LesGrossman wrote:BombsquadSammy wrote:LesGrossman wrote:For me, its not even that. Boxscore numbers are overrated anyway. Its something not measurable. MJ had it in his eyes.
This is jargon; it can't really be addressed because it's esoteric and nebulous. I'm not a 'numbers are everything' guy and I know certainly that intangibles exist. But jargon like 'killer instinct' and 'it's in the eyes' is, regardless its narrative force or the 'feeling' it gives people, pretty insubstantial.
The way to get around being forced to deal with quantifiable factors if you recognize the elusiveness intangibles often show to quantification is to just look at results. But reducing it to jargon is the sports equivalent of mysticism-- emotionally piercing and moving, but ultimately, lacking substance.LesGrossman wrote:He literally willed his team to the victory...
What does this mean? It's another platitude unless you give it some clarity.
To my way of thinking, the best way to define the phrase 'will one's team to victory' is to say that a player plays so well and makes so many good decisions and plays in pivotal moments that the net effect is to negate the rest of team's shortcomings. And MJ certainly did that, probably more than anyone else who's ever played. But if you don't know that James has done plenty of that himself, you haven't been paying attention.LesGrossman wrote:...didnt depend on super talent, great shooters around him in those moments.
MJ is the GOAT, but to say he didn't have plenty of talent on his teams or didn't get help from others' big shots is factually incorrect. Reference Paxson in G6 of the '93 Finals or Kerr in G6 of '98 for two examples of big (arguably series-saving) shots made by other Bulls.
Every championship is the fruit of a team full of players contributing; just because Jordan and James took different routes to end up on great teams (MJ had some of the all-time best), it doesn't mean one had them and the other didn't.LesGrossman wrote:Kobe had it, too. LeBron? He is posing for the cameras. He adds gestures and grimaces as he goes.
Whatever you think of James' demeanor, to say that Kobe didn't have major affectations is also untrue. For the first half of his career, it was a running narrative in the NBA how he emulated MJ's mannerisms, style of speech-- even down to weird little things like how he chewed his gum.
It's no big deal-- that kind of thing is certainly understandable, especially witnessed in the actions of a young man who'd spent his whole life working toward being the next basketball superstar. But if you're going to fixate on James' mannerisms in the context of his trying to intentionally present an image, apply that criticism evenly. Of the three of them, MJ was the only original; Kobe and James may both have had/have a character they were/are trying to play., but if you're going to levy that accusation on LeBron, you can't spare Kobe from the same.LesGrossman wrote:MJ, Kobe knew who they were. They never "wanted their damn respect" or declared themselves "greatest of all time". They werent afraid to compete on the highest level...
Kobe famously declared himself 'the best to ever do it' (that's verbatim) in 2013.
As for being afraid to compete on the highest level, I fail to recall a single time when LeBron declined to play in a championship series because he was afraid. The NBA championship is the highest level of basketball in the world. Therefore, your assertion that he's been afraid to compete on the highest level is incorrect.LesGrossman wrote:Its all so fake...sad somehow. He thinks he isnt enough so he puts on an act. That, to me, is the greatest difference.
You need to be careful here. You do not know this man, and you're assuming to know things you can't know unless you do. However much you dislike him or his zealots, however little regard you have for his talent and accomplishments, you don't have access to his head. You have no idea what it's like to live the life he's lived or how that shapes his motivations and public actions.
Most of us would be very surprised to learn how wrong people we know often are in thinking they know why we do things we do; how much more wrong are you in thinking you can judge a man you'll never know, who's lived a life that only a tiny percentage of people can ever relate to, based solely on things he does when he's playing basketball?LesGrossman wrote:Why? BEcause mentally weak, cant deal with the pressure...
Jesus. The man is a four-time champ, four-time MVP, and four-time Finals MVP. He has objectively had one of the very finest careers in the history of this game, full of historically-singular milestones, and is now regularly in the conversation for the best player in league history. He's one of the most influential people in the entire world-- a global icon, with many successful ventures in many diverse fields, well on his way to becoming a billionaire, all despite being under a public microscope since he was a child.
You don't achieve those things by being mentally weak. Being born tall and strong doesn't impart the character traits that yield this level of success and influence. Mental weakness doesn't produce lives like his. What are your accomplishments? If they pale in comparison to his, does that indicate mental weakness in you?
First of all, thanks for putting so much time into responding to my comment.
No sweat! Thanks likewise to you.
LesGrossman wrote:I struggle to put it in better words, key is that i felt in certain moments that those guys just can "turn it on" (i know, very vague and esotheric) and somehow are more present.
It is vague and esoteric. And I don't mean that as a criticism of what you're saying, because I totally get it. A lot of this stuff has a very 'felt' nature to it; it's tough to articulate. And I know what you mean about it 'feeling' like those guys can 'turn it on', but that notion is little more than a persistent illusion. Why didn't the Lakers three-peat in 2011? Did Kobe not 'turn it on' that year? For that matter, why didn't they ever win another title in his last six seasons? Why didn't they beat the Celtics in the '08 Finals, or even win a single playoff series the three seasons prior? Did he forget to 'turn it on' all those times?
Why didn't the Bulls win in '95? Or the Wizards in '02 and '03? Why did it take Jordan four tries to win a single first-round series, for that matter, and another four tries just to beat Detroit once? Was he just not 'turning it on' all those times?
No. It's because there is no 'switch', as much as we sports fans enjoy talking about one. Every series won-- every game won-- hell, every game played is a battle against the laws of nature and the guy on the other side of the court, and that's why we marvel at the guys who win even one ring-- it's hard as hell. It's the pinnacle of this game.
LesGrossman wrote:I intentionally wrote that it is in those moments (so, not generally) that Kobe, MJ didnt neccessarily need the talent or shooting, because their signature was to go and score themselves no matter what. LeBron's signature move is to create and pass. It ahs been the way he got three titles...not by scoring himself.
Except that he has been that guy, lots of times. His career is loaded with examples of this.
You know, MJ and (especially)Kobe don't get nearly enough credit for being great playmakers/passers, because they were so known for their scoring, but both those guys were excellent creators. In the same wise, LeBron's ability to set up others sometimes overshadows his efficacy as a scorer.
LesGrossman wrote:I wasnt aware of the Kobe quote. I've seen hiim many times refer to MJ as his mentor and idol. Wouldnt have thought he would say something like that. I think he copied MJ's mind (not superficial attributes) to perfection and noone else after wards got as close as he did, but he was not on his level in my book.
It's no big deal to me; I like the confidence and respect his honesty in saying it if that's how he feels.
And I've always felt like it's a little disingenuous to hold what LeBron said against him, because the line "...that one right there made [me] the greatest player of all time" gets taken out of context. Here's the entire quote:
L. James wrote:"That's what I felt. I was super, super ecstatic to win one for Cleveland because of the 52-year (championship) drought. And then after I stopped (celebrating), I was like, that one right there made you the greatest player of all time. Everybody was talking how they were the greatest team ever assembled, and for us to come back the way we came back, I was like, you did something special.
"That was one of the only times in my career I felt like, you did something special. I haven't had much time to sit back and think (about my achievements). But that was a moment."
So he's clearly describing how he felt in that moment, right after the team had just won the title. I've never taken it to mean that he literally, day-to-day, right up to the present moment, regards himself as the greatest of all time. But even if he does-- so what? He's not correct (in my opinion), but why don't these guys have the right to have that kind of confidence in themselves? Do we honestly think Jordan hasn't viewed himself as the GOAT since at least the early 90s, just because he never said it in so many words? Do we really think Shaq never had GOAT thoughts when he was dunking on the universe, or that Wilt didn't have that notion after scoring 100 damn points in a single game? It's that kind of supreme self-confidence that helps drive these guys to do what they do so well.
LesGrossman wrote:As for reading and interpreting the body language and nonverbal communication of LeBron i feel pretty confident about my assessment. I have to do this often and quick and i see certain patterns (without going into detail) that quite obviously show how much concious energy he invests in thinking about and posing for the cameras.
I'll put it like this: if you asked the world's foremost experts in psychology and the human condition to analyze someone they could only observe from a distance, they would, to a man/woman, all say the same thing: that they could give some general speculation based on superficial factors, but that they couldn't do any sort of real analysis without actually counseling that person.
How much less, then, can any of us properly analyze someone we don't know at all? What you and I know of James isn't even a person; it's a persona-- a tiny sliver of the whole person, distilled through a hundred filters.
None of us has any idea what it's like to have millions of eyes on us every second we're alive, and every person deals with that kind of scrutiny differently. Some ham it up; some retreat into themselves; some become cringe factories. Whatever you think you know of LeBron the person, it's like saying you know what it's like to live on Mars because you saw the handful of photos the rover beamed back to us.
LesGrossman wrote:Do you know what he said after he won this title? "I want my damn respect".
Do you remember what Kobe said in the postgame press conference after the Lakers won the '10 title? "I just got one more than Shaq." Why on Earth would he, in the first moments after winning a ring, be concerned about a guy who hadn't won one in four years and hadn't been his teammate in six? Does that mean Kobe was insecure?
No-- he was a human being, encumbered by the continual scrutiny that bombarded him from all directions. What he said was a direct response to all the media and social media 'chatter' he had to put up with all the time. These guys are human beings and in this age of information saturation, they hear what we're all saying about them and they have to carry it just like we all have to carry the perceptions of others, only their burden is exponentially heavier, since the voices they hear number in the millions. Totally understandable for Kobe to say what he did in that moment-- he'd probably been holding onto those words for years.
So here's LeBron, who's heard for 16 years that he couldn't do it in the Western Conference, who's heard every day that he only came to L.A. because he doesn't care about winning anymore, that Laker Nation didn't want him there (remember the defaced murals when he got to town?), who constantly hears people try to qualify his every accomplishment and explain away his every achievement and fixate on his playoff failures from 13 years ago-- and he goes and wins another ring. That was his 'F y'all' moment for the sleepless sea of voices in his ear, just like Kobe had himself a little 'F y'all' moment when he said the bit about Shaq. It doesn't make them insecure or small or petty; they're human beings, and sometimes they like to get in a little shot on their own behalf. You and I would partake in that same indulgence if we were there, and we shouldn't be hard on other human beings for enjoying those moments.
