I'm all out of ideas.
No, not for columns. I'm just short on ways to put into words exactly what it is that's so amazing about LeBron James.
What more can I say that hasn't already been said? Well, let's see. At age 23, he already has 17 career triple-doubles and is one of the NBA's top 250 career scorers. He's fifth all-time in points per game. He was the youngest player to reach 1,000 career points, the youngest to 2,000 and so on, hitting each milestone up to 10,000. He has one of the most recognizable names and faces in America and a net worth debatably somewhere between $200 million and $250 million. The man is a freak of nature. The end.
Okay, let's see. Word count: 123. I guess I can't stop here. Let's dig deeper.
I suppose what's really eating at me is the fact that as great as LeBron James is, there's the potential for so much more.
It's not just that he plays in Cleveland, although that's certainly part of it. It's also that throughout his career, LeBron has been on teams that have hindered his ability to bring home the championship he deserves.
His teammates have been bad, yes. Delonte West and Wally Szczerbiak are not the supporting cast one needs to win a title -- just ask Paul Pierce, who teamed up with those two to go 24-58 one year before winning his first ring. But also -- and I can't believe this theory hasn't gotten more press over the past three years -- it appears fairly clear that Mike Brown just isn't that good of a coach.
Brown learned the trade as an assistant coach under Gregg Popovich in San Antonio, meaning he adapted a coaching style from a man who was blessed with a spectacularly good pair of defensive big men in Tim Duncan and David Robinson. He then tried to apply that same style to his first head coaching gig in Cleveland.
Last year's Cavaliers games had an average of 90.2 possessions, ranking them seventh-lowest in the NBA. Generally, the teams at the bottom of that list are defensive juggernauts led by great big men -- Rasheed Wallace and the Pistons are at rock-bottom and Duncan's Spurs are third. And yet Mike Brown's Cavaliers, whose best player is an absolute freak on offense and a merely above-average defender, are playing the same slow, methodical style of basketball that doesn't fit their personnel?
LeBron isn't just the star of the Cavaliers. He is that team. More so than pre-Pippen Jordan, more so than post-Shaq Kobe, more so than anyone else we've ever seen, LeBron defines the one-man team. He once scored 56 points in one game -- on March 20, 2005 -- and Cleveland still lost, to the Raptors no less, 105-98. He famously joked that night, "I don't want to score 50. We're 0-2 when I do."
This is a chicken-egg dilemma that's as simple as they come. The players come before the coaching philosophy. Period. Defense first works when your leader on the floor is Duncan or Rasheed (or KG, or Ben Wallace or Yao Ming). But LeBron? This doesn't work. Build a roster and then find a coach who can work with that roster. It doesn't go the other way around.
LeBron has a chance to make himself known as what he is -- the best basketball player on the planet. But he's in a city, on a team, under a coach that can't help but chain him down.
I'm waiting with bated breath for 2010. When LBJ finally becomes a free agent, he can find any number of attractive suitors on the market: the one with the best supporting cast (Detroit), the best city for marketing his image (New York) or the best owner for creating a global icon (Jay-Z, New Jersey/possibly Brooklyn). Any of the above would be better than where he is now. Way better.
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