I love her smile. I love her hair. I love her knees. I love how she licks her lips before she talks. I love her heart-shaped birthmark on her neck. I love it when she sleeps.
I hate her crooked teeth. I hate her 1960s haircut. I hate her knobby knees. I hate her cockroach-shaped splotch on her neck. I hate the way she smacks her lips before she talks. I hate the way she sounds when she laughs.
I hate the Miami Heat, but I love that this team exists. Let me try to explain why.
500 Days of Summer is one of the best break-up movies ever created because of just how well it captures the torment of being on the wrong side of a split. As shown above, the main character Tom Hansen falls in love with Summer Finn and proceeds to go on and on telling his friends every little detail that he loves about her. Later in the movie, those same features he once drooled over become the object of his anger and feeling of betrayal. This is the Dan Gilbert letter, the burning of LeBron jerseys in the street, the “he’s a humble, real hometown kid, still loyal to his high school girlfriend” turned, “he’s a narcissistic, greedy, backstabbing egotist.” The Decision made nearly every fan in the country feel like they were Cleveland, like they were the girl or boy that was hearing the, “I think it’s best we go separate ways,” break-up line and its easy to see why the reaction has been so negative. For those who watched The Decision and identified with LeBron, identifying with the dumper not the dumpee, well then by all means go be a Miami Heat fan next season. For the rest of the country, all we can do is hope that all the boos and “Beat The Heat” chants will somehow stop this team from hoisting the Larry O’Brien trophy (I’m really surprised no sportscasters have made the corny joke/realization that Heat and Hate are spelled with the same four letters).
I think 90% of this article will be focused on LeBron, because outside of him I think it’s really hard to make a case for unlikeability on this roster. D-Wade did nothing wrong, he stuck with his original team and makes less money than his two big name teammates. He makes funny commercials with Barkley and he has arguably the most swagger of any player in the league. Then there’s Chris Bosh. Bosh knew his role as a #2 guy (now #3) when he signed with Miami and I think it’s safe to say no one would have really been that angry (outside of our neighbors to the north) that Bosh chose to join up with Wade instead of stay with Toronto. Then what, Big Z? Jerry Stackhouse? Eddie House? How can we really be angry with any of these aging stars taking veteran minimums in hopes to help win a ring? The reason the Heat have become so polarizing and so hate-able all comes down to LeBron James.
But why?
I think the easy answer is The Decision, the GQ covers, the naming of himself “King James,” or “King of Akron,” ESPN’s gigantic crush on him, non-stop coverage since high school, yada-yada-yada, but I think it goes a level deeper. And no it’s not a racial thing, if white people hated black stars there would be no NBA or NFL right now, so all of that talk can stop. The reason for the hatred can be summed up in a simple Tweet like this from LeBron’s page:
Wow what a day for some of my favorite sports teams! Yankees advance with the sweep(sorry Twins fans), Fla.St wins(love Mia but sorry Canes)
8:55 PM Oct 9th
Only 27 words, but hidden in this small passage, is the very reason most of the sports world hates LeBron and thus hates the Miami Heat with a passion right now.
Imagine you went to school with LeBron James. In the fall he would tower through the hallways with either New York Yankees, Dallas Cowboys, Ohio State, or Florida State attire on. Late fall through winter and into spring, time to put on the Michael Jordan, Chicago Bulls gear then start everything over again with a Yankees hat at a Cleveland Indians game. No one would want to watch sports with this kid. If you start at 1996 when LeBron was about 10 years old look at how his favorite sports teams have done:
1996: Bulls win NBA Title, Cowboys win Super Bowl, New York Yankees win World Series (great year for LeBron)
1997: Bulls win NBA Title,
1998: Bulls win NBA Title, Yankees win World Series,
1999: Florida State wins college football championship, Yankees win World Series
2000: Yankees win world series
2001: None (Yankees lose in World Series to Diamondbacks)
2002: Ohio State wins national championship college football
2003: Nothing.
2004: Nothing.
2005: Nothing
2006: Nothing.
2007: Nothing.
2008: Nothing.
2009: Yankees win World Series
Here’s what I find interesting about this list. Besides the 2001 year, look at when all the losing starts. 2003 thru 2009 are LeBron James’s years as a Cleveland Cavalier. Am I saying that somehow LeBron’s negative thoughts about exiting the playoffs early and overall feeling like he was a loser fired off of his synapses and into the universe, bouncing back into the minds of the players on his favorite teams causing them to no longer win? Eh maybe not, but think about the added weight LeBron felt with not only his personal team losing, something he rarely felt in high school, but his favorite teams as a fan losing too. For seven years in Cleveland LeBron felt what it feels like to be a true sports fan, and he didn’t like it whatsoever.
Think about those years 2003-2009, his teams didn’t just lose, they either fell completely off the map or had some incredibly serious heartbreaks along the way. 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 season Ohio State went to back to back national championship games in football and lost both of them. That’s something Buffalo Bills fans are supposed to deal with, not King James. Or how about the 2007 Ohio State basketball team losing to Florida in the title game? Florida State, fell off the map. Dallas, no longer the Aikman, Smith, Irvin era, had the Tony Romo fumbled snap on the extra point mixed in with several other early exits. Then who can forget the legendary comeback by the Red Sox over the Yankees in 2004? LeBron, for the first time in his life, was on the wrong side of all of these outcomes. Forget the misery with how all the Cleveland Cavaliers seasons ended, LeBron was in sports fan hell.
That LeBron, the 2003-2009 LeBron, was sympathetic. We identified with the heartbreak, we wanted him to win one for Cleveland, we wanted to believe he was the savior for a city that hadn’t won in so long. We knew the heartbreak and humiliation he was feeling. For me, my team is and will always be the Kansas Jayhawks and I remember the painful 1997 (Arizona Wildcats), 2001 (Maryland), 2003 (Syracuse), the betrayal (Roy Williams leaving for UNC 2003) and the embarrassing, 2005 (Bucknell), 2006 (Bradley), and the still raw wound of 2010 (Northern Iowa). But covering up the pain for all of those haunting memories is 2008 when for the first time in my entire life, the Jayhawks not only avenged Roy Williams by knocking out UNC, but they went on to beat Memphis two nights later to win the national championship.
I remember every tiny detail about that night. I remember sprinting to Mass Street with my older brother Tom, I remember drunkenly playing the snare drum on one of the random drums in the crowd, joining in on the never ending, “We’re number one! We’re number one!” chants, and continually hugging Quynh Phan posing for numerous photos holding up the “We’re number one!” index finger. To this day, I consider that night in Lawrence Kansas to be probably the best of my life and explaining it to any non-Jayhawk fan is near impossible. Only die-hard fans can understand that feeling when you’ve waited so long, when you’ve been the Boston fan who suffered through Bill Buckner’s error, when you’ve been the 80 year old White Sox fan who had never seen a World Series victory, or even the Detroit Lions fan who in 2050 celebrates a Super Bowl victory. The reason that night when everything finally comes together and you get to celebrate a championship becomes so memorable is because of those painful endings year after year before. The scary part about being a fan is more often than not your seasons will end on a downer, but when that magical season finally comes around you realize it was all worth it.
In the months after the Jayhawks title when I saw more and more stores carrying Jayhawk apparel and seeing new fans join the ranks, I remember feeling a sense of anger at their arrival. “You didn’t suffer through enough years to wear that shirt,” I wanted to say to every new Jayhawk I saw.
There’s a mutual bond between sports fans, at the end of the day a Michigan fan and an Ohio State fan can both appreciate, although not understand how, the dedication each other has for their team. For me, I can appreciate Missouri Tiger fans, almost the entire side of my mom’s family are ones, I have very close friends that are too, but the thought of a bandwagon Mizzou fan makes me Mel Gibson angry and I honestly don’t know if I could sit down for a meal with such a person. Bandwagon teams are fun to hop on for a season or two, but having every single one of your teams be that way is why LeBron James’s list of the Yankees, Cowboys, Bulls with Jordan, Ohio State, and Florida State seem a little fishy.
And that’s what the sports world feels he’s trying to create in Miami. This is LeBron saying he’s tired of waiting not only for the Cavs but for the Cowboys, the Yankees, the Buckeyes, the Seminoles, LeBron is sick of years ending without championships and joining up with D-Wade and Bosh was the way to create a decade long dynasty. He even said it himself at the little celebration party the night after “The Decision” that they were gonna win not one, not two, not three, four, five, six, seven, before he has even won a single game in the NBA finals.
This is where the real story is. For D-Wade he already has a ring. For Chris Bosh, it doesn’t really matter how many he wins, I don’t see his name surpassing Malone, Garnett, or Duncan anytime soon. But for the “haters” of LeBron there remains this hope, albeit a small one, that maybe, just maybe, LeBron might never win a title. That’s why people are suddenly finding themselves pulling for Kobe, that’s why people will be pulling for the Celtics or Magic in the East, and that’s probably even why I have the Heat ranked at #3 even though they are probably a lock to win 65 + games. The storyline of this evil empire coming together and still not win is why the NBA has been the hot topic for the last four months and the reason opening night against the Celtics will probably be one of the most watched regular season games ever.
I love having the Heat as the league’s villain. A villain makes everything more interesting. After the Dark Knight there’s a reason why the Joker became a Halloween costume staple, a Texas Tech student section standard, an academy award for Heath Ledger. A good bad guy (oxy-moron but work with it) can carry the story better than the main superhero. The Heat are ready to be that villain.
So many fans of other NBA teams this year are going to be like Republicans in 2008 watching an Obama speech, you want to try the forbidden fruit, but will only do so in the secrecy of a voting booth. I feel like all over the country fans are going to find themselves like a 12 year old boy stealing glances at a Girls Gone Wild commercial only to quickly change the channel to Nick-At-Nite when their mom walks into the room.
“Honey are you watching the Heat game with your pants off?”
“Oh, um, no, I was changing and the uh, the remote, um how ‘bout that local sports team?”
I can hate on LeBron’s choice of teams and use of The Decision all I want, but at the end of the day, as a player, there’s really no one like him. Sure Kobe, Melo, Durant all shoot better, but they can’t physically dominate and get to the rim with ease like LeBron can. LeBron looks the way a McDonald’s All-American looks on a high school basketball court, just leaps and bounds above everyone else in athleticism and strength. The catch is, for LeBron this is with the best basketball players in the world! I think Dan LeBatard’s rant on Youtube has it right with lines like, “LeBron James won 65 games without Dwyane Wade!” or “LeBron James is the best player in the world but he might not be the best player on this team!” And then you throw in Chris Bosh too! Even the biggest of skeptics or haters has to admit that this combination of young players is something the league hasn’t seen maybe ever. The Miami Heat will be a dominant team, at times unstoppable, but here’s why they won’t win the NBA Championship.
I’m going to use my own “Superstar Formula” system. Dwyane Wade and LeBron equal 30 wins a piece. Chris Bosh equals 19.
30 + 30 + 19 = 79 wins
Here’s how I see those 79 wins being spaced out.
68-14 regular season. I don’t think this team is as good as the Bulls. Jordan/Pippen is equal to Wade/LeBron because Jordan is better than Wade, but LeBron is better than Pippen. Difference is, Rodman was a defensive, rebounding, lunatic, that altered the game far more than Bosh will. Also Ron Harper was a better point guard than anyone the Heat have and Kukoc/Steve Kerr were great bench guys. Anything less than 65 wins I can’t see happening because how can LeBron do worse with the sidekicks Wade and Bosh than he did with Mo Williams and Twan Jamison? 68 is the right number.
4-0 sweep in the first round of the 76ers. Should I really have to explain this?
4-2 victory in a hard fought series with the four seed Chicago Bulls.
This now takes them to 76 wins. They have three left and that is why I will make the prediction that the Miami Heat’s season ends with a 4-3 loss to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals. On Tuesday night we’ll see if I can say I told you so or suddenly wish I wouldn’t have made so bold a claim.
Putting the Celtics up against the Heat I take Rondo at the point guard, Wade and LeBron at the guards, but then Garnett and Perkins as my power forward and center. Bench it’s not even close, the Celtics are far deeper, and coach I will take Doc Rivers in a heart beat. Regular season, the Heat will win more games than the Celtics, but in a best of seven, I like Boston’s chances.
I like L.A.’s chances against the Heat too, but even if the Heat are able to run the table and win it all I can’t help but wonder how much better it would have felt as LeBron to do it Cleveland as the lone hero for a starving sports city than it will in Miami where the championship and best season ever hype was nearly guaranteed before the first whistle even sounded. If they do win, expect me and everyone else to be the first to say in a whining, nagging voice, “Well Kobe did it 5 times and Michael did it 6.” LeBron has put himself in a position where he almost needs to win seven titles to finally silence his critics.
I will find myself rooting against the Heat all season long, but I will also find myself paying attention to 82 regular season games that I probably would have ignored before. Say what you will about LeBron or this Heat team in general, but they have made the anticipation of this season reach a level never before seen. There was no off-season this year, and probably won’t be for years to come. A full year of NBA talk is why I love that this Miami Heat team exists.
Now for the love of God get to Tuesday already!
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