History Remembers

On June 20, 2006, the Heat and Mavericks played Game 6 of the NBA Finals. The Heat led 3 games to 2, and with 10 seconds left in the game, led 95-92. Dwyane Wade was fouled and went to the line for two free throws. Making either of the pair would have given Miami a four-point lead and secured the championship. Wade missed them both. Fortunately for him, Jason Terry missed a three-pointer that could have tied the game. Still, history remembers Dwyane Wade being clutch throughout the 2006 Finals. They do not remember his Game 6 free throws. History will not remember his Game 4 free throws. Because of LeBron James, no one will lump Dwyane Wade in with Nick Anderson and Derrick Rose—and, boy, has history forgotten all about Chris Douglas-Roberts; Rose actually made one his foul shots.

History will remember Game 4 as the defining moment of LeBron James' career. Unless he has a legendary Michael Jordan in Game 6 of the 1998 Finals, there is no way of getting around that now. Where LeBron now stands is a place where it will no longer be enough to just have a monster game. He needs to have an all-time great game AND hit the winning basket in Game 5 or Game 7 (doing it in Game 6 will only make the doubters say that he is just a front-runner and that he would never have been in position for his Game 6 heroics without Wade’s brilliant leadership and clutch play). Otherwise, Game 4 will live forever.

History has a way of remembering things in a way in which they did not actually occur. History remembers Raghib Ismail as the 1990 Heisman winner. History remembers Mike Jones' tackle of Kevin Dyson as a play that kept the Titans from winning the Super Bowl. History remembers Hakeem Olajuwon dominating Shaquille O'Neal in the 1995 Finals. History remembers Kobe as a monster throughout the 2001 playoffs. History remembers Ronald Reagan bringing the hostages home. History remembers the stimulus & bailout as Obama's ideas. History remembers the Tea Party forming after Obama's started implementing his policies. None of these events happened exactly that way. Ty Detmer undeservedly won that Heisman Trophy. A Titan touchdown and extra point would only have tied Super Bowl XXXIV. Olajuwon and O’Neal played very evenly in 1995. Kobe dominated the Spurs, who were missing the player they had acquired specifically to guard him, but was up and down during the other series. Jimmy Carter had negotiated the hostages’ release, but George H. W. Bush held it up to help Reagan win the election. The stimulus & bailout plans began under George W. Bush. The Tea Party protests, while not fully formalized, began before Obama took office.

History has already been unkind to LeBron James.

• Before The Decision, people said he and Wade wouldn’t play together because their egos wouldn’t allow them to share the spotlight—history says he went to Miami so he could be a “Robin.”
  
• When he came out of high school, everyone said his skillset was the closest we’ve seen to Magic Johnson—history says he doesn’t have Michael Jordan’s killer instinct.
  
• In Game 2, pundits proclaimed that Miami lost because LeBron started playing “hero ball”—history says that he is a lesser player for deferring to the hot hand during the Game 3 victory.

I expect history will remember Greg Doyel's question as coming post-Game 4. It seems more timely, more poetic that way. Last night, LeBron James was the portrait of a superstar athlete at his absolute big-stage worst—at least, that is the perception. The Game 4 box score and the image of LeBron watching Mike Miller’s errant last-second shot will live on. In that fashion, history will remember Game 4 as the defining moment of LeBron James' career.

I wonder…if Wilt Chamberlain was still alive, would he reach out to LeBron today? He knows what it’s like. Chamberlain played on 2 NBA champions, one which had the best record in league history until 1996 and another which, through my childhood, was considered the best single season team ever. Still, he’s viewed as a loser and underachiever. Bill Simmons wrote a 700+ book that seems like nothing more than a literary way of taking potshots at Wilt and Kareem.

I hope LeBron has realized that he will never win in the eyes of the general public. If/When he comes to that realization, life should get a lot easier for him.