LeBron James may have settled a long debate in basketball about the greatest player in the history of the game. After carrying his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers on his shoulders to victory in an emotionally and physically exhausting deciding seventh game of the 2016 NBA finals, many are convinced that the argument is settled once for all. It is 1.LeBron James and 2.Michael Jordan and you could put everyone else down somewhere well below the duo. The top of the pantheon is taken now.
The comeback win by the Cavaliers against the Golden State Warriors would also rank right up there with the greatest sporting comebacks. In comparative terms, this win was more than an England at Leeds or India at the Eden Gardens. What LeBron did in the decider was, perhaps, greater than Ian Botham or the Laxman-Dravid duo. The MVP prize is not the only index, although statistically too LeBron was phenomenal in the last three games in which he hauled the Cavaliers from 3-1 down to winning the series 4-3.
Some deep seated prejudices may alter the view in the future. Critics may say Jordan never had it easy after starting out late while LeBron arrived as ‘The Chosen One’, a readymade champion to conquer the world even when he stepped out on to the college court. But you can’t hold a man’s natural gifts against him. It’s a bit like saying Garry Sobers and Sachin Tendulkar were not the greatest all rounder and batsman in the history of the game because they had greater natural abilities.
The empirical and elaborate statistics of basketball go to further the LeBron case because they are there to fall back upon in lines of argument even in a team sport. Where the Cleveland’s victory rates so great is the champion player in the line-up had to carry the others with him while he himself may not have had so much to do in winning those two titles when turning out for Miami Heat. The caliber of the opponent and the depth of the deficit which had placed the Cavaliers into the very jaws of defeat made it the greatest sporting comeback ever.
His tears said it all. The way LeBron cried like a baby on holding the trophy showed how much he cared for this one. The image should rate as the sports picture of the year – a 6 foot eight athlete with muscular arms like Popeye on speed spinach breaking down and weeping on centre court in front of the cameras taking the images live around the world. A sporting fairytale had been completed by the star waving the magic wand. And he did it too at the precise moment when the scores were tied and the clock was ticking towards the final buzzer and the next basket could possibly settle the game.
He was the hometown lad who returned to his roots at the height of his career to help break the jinx that had lasted over half a century. The body language was strong to the very end while the star on the opposite side, Stephen Curry, seemed all lost, mis-passing wildly in crunch situations. This might have made all the difference as the Warriors’ ability that has redefined basketball in terms of the three-pointers seemed to have dried up at the worst possible time.
Basketball history will tell the story of this athlete who has the widest ranging skill sets seen on court and, impotantly executed so well, which is perhaps the clinching point that makes LeBron stand metres taller than Curry. It is recorded that LeBron had scored more points, gathered more redbounds, featured in assists and steals and led in the number of blocked shots over the entire course of a 7-match finals of the playoff series. No one had ever done that.
Early morning in India was a good time to watch the decider too, a reflective time in which to see greatness in action as a genius delivered. Some friends in the US went to every game, shuttling back and forth in this great series in which a team came back from 3-1 down for the first time in NBA history after 32 occasions on which teams had been overwhelmed after facing such a deficit. We savour the Cavaliers triumph all the more, a double bonanza in a year adding to Leicester City’s 5,000-1 win in the EPL. May these sporting fairytales never end. The world needs them.
