that he cannot buy into the hype of being a phenom, and realizes that if he is going to be a champion that he must act like one in every single way, and realizes that he cannot do it by himself, then he will break through the ceiling. There is a fork in his road right now…he can choose to use this to get better, or he can use it to become bitter and stay int his vortex of being really good but never good enough to touch that Larry O’Brien trophy. I believe it will motivate him to discover the champion we all know him to be.

Michael Jordan was great not only because he won 6 championships, but because he knew who he was. A champion in victory…and in defeat.

Peace and blessings…