Have a Little Trust in Me: The Heat and Lebron

Imagine that your favorite team has a great year. It finishes its regular season with the best record in its sport. They win nearly 75% of their games. You are proud of them. You are excited about watching them. They come up short in the playoffs, but it was still a great year. The next season is far from the same. They go from having the best record in the league to the worst. They have a record losing streak that makes it difficult for you to even acknowledge you are a fan of the team.  They fail to win even 25% of their games.

Imagine I told you the only significant difference from one year to the next for this team was the departure of one player. You would probably surmise this was a heck of a player and an important leader for his team. You’d say that every success the team had depended on him. You’d probably say that even though they had lost in the playoffs with him, it was better than being the laughing stock of the league.

If you haven’t already guessed it, I just described the Cleveland Cavaliers and LeBron James.

The sports fan needs explanations for things that are difficult to have explanations for. There is too much passion involved; there are too many television hours to fill, to many radio hours for debate and an infinite amount of web space to wax poetically with.

After the result of the NBA Finals this is not a good thing for LeBron James. Despite being named the league’s Most Valuable Player twice, and winning nearly 67% of his career games his recent performance in the Finals has brought into focus his leadership qualities or lack thereof.