LeBron Problems

In April, I’ll be travelling to New York for a weekend. I checked the schedule the other day, the Heat will be visitng the Knicks on the Sunday I’m in town. I was so excited that I almost bought a pair of overpriced tickets on StubHub.

Then I remembered that I still needed to get my vacation approved at work. And after that, book my flight and find a hotel by Madison Square Garden.

For a second there, I almost lost track of prioritizing my list of to dos.

It’s kind of like the best player in the world, declaring his desire to return to his former team, two years into his tenure with his current team with none of the eight championships that he promised.

You can’t stop LeBron James. You can only hope to contain him.

This might be something that opponents are saying to themselves this year, as he’s put up numbers for the Miami Heat worthy of MVP discussion.

But it’s something that his teammates, coach, general manager and the entire Miami organization must be saying to themselves about Lebron off the court, especially after he suggested a return to Cleveland last week.

What seems like a harmless attempt at reconciliation with his former team may actually be the machinations of LeBron’s long-term plan of returning to Cleveland via free agency, depending on who you believe.

And so the seeds for The Decision II have been planted, years in advance of LeBron’s next flirtation with free agency, and not even two full years into LeBron’s tenure in Miami, who have been all promise and no results.

Timing, as always, is not LeBron’s strong suit.

What makes this even more disappointing is that Miami has actually flown under the radar this year, quietly establishing themselves as front runners for the championship without the scrutiny of last season.

Their opening day destruction of the Mavericks helped reset expectations for the team. Back to a team with no limits, just as it seemed we may have to put a ceiling on them after their playoff collapse.

The “not one, not two, not three” statement continues to teeter between a running joke and a goal that seems attainable with each convincing win.

The LeBron from Cleveland that was appointment viewing every night he stepped onto the court had returned.

And then, another poor judgment from the best player in the league took away all of those positives.

The whole episode makes me question how we should categorize LeBron, the entire package, with the all-time greats. So ego-driven and aloof off the court, yet so selfless on the court that it actually becomes a flaw because of how talented he is.

These two diverging paths make him a pitiful villain, and clouds everything that’s so great about him as a basketball player. As a fan, it’s disappointing. We only get to experience a few generation of players in our lifetime. I am part of the LeBron era, I just wish the best player in my favorite sport would hold himself to a higher standard.

Of course, this is the same man who said after losing to the Mavericks in the Finals: “All the people that were 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. So 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 got to get back to the real world at some point.”

Will LeBron deliver on what he’s promised and get to the root of his true priorities as a basketball player? And even then, will he ever find the love and public embrace that seems to mean as much to him as his on court accomplishments?

I think I’ll keep my problems instead.