Many of you will remember my rant against ESPN last month, when they revealed their plans for the Heat Index, a page devoted solely to covering the Miami Heat's every practice, game, and team meal. You'll pardon me, then, for my unbridled glee this morning after my Celtics beat the Heat for the second time in this young season (this time, in their gym) to send the supposedly historically great Heat team to its fourth loss against only five wins. Somebody tell the Heat Index that 5-4 is a looooong way away from 72-10.
The excuses are everywhere this morning, from Dwyane Wade's "We're the best 5-4 team in the league. How about that?" to the near-ubiquitous "these sorts of things take time" from coaches and players alike. Never mind the fact that the 2007-08 Celtics started 8-1 (and 20-2) after adding Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett to the mix.
But I would've postponed my victory dance this morning had I not been alerted (by a particularly salty reader) to this comment from LeBron James, who is rapidly ascending the ladder of sports villains.
“For myself, 44 minutes is too much,” James declared. “I think Coach [Erik Spoelstra] knows that. Forty minutes for D-Wade is too much. We have to have as much energy as we can to finish games out.”...
Two days earlier, James had done nothing in overtime and ultimately decided the difference was a Hall of Fame coach, Jerry Sloan, who knew exactly what the Heat were going to do. James never takes responsibility, never says, “I’m the MVP and I need to do more.” He didn’t do it in Cleveland, and he’s never going to do it in Miami. Now, 44 minutes in a grudge game with the Celtics is too much. Always an out, always an excuse.Well put, Adrian Wojnarowski.
You're LeBron James. You're the world's most narcissistic athlete, a man who's repeatedly said that he aspires to be a "global icon" and took the unprecedented step of turning a free agency decision into an hour-long "look-at-me" reality TV special. And every time things don't go your way, you throw your coach (or teammates) under the bus.
44 minutes in a game against the defending conference champions is too much? Let's ignore the fact that his minutes per game are actually down as compared to last season with the Cavaliers, and that Michael Jordan only had one season with the Bulls in which he averaged as few minutes as James has averaged so far this year.
More importantly, James (like Wade and Chris Bosh) knew what he was getting into when he started this thing. All 3 of them signed max contracts (we just want to win!), meaning that the rest of the roster had to be filled in with minimum-salary veterans in order for the Heat to fit under the salary cap. That's the reality of what they chose to do in the offseason.
If LeBron, et al, wanted to have the luxury of taking some time off and limiting their minutes, then they should have accepted less money to ensure that the bench players would be of a higher quality. Instead, they all signed for the max, and their teammates consist of whatever Pat Riley was able to scrape up from the local YMCA and the lines at the unemployment office.
For LeBron, it was a choice between a deep roster and a championship-caliber bench on the one hand or the most possible money on the other hand. James chose the money, and now he wishes he had some time to rest. Too damn bad.
And just for fun, I'll post the video of Rajon Rondo dunking on an apathetic Chris Bosh, which is a perfect metaphor for last night's game.
Yeah, I'm fully aware that the Heat will probably end up pulling things together and winning 65 games and maybe even a better record than the Celtics. But LeBron is well on his way to "most hated athlete" status, and I'm cheering every step he takes down that road.
[Yahoo! Sports]
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