
This has been a fun week for the LeBron James detractors as “LeBrick” and “LeFraud” tweets filled my timeline with the Heat losing 3 close games all ending on missed 3 point attempts by the “King” in the final seconds. This recent string of poor end game play has further fueled the perception that LeBron James is un-clutch, a choker, isn’t a “closer” (a popular, yet maddening term used by many basketball talking heads) and above all comes up small in the biggest situations. Couple the undeserved clutch reputation, with the ill-conceived off court “Decision” where he infamously took his talents to South Beach, and throw in the blame of playoff failures heaped solely on him and you have…Pre-2009 Alex Rodriguez.
While the impact an NBA superstar can have on a game is much greater then that of any position player in baseball, many of the terms used to describe LeBron were also previously used by people who disliked ARod, including many Yankee haters and even Yankee fans (i.e. the Jeter “zealots” and members of the Cody Ransom fan club). There is no question both James and ARod’s off-field actions (e.g. 2007 World series opt out, PED usage, aforementioned Decision, the silly “What should I do?” commercials) have turned fans to root against them and if you feel that way, that’s fine. I get it…most of us need a heel to root against, especially if our team isn’t playing, that’s part of what makes sports enjoyable. What I do have an issue with is when the dislike of a player completely warps the view of their performance. Think back to ARod:
- He was given the goat horns for the epic 2004 collapse, but if Mo closes Game 4 or Gordon doesn’t implode in Game 5, ARod probably wins the ALCS MVP
- As he struggled in the ’05 and ‘06 ALDS (a grand total of 9 games), ARod detractors and many Yankees fans began to dismiss his previous playoff statistics as a Mariner and even his great series versus the Twins in ’04 because he “wasn’t a Yankee” and because the “ALDS doesn’t matter because the Yankees are only about winning the World Series…blah blah blah”
- In 2007 despite having a historic MVP regular season and carrying the Yankees to the playoffs, his 4 for 17 postseason was the lead story for Yankees failures (instead of the two game C-M Wang meltdown)
- Even his manager fell prey to the madness dropping him to 8th in the lineup in a playoff game (Could you imagine Spoelstra or even Pat Riley making LeBron come off the bench in a deciding playoff game?)
All the walk-off homeruns, game-winning hits and MVP awards he had during those years were minimized, because “A-Fraud couldn’t get it done when it mattered most.” Never mind that the Yankees starting pitching was the main culprit in those playoff series losses, it was ALL AROD’s FAULT. Heck even players from other teams would chime in and take shots at ARod as did Torre in his book. Thankfully 2009 happened, silencing most of the critics.
LeBron finds himself today, were ARod was 2 years ago. A HOF player, who is hated and disliked by most fans/media, resulting in a skewed analysis of his play. Under this pretense, Regular season MVP awards are trivialized. Stellar post-season performance is conveniently forgotten (Regular season: 27.7ppg-7.1rpg-7.0apg, Postseason: 29.3ppg-8.4rpg-7.3apg). “Clutch” shots and “closing out” games (LeBron has made four game-winning shots in the playoffs and rates well statistically in clutch situations as of 2009) are swept under the rug. The fact that until this season, his supporting cast has been mediocre to poor (see the Cavs this season without him), will also be nothing more then a mere footnote for the LeBrick backers.
The perception won’t change until LeBron wins a ring. Until then he’ll have to hear about how he doesn’t have the clutch gene (Ian O’Connor’d: Yes Jeter was born with this gene and ARod wasn’t) and how he’s afraid to take and make big shots. ARod finally broke through and LeBron will one day as well. On that night I hope LeBron hooks up with ARod once again this time to get wasted on championship champagne. That is one scene I want the A-Fraud/LeFraud supporters to all be witnesses too.
Follow me on Twitter: @eddieperez23
(This blog post was also used as a guest post on http://www.yankeeanalysts.com/)
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