Camouflage Baby Clothes

Once upon a time, Mike Tyson was legitimately the baddest man on the planet and in that era he delivered one of the best quotes – both figuratively and in his case, literally – depicting the nature of intimidation in the world of sports. When told before a fight that his opponent had a plan to beat him, Tyson brashly countered that “everyone has a plan, until they get hit in the mouth.”

This quote is pertinent to the NBA Finals because up until a few days ago, most of the basketball world surely would have slotted one LeBron James into that role of baddest of the bad. Not that he would land an actual haymaker to an opponent’s cranium or was the one guy in the league you wouldn’t want to cross, but his physically imposing ways surely put fear into the hearts of opponents. That physicality certainly blinded the observing world.

As it turns out – and as I suspected – James is showing that his persona indeed resembles some aspect of that quote. But not as the harasser, rather the foe to whom Tyson was referring.

For some time I’ve felt alone in the wilderness when it came to witnessing James as a great talent, but not a player with a elite crafted set of skills. Forget that James is the next Michael Jordan talk; to my hoop-loving sensibilities, he’s not Kobe Bryant nor Tim Duncan, and as we can clearly see in these finals, not Dwyane Wade. Even during these Finals I’ve been scolded on Twitter for not appreciating the beauty of his game and if that were the case, clearly the issue was mine.

Let’s be clear, James is one of the best in the world, nobody is knocking him – at least not athletically. When it comes to pure speed combined with the ability to jump out of the gym, nobody’s better.

Using such simplistic terms is not meant to demean those attributes; when LeBron gets a full head of steam racing down the court, it’s like trying to stop Adrian Peterson in the open field without the ability to tackle. When a ball is above the rim and you don’t get a body him, I hope you like the taste of jam because that’s what about to go down.