The Breaks Of The Game
I've been watching sports now for over twenty years. Large, endless chunks of those times are forever forgotten, possibly completely meaningless in the grand scheme of things. So why do it? Because of moments, or if we're lucky, periods, that make all the banality in between completely worth it. Because of series like the 2013 NBA Finals. Because of athletes like LeBron James. Because of legacies like the Duncan-era Spurs. Because it's all just a microcosm of life, rife w/ allegories to heroes, love, courage, loyalty, victory, defeat, redemption, death, etc. Because for us guys, it's the only way we know how to experience, feel, express all the hard questions w/o having to be annoyingly vulnerable. Trace a man's relationship to his sports and you trace his character.
"Beauty is not the goal of competitive sports, but high-level sports are a prime venue for the expression of human beauty. The relation is roughly that of courage to war."
I have now written about LeBron James in three out of my last five posts here. The weird thing is he's not my favorite athlete in the traditional sense of the term. But he is, by far and away, the most interesting, probably because he is the most beautiful. The DFW epigraph was taken from his piece on Roger Federer (who, incidentally, is my favorite athlete) in 2006, right smack dab during his astonishing ascent. But today, in 2013, LBJ is the most transcending athlete alive. He is built like an NFL linebacker but possesses the dexterity of a point guard, the cerebrum of a coach, the work ethic of an immigrant, and most recently, the awareness of an artist. He is in his supernova prime and it is just fucking awesome.
And so, our expectation of him is: perfection. Anything short of that is almost offensive. That God/evolution/randomness could produce such a human as LBJ, how dare he squander his gifts? And how dare he be presumptuous to actually acknowledge he is the greatest player since Michael Jordan to all of us who grew up idolizing MJ? Like with the most polarizing celebrities, we stand in awe at their talent/beauty but simultaneously, reflexively claw and tear at that image and gleefully, condescendingly cry: lookit, they're no better than the rest of us.
What LeBron did on the court this season, I won't rehash. He did what the best player of this generation is supposed to do. Lead his team to the best record in the league. Win the MVP. Win the championship. Ho-hum. The tyranny of expectations is such that even missing one of those check-boxes would constitute a failure. What I grew to become fascinated about was: how does a man live under those circumstances? Well, not so much live, but succeed. How does a man succeed when success itself is the minimum passing grade?
Two things he said recently stood out to me. #1: in the press conference the day after his Heat were blown out by 36, LBJ calmly told the reporters assembled before him that, "I'll be better." And what does better mean to you? "Better than last night. I played like shit." It was not an exhortation to himself. It was not a believe-me plea. It wasn't even arrogance in that I-am-guaranteeing-a-victory way. It was just fact. No belief or faith required. Like saying, tomorrow I will get out of bed and take a shower. #2: in the post championship game interview w/ ESPN's NBA crew, Bill Simmons asked, in Game 6, when you guys were in the jaws of defeat, did you think you were done? And LeBron said, you know, to win an NBA championship, you need luck.
I played like shit.
You need luck.
We lionize (or demonize) stars like LeBron, carelessly heaping praise or shoveling criticism upon them when their teams win or lose. But basketball is not tennis or golf or boxing or even baseball. World class basketball is complex and dynamic and team-oriented, and no matter how good an individual player is, he is way less than the sum of the team's parts. To succeed is to require humility in understanding that. Beyond, there are the breaks of the game. Lucky (unlucky) bounces. Fallible referees. Freak injuries. To succeed, furthermore, is to accept the inherent entropy of the world. "If we're going to go down, I'm going to make sure I shoot all my bullets, and then I'm going to throw my holster and my gun," LeBron continued. Most people probably mistake that as the old cliche "refuse to lose". But it seems to me the truth is closer to what Grantland contributor netw3rk wrote after Game 6:
I rooted for the Heat because I believe it is a privilege to catch LBJ at his prime at a point in my life in which I can fully appreciate it. Although the power of nostalgia will never allow me to "like" a basketball player more than Michael Jordan, I am enjoying a fuller experience witnessing the arc of LeBron. With that said, a quick coda on the Spurs. My experience of this Finals would not have been meaningfully altered if the Spurs ended up winning Game 7. It really is about the journey and not the ending. Nothing felt cheap about this Finals. No reduction down to good guy/bad guy tropes. Gregg Popovich and his team have been the standard bearer of perennial excellence in the NBA for 16 years, an astonishing eternity in this big money free agent era. The Spurs essentially won the championship in Game 6, except they didn't. You know what I mean? Pop does. This was the Finals we all deserved.
***
"Beauty is not the goal of competitive sports, but high-level sports are a prime venue for the expression of human beauty. The relation is roughly that of courage to war."
-David Foster Wallace
I have now written about LeBron James in three out of my last five posts here. The weird thing is he's not my favorite athlete in the traditional sense of the term. But he is, by far and away, the most interesting, probably because he is the most beautiful. The DFW epigraph was taken from his piece on Roger Federer (who, incidentally, is my favorite athlete) in 2006, right smack dab during his astonishing ascent. But today, in 2013, LBJ is the most transcending athlete alive. He is built like an NFL linebacker but possesses the dexterity of a point guard, the cerebrum of a coach, the work ethic of an immigrant, and most recently, the awareness of an artist. He is in his supernova prime and it is just fucking awesome.
And so, our expectation of him is: perfection. Anything short of that is almost offensive. That God/evolution/randomness could produce such a human as LBJ, how dare he squander his gifts? And how dare he be presumptuous to actually acknowledge he is the greatest player since Michael Jordan to all of us who grew up idolizing MJ? Like with the most polarizing celebrities, we stand in awe at their talent/beauty but simultaneously, reflexively claw and tear at that image and gleefully, condescendingly cry: lookit, they're no better than the rest of us.
What LeBron did on the court this season, I won't rehash. He did what the best player of this generation is supposed to do. Lead his team to the best record in the league. Win the MVP. Win the championship. Ho-hum. The tyranny of expectations is such that even missing one of those check-boxes would constitute a failure. What I grew to become fascinated about was: how does a man live under those circumstances? Well, not so much live, but succeed. How does a man succeed when success itself is the minimum passing grade?
Two things he said recently stood out to me. #1: in the press conference the day after his Heat were blown out by 36, LBJ calmly told the reporters assembled before him that, "I'll be better." And what does better mean to you? "Better than last night. I played like shit." It was not an exhortation to himself. It was not a believe-me plea. It wasn't even arrogance in that I-am-guaranteeing-a-victory way. It was just fact. No belief or faith required. Like saying, tomorrow I will get out of bed and take a shower. #2: in the post championship game interview w/ ESPN's NBA crew, Bill Simmons asked, in Game 6, when you guys were in the jaws of defeat, did you think you were done? And LeBron said, you know, to win an NBA championship, you need luck.
I played like shit.
You need luck.
We lionize (or demonize) stars like LeBron, carelessly heaping praise or shoveling criticism upon them when their teams win or lose. But basketball is not tennis or golf or boxing or even baseball. World class basketball is complex and dynamic and team-oriented, and no matter how good an individual player is, he is way less than the sum of the team's parts. To succeed is to require humility in understanding that. Beyond, there are the breaks of the game. Lucky (unlucky) bounces. Fallible referees. Freak injuries. To succeed, furthermore, is to accept the inherent entropy of the world. "If we're going to go down, I'm going to make sure I shoot all my bullets, and then I'm going to throw my holster and my gun," LeBron continued. Most people probably mistake that as the old cliche "refuse to lose". But it seems to me the truth is closer to what Grantland contributor netw3rk wrote after Game 6:
"Thing is, that saying is utter and complete bullshit. The best games don't occur when players refuse to accept failure as an option. Failure is always a possible outcome. That's like flipping a coin and saying heads is not an option. No, the best performances, the best games, happen when players refuse to care that failure is an option."
***
I rooted for the Heat because I believe it is a privilege to catch LBJ at his prime at a point in my life in which I can fully appreciate it. Although the power of nostalgia will never allow me to "like" a basketball player more than Michael Jordan, I am enjoying a fuller experience witnessing the arc of LeBron. With that said, a quick coda on the Spurs. My experience of this Finals would not have been meaningfully altered if the Spurs ended up winning Game 7. It really is about the journey and not the ending. Nothing felt cheap about this Finals. No reduction down to good guy/bad guy tropes. Gregg Popovich and his team have been the standard bearer of perennial excellence in the NBA for 16 years, an astonishing eternity in this big money free agent era. The Spurs essentially won the championship in Game 6, except they didn't. You know what I mean? Pop does. This was the Finals we all deserved.
