Come back with me to June. The Cleveland Cavaliers,
led by LeBron James, erased a three games to one NBA Finals deficit against the
73 win Warriors, and won a dramatic Game 7 in Oakland. It’s one of the greatest
victories in the history of sports. The city of Cleveland captured its first
championship since 1964, the “unbeatable” Warriors were vanquished, and everyone,
even the most ardent LeBron hater, finally shrugged their shoulders and admitted to themselves,
“Yeah, this guy is really really good. We’ll probably never see someone as
spectacular as him in our lifetimes”.
Everyone, that is, except Skip Bayless.
Bayless is the sports version of Milo Yiannopolous,
a troll who says intentionally inflammatory things to get a rise out of people.
He’s a provocateur, a blow hard, a man with no principle.
To be fair, I don’t think Bayless is an idiot. In
fact, he might be the smartest person in sports media, the perfect personality
for the low information fan crowd.
Let’s be honest about this; most fans are idiotic
meatheads. It’s why media members get death threats from losers when they write
negative things about their team, or why the trees at Toomer’s Corner got poisoned,
or why a drunk, passed out LSU fan got teabagged at a McDonalds
after Alabama beat them in the BCS Title Game. This point couldn’t have been
illustrated more clearly than at the Battle of Bristol, the largest gathering
of drunk ignorant rednecks the world has ever seen.
Idiotic fans explain the rise of Bayless. Skip knows
he can get on television, take ridiculous positions, provide little to no evidence
to defend them, and provoke both the fools at home and his co-hosts to get emotionally
involved and either scream back, or in the viewers case, tune in again and
again to see what nutty thing he’ll say next.
Since I know what Skip is, I generally choose not to
tune in. In fact, I don’t think I watched any of First Take for the last two years it was on television, solely
because I thought it was terrible, non-analytical, “THIS DEBATE IS A WAR AND I
JUST BEAT YOU” crappy television. Skip fancies himself a pro wrestler, and it’s
evident when he literally says things like, “You’re scared to come on and sit in that chair and debate me” Yeah Skip, that’s exactly right, people are scared to death
to come on and sit in the comfort of a television studio and listen to you make
stuff up for two hours. The most horrifying thing about that would be the brain
injury suffered listening to you drone on about your Skipisms like, “Chosen One
turned into the Frozen One”, “Clutch Gene”, “Aaron Rodgers sucks”, “I want the entire
Cowboys franchise to give me a golden shower” and “TIM TEBOW”.
Skip has long been known as the most boisterous
LeBron critic, a guy who is literally incapable of giving LBJ praise for
anything. James certainly hasn’t had a perfect career; his 2011 Finals choke
job is still unbelievable to me (he scored 18 points total in the six fourth
quarters during the series, and looked terrified
at times during the series), and “The Decision”, when he chose the Heat by
going on national TV and spurning the entire city of Cleveland, was one of the
most tone deaf and poorly handled things a superstar has ever been involved in.
But his resume is almost unparalleled: 4 League MVPs, 3 Championships, 3 Finals
MVPs, 12 All Star games, 10 All NBA First Team selections, 5 First Team All
Defense selections, 6 straight trips to the Finals, 2 Olympic Gold Medals… I
mean, come on. He’s, by any calculation, at least one of the three best players
of all time.
But that doesn’t stop Skip from dissenting. As
recently as a few weeks ago, on his “new” (it’s basically First Take on FS1. Similar font and graphics, same format, similar-looking
host, one loud mouth, Stephen A. Smith, replaced by another, Shannon Sharpe,
etc.) show, Undisputed, Skip was continuing to perpetuate the idea that Kyrie
Irving, and not LeBron, should’ve been Finals MVP, despite the fact that James
led everyone in the series in points,
rebounds, assists, blocks, and steals. He was as close to a god on the court as
we’ve ever seen.
Irving had a great series, that’s undeniable, but no
one in the history of the game has been asked, on a game in and game out basis,
to carry as much of a load as LeBron. And it was obvious in this series; in the seven games, King
James led the Cavs in scoring 5 times, rebounds 3 times, and assists 6 times,
and averaged 29.7 points, 11.3 rebounds, and 8.9 assists on 49.4% shooting,
compared to Kyrie’s 27.1 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 3.9 assists on 46.8%
shooting. Like there’s no comparison, and no way you’d come to any other
conclusion besides “LeBron is definitely the MVP” unless you were an idiot
right?
And sure, Kyrie hit the championship-winning shot,
but the criteria for MVP is broader than “Hit the most important shot of the
series”. If it wasn’t, then Vinny Johnson, John Paxson, and Steve Kerr would’ve all had more hardware.
“But LeBron doesn’t have a clutch gene!” Skip would
yell. “He stuffs the stat sheet, but they don’t win!” So incredibly lazy by Mr.
Baseless. It’s easy push a false narrative and make stuff up when there’s no
facts involved, right? Here’s the story of LeBron’s playoff exits throughout
his career.
1. 2006.
LeBron’s first appearance in the playoffs. After getting by the Wizards in the
first round, Cleveland loses in the conference semifinals in seven games to the
Pistons, the back-to-back defending champions in the Eastern Conference. LBJ
was the best player in that series, but Detroit had the next best five
(Chauncey Billups, Rip Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, Rasheed Wallace, Ben
Wallace).
2. 2007.
Cleveland, on the back of LeBron, blows through the Eastern Conference,
vanquishing the Pistons in the conference finals. LeBron plays one of the best
games of his life in Game 5 of that series, as he scores the Cavaliers’ last 25
points, and 48 in all, on Detroit’s home floor. The Spurs sweep them in the
Finals, but they only way Cleveland could’ve realistically won that series is
if they had five LeBrons. When Boobie Gibson and Sasha Pavlovic are playing major minutes for you in a
championship round, you know it’s going to be a rough series. Merely getting to
the Finals with that roster was extremely impressive, and I’m not sure how many
other NBA players in the history of the league would’ve been able to drag them
that far.
3. 2008.
Cleveland loses a Game 7 in Boston to the eventual champion Celtics in the
conference semifinals, despite LeBron’s 45 points. Boston had 4 of the 5 best
players in that series (Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett, Rajon Rondo),
and yet, it still went seven.
4. 2009.
Cleveland loses in the conference finals in six games to Orlando, despite
LeBron’s game winner in Game 2 and his series averages of 38.5
points, 8.3 rebounds, and 8 assists on 48.7% shooting. James, of course, took
all the blame; never mind that his best teammates were Mo Williams (who shot
37.1%), Delonte West, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Anderson Varejao, Boobie Gibson, and the cold, decrepit corpse of former U.S.
President William McKinley. Makes sense.
5. 2010.
Cleveland loses to Boston in six games in the conference semifinals. The Celts once again had 4 of the 5 best players in the series, but LeBron did quit in
Game 5 for reasons that still remain unclear. Was he pissed
that his best teammates for the first seven years of his career were Mo
Williams, Larry Hughes, Ilgauskas, Antawn Jamison, and a three levels beyond
washed up Shaq? Or did he go into cruise control once the going got tough
because he already knew he was on his way to Miami after the season? We’ll
never know for sure, but what we can say is that something was off, and his
no-show in Game 5 decimated Cleveland’s chance of winning.
6. 2011.
His first year in Miami. The Heat advance all the way to the Finals, and for
the first time in his career, LeBron is playing for the best team in every
round. Despite this, they lose in 6 games to the Mavericks. I touched on this briefly
before, but this is the worst defeat of the LBJ’s career. He was legitimately
terrible in this series for someone who is the best player in the world: 17.8 points, 7.2
rebounds, and 6.8 assists, and again, only 18 points total in the 6 fourth
quarters.
7. 2012.
On the way to his first championship, in a win-or-go-home Game 6 in the Boston
Garden, LeBron plays perhaps the best game of his career; a 48 point, 16 rebound
assassination of the Celtics (No clutch gene, right?) In the Finals, Miami has
more talent, and takes care of Oklahoma City in five games, giving James his
first championship.
8. 2013.
Miami defeats San Antonio in one of the best NBA Finals ever, 4 games to 3,
thanks in large part to Ray Allen’s miracle in Game 6. But don’t
forget Game 7, where LeBron was absolutely great (37 points, 12 rebounds), or
that he hit the series-clinching shot. I have no way of proving
this, but if you played that series 10 times, I think San Antonio wins it 6 or
7 of those times. They had it all but wrapped up in Game 6 and choked it away. The
teams talent levels were at least a wash.
9. 2014.
Miami makes the Finals again and loses to a better, hungrier, revenge-minded
Spurs team in five games. Dwyane Wade was falling apart, Chris Bosh wasn’t up
for it, and San Antonio passed the ball about as beautifully as humanly
possible during the series.
10. 2015.
LeBron returns to Cleveland and drags the Cavaliers to the Finals and 2 games
to 1 lead against a superior Warriors team. He achieves all this, despite
playing for an already inferior team that’s been decimated by injuries. Kevin
Love was lost for the season in the first round, and Kyrie broke his knee in
Game 1 of the Finals. LBJ, despite a horribly inefficient shooting series (he
shot 39.8%), does everything and averages 35.8 points, 13.3 rebounds, and 8.8
assists on the way to an eventual 4 games to 2 loss.
11. 2016.
As mentioned before, led by LeBron, the Cavaliers defeat the 73 win Warriors
in seven games in the NBA Finals, capturing Cleveland’s first title in over 50
years.
So to recap, LeBron has been to the playoffs eleven times,
and in his final series of each playoff run, he’s had more talent on his team
twice (2011, 2012), less talent eight times (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010,
2014, 2015, 2016), and equal talent once (2013).
Those are the facts, but we can’t let those get in the
way of the narrative right? After all, facts don’t matter, all that’s important
is how you feel! Skip feels like
LeBron is a choker, a sucker, and has vastly underperformed expectations, but
the facts, statistics, and realities of the situation tell a different story;
LeBron has had less help than any other superstar ever, and despite his
superhuman efforts, has been betrayed time and time again by his inferior
teammates on undermanned and ill-equipped teams. But Skip doesn’t care about facts,
he’s really only concerned with stirring the pot, making inflammatory
statements, manipulating numbers, and presenting his spin as the truth.
Bayless is a product of an ever-increasing problem
in our society, which is this; your feelings are more important than the actual facts. Feelings over facts
explains the rise of Black Lives Matter, a hate group that lies and ignores statistics about police shootings of unarmed black persons. I wrote extensively last
week about this, and you can find that here, but two facts completely
discredit their argument:
1. A
study conducted by Harvard University found that there was no racial bias in police shootings,
and in fact, that police were more likely to fire their weapons at whites than blacks without first being attacked.
2. According
to Mac Donald, cops were 18.5 times more likely to be killed by black men than
an unarmed black man was to be killed by a police officer.
But BLM doesn’t care about that, all that matters is
that they feel oppressed, they feel targeted, and even when it appears like a
police shooting was justified, like the one that just happened in Charlotte,
rioting and looting are acceptable responses to the “racism” in society. It makes
a ton of sense to rally against the “racism” of the black officer who shot the
guy, the black police chief, the black attorney general, and the black
president.
Facts should matter, whether it’s something as
trivial as sports, or as important as the debate over race relations in the
United States. But they aren’t allowed to exist in a society where the only
thing that matters is how you feel.
No comments:
Post a Comment