|
|
Find Downline, get $5 for each of it.
Free Register
Klik Below Banner
|
Wednesday, June 6 |
|
Court of King James breathes new life into the NBA
|
It is the match-up basketball has been eagerly awaiting for four years: the best player in the world versus the best team in the world. LeBron James has remarkably dragged his Cleveland Cavaliers to the NBA finals for the first time in their history, and San Antonio Spurs supporters aside, America hopes he triumphs when the series starts in Texas tomorrow night so that the sport can acclaim its new hero.
'King James' has been touted as the natural heir to 'His Airness' Michael Jordan's throne since he was a 15-year-old schoolboy phenomenon. Unlike in European football, where individuality has been overwhelmed in favour of the team ethic, the emphasis in American sports is still very much heaped on the single player who can win or lose the game: in the NFL, the quarterback is the controlling presence on the pitch; in baseball, a pitcher is officially credited with the victory or defeat; and with only five basketball players on court for a team at any one time, the strength of that side is often measured by the ability of its star player. James's recent displays suggest he could be the most stellar of them all.
Excluding the 2004 Detroit Pistons, each of the last 27 NBA champion teams have featured one of these eight all-time greats: Tim Duncan, Shaquille O'Neal, Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Isiah Thomas, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Julius Erving. Tellingly, these players had an average age of 27 when they won their first championship - James is just 22. Only Johnson was younger when he won his first title, but he had the benefit of lining up alongside the legendary Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the LA Lakers; James's team-mates, by comparison, are a willing but very limited bunch.
James's age is slightly misleading in that he has followed a different path to all of the above, skipping college to pick up the NBA's dollar and a $90m sponsorship deal with Nike on leaving high school as an 18-year-old, when the Cavaliers drafted him as the first pick in 2003. But he has still transformed the unfashionable Cleveland outfit - the season before James joined, they had a torrid 17-65 record - into contenders three years quicker than Jordan, who didn't haul the Chicago Bulls to the finals until his seventh season when he was 28. In fairness, though, that was the first of six titles in eight attempts for Jordan and the Bulls.
The Eastern Conference finals, in which the Cavaliers became only the third team to come back from a two-game deficit to triumph and where they beat the Pistons 4-2, were evidence of James's once-in-a-generation gifts. After being criticised for passing in the dying seconds of Game One rather than taking a shot himself, James responded with one of the greatest individual performances in basketball history in the pivotal Game Five. Assuming total responsibility on his considerable 6ft 8in frame, he led the Cavaliers to a transcendent double-overtime win with 48 points, including all of Cleveland's last 25. Then, when the Pistons defense double- and at times triple-teamed him in the series decider, he showed that his only concern is for the Cavaliers rather than for himself - a startling contrast to the selfishness of Kobe Bryant, for example - by consistently laying the ball off to his unheralded rookie team-mate Daniel Gibson, who ended with a career-high tally of 31 points.
Unsurprisingly Cleveland, a city that hasn't claimed a national sports championship since the Browns won an NFL title in 1964, is abuzz with excitement. Yet standing in their way are the dominant Spurs, who are gunning for their fourth championship in nine years and who have their very own idol in Duncan, the power forward who has been arguably the most effective player in the league for the past decade. San Antonio are a strong defensive team constructed with the intention of winning, not pleasing. Indeed, theirs is a model Cleveland have aspired to since they took on former Spurs employees Mike Brown and Danny Ferry as coach and general manager respectively in 2005.
Duncan is ably guarded by Tony Parker, Eva Longoria's French fiancé, and Manu Ginobili, the Argentinian who is the NBA's answer to Arjen Robben; but the most important Spur in this series will be Bruce Bowen, their best defender who is tasked with stopping James. Should Bowen succeed, the Cavaliers have no chance of proving wrong the bookies who have them as 4-1 outsiders. However, the veteran Pistons tried to deny James a free ride by hassling and harrying him - as they did with their Jordan Rules in the 1990s - and failed, and James has already shown his dynamism can trouble the Spurs' defense by scoring 35 points when the Cavaliers won in San Antonio in November. Indeed, the ultimate fairytale walk-off could be scripted, with James's girlfriend expecting their second child on June 17, the night of what could be the championship-clinching Game Five.
Even if James is denied his Hollywood ending, the NBA, not to mention the TV companies and sponsors, are set to reap the rewards from what is an unexpected, yet now much-anticipated season-climax. "This is something I felt was needed for the league, was needed for Cleveland, was needed for LeBron," said Jordan, and he should know. Best of all for basketball is that there are many years of this budding legend to come.Labels: basketball, news |
posted by ^%&^
@ 9:57 PM
  |
Permalink
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
