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God damnit, Lakers. For two years in a row you’re getting swept by the Denver Nuggets. Fuck me. Welcome back to BASKETBALLWEATHER.
The end of Lebron is coming. I saw it in his body language in the first game of the Nuggets series. The greatest player to ever do it facing an unbeatable foe with the grace of someone who knows that in this historic game, in the build of it, there is an end for everyone, and his time has come.
It’s okay.
Like the end of The Golden Girls, it’s natural for a basketball player, even one as mighty as Lebron James, to face the end of the journey. We can celebrate it.
But that doesn’t make it any less gut wrenching.
The first place my brain will always go when I think of Lebron is to that chase down block against Andre Iguodala in the final minutes of the 2016 NBA Finals.
In a career of achievements, to win against the mighty Golden State Warriors, in that era, against that team, in his second stint on the Cleveland Cavaliers, made a west coast basketball fan like me scream in ecstasy.
What ferociousness. What energy. What need to win.
Sometimes we all need it.
Sometimes we need it so bad that we will sacrifice everything for it: Friends. Time with our families. Comfort.
All of the above to taste the glory like Lebron did that afternoon when he ran up on that backboard and stuffed the shit out of Andre Iguodala’s sure-thing slam.
Tears poured out of my eyes when the Cavaliers won that championship in 2016; not because one half of my family emigrated to this country through Cleveland, though that’s pretty cool, but because what I had just watched allowed me to taste the kind of greatness I had always dreamed about ever since I had written my first poems in high school, and hid them in a safe away from intrusive eyes.
What can you say about Lebron James, to Lebron James, other than thank you. Thanks for the memories. I wouldn’t be who I am without you? Thank you for helping me dream?
In some way there’s a kind of purity to Lebron losing and going out to a player like Jokic. A player who he can unequivocally say is better than him now, and whom he must immensely respect for playing the type of basketball that Lebron himself has always tried to play.
Scary thought: Is Jokic just better than Lebron period?
Lebron, if nothing else, has always been a humanist. Not without his flaws of course.
He could be pouty and grumpy when things did not go his way, and no one could call him the most patient player, his mid-season trade disease is an easy thing to point to if you want to find flaw, but Lebron is no less human than any one of us, and for over twenty years since first landing on the cover of Sports Illustrated, he has been living in front of us, making all of the same mistakes that any one of us can make, but doing it in public, as the first NBA Social Media Superstar.
How?
Along with a few other global athletes and perhaps Taylor Swift and Beyonce, this guy has been the most famous human on the planet for almost two decades. The pressure of that, again, mind blowing, and yet there are those that knock the guy for his character.
What about the sacrifice?
There he is every night, 82 games a season, for as many games as he can possibly do it, giving it his all, loving the fans as he loves the game, and paying homage to the history and players who came before him in a way that only a true student of the game can.
All the work he puts into body and mind before, during, and after the game. The training, the workouts, the diet, the rest, the sleep, the days away from his friends and family, all of that is part of what we see on the court, the Lebron we see is such a small piece of the puzzle.
I’ve always know that Lebron was a student of NBA history but on his new podcast it struck me to hear him say that it was one of his most important values. How many of us care that much about the history of our craft?
Lebron has given everything to basketball, to something bigger than himself, and there is something so painfully touching about that that my fingers shake a bit as I type these last words to a man whom I owe so much of my own identity and psyche to; that’s it’s almost embarrassing.
For all the points. All the assists. Especially the assists, for all of the tactics. For the greatness and sacrifice. For the gathering and community around your aura. You are the greatest to ever do it, even if there are, and surely will be more like that, like you.
You’ve left this game better than it was before you got here. You’ve left us all a bit more in awe. A bit more aware of what we’re capable of on our best days, and our worst.
Thanks for jamming with BASKETBALLWEATHER. As always, you can tip or become a paid subscriber. 🏀🥲
Great read 👏🏽
Bron was a treat to behold.