Has the Lebron James era officially begun? For the last five years I've had an ongoing debate as to whether or not the hype has been too high for King James. I waffle back and forth because I'm a huge Lebron fan, but no one his age could possibly perform up to the incredible expectations and hype he's had since first gracing the cover of Sports Illustrated as a High School junior. But after his domination of the Pistons over the last two weeks I think Lebron is finally performing as the next true elite superstar of the NBA. Culminating with the incredible performance in Game Five, Lebron was completely dominant and electric, especially in the way he silenced every one of his critics who were trying to crucify him after his pass off in game one and his missed game winner while being mugged by Rip Hamilton in Game Two. The critics were as loud as they'd ever been and Lebron completely dominated Game Three which was only a prelude to his greatness in Game Five. His 29 out of Cleveland's last 30 points to end the game has to rank as one of the all-time greatest performances in NBA history. So finally he has delivered on all the promise that he showed on his way to the top. I don;t think he's quite ready to knock Tim Duncan off his throne and declare himself the best in the world, but it does just seem to be a matter of time until he takes his place where only Duncan, Shaq, Jordan, Hakeem, Magic and Larry have stood in the last 25 years, and no one else.
As far as the elimination of the Pistons goes, I'm always torn when it comes to them. I love the fact that they one a championship without one single elite superstar, and I love that they never had to win the lottery to get to the top, and they gradually built themselves up over the years without having to bottom out, but I hate them as a team. Aside from Antonio McDyess, I find them all to be more and more unlikeable every time I watch them. Rip Hamilton is a good player who thinks he is great, same goes for Chauncey Billups. Neither should really be a lock to be an all-star every season but because they're part of a really strong team they get greatly overrated. Rasheed Wallace had the skills to be a superstar but his head got in the way. In his opinion he's never actually committed a foul, and he's never missed a shot without being fouled. When 'Sheed was a freshman at UNC, coming in from Philly as the top High Schooler in the country, the sky was the limit, and there have been times when he's shown flashes of being a top ten NBA player, but he just never made it happen, mostly because he has the temprament of a petulant child. Tayshaun Prince is a very good role player, but for some reason he was being hyped as an all-star. All-Star? I don't think so. I heard Reggie Miller openly complain about Paul Pierce being named an all-star in '06 over Prince, the whole idea was ludicrous. If Prince were a Celtic there would never have been any tanking controversy this year. The Celtics could have finished in last without ever having to lose any game intentionally. You take all these overrated players and combine them with an annoying PA guy shouting "De-Troooit, Bas-Ket-Baaaaallllll" and you have a thouroughly unlikeable squad, and it also pissed me off that they got away with one of the worst draft day blunders in recent history, but the straw that broke the Camel's back for me was the night that one of they were helped out immensely by the Ron artest incident. Ben Wallace attacks Ron Artest to start the whole thing, then a drunken idiot throws a drink at Artest and the next thing ya know, The Pistons could punch their ticket to the Finals. As far as I'm concerned this group can't fall aprt fast enough, they more than have it coming.
In the rest of the sports spectrum I wanted to give a quick take on a couple of mini-controversies swirling these days. Gary Sheffield's reasoning for why there aren't more African-American players in Major League Baseball was ridiculous. To me the people who he was insulting most with his comments were African Americans. To say that they don;t make it to the majors because they can't be controlled the way latin ballplayers can strikes me as stupid. The sad truth is that in most other fields you're going to be controlled if you want to be succesful. We all have bosses to answer to on our way up to the top, and 99% have to fall in line, it's a sad truth of being an adult in this country. I can't just go around bad-mouthing my employer and doing whatever I want. If anything professional baseball players have a lot more leeway when it comes to being controlled and these comments by Sheffield are exhibit A. If he was a normal american and came out and said that his employers were members of a racist organization he'd probably be looking for a new job, but instead he's making about 15 mil this year. If I can make fifteen mil but it means I need to be controlled, just tell me where to sign up, I'm ready to take orders.
The second little controversy has mroe or less come and gone, but I wanted to comment about the aftermath of A-Rod and his stripper friend. He was wronged to be singled out, similar to the way that Barry bonds has been wronged by being singled out as the only juicer. Yes A-Rod ommitted the crime, but he's not the only one and it definitely shouldn;t be on the cover of any newspaper. I did enjoy the aftermath where we got a profile of his blonde stripper friend, she's apparently kinda jacked, leading one jealous stripper to claim that A-Rod likes the muscular shemale type (which has been blown out of proportion.) A lot of very phyically fit people go for the muscular type women, it doesn;t lend any creedance to the theories of him and Jeter although all us Boston fans would like think it does. Anyway, this whole thing does come down to jealousy. Jealousy that this guy does what he wants, jealousy that he can bang strippers, jealousy that this stripper is getting to play with Alex's money. The A-rod hating should stop, especially when a lot of the people are hating for the wrong reasons.
Just wanted to take a moment to remind everyone that the Red Sox are awesome. That's all I've got for now, Til next time...
-Bender Out
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