LeBron James Loves to Pass
March 1, 2008
When LeBron James entered the NBA at the age of 18, "Mission Impossible" looked like a snap compared to meeting the expectations he faced.
Save a franchise. Light up a Rust Belt town like Las Vegas. Be as good as the suffocating hype said.
He has been better, of course.
It seemed impossible that someone so young, untutored by the gray eminences of college basketball, unsung week after week by Dick Vitale, could be one of the best basketball players in the world.
Michael Jordan played three years at North Carolina under one of the greatest coaches ever, Dean Smith. Magic Johnson, considered to be a wonder child when, alternating between point guard and power forward, he was the Most Valuable Player of the 1980 NBA Finals as a 20-year-old rookie, played two years for Jud Heathcote at Michigan State.
Yet James needed no adjustment, either mentally or, more amazingly, physically to the demands of playing against grown men.
It seems as if he scored 10,000 points in a finger-snap. Even though he might be the most gifted player ever, the LeBron 10K is something he bled for.
No player in the NBA gets to the rim as easily as he does, because no player has ever had power-forward size and shooting-guard quickness before. It is very hard to get to the rim against NBA defenders, particularly if they are playing junk defenses. In them, the whole alignment is "tilted" toward James. The desired effect is like the "tilt" that would end a pinball game just when the lights were about to flash and the bells about to ring. Everything opponents do is designed to short circuit the blazing marquee he brings with him.
Instead, James thrives as the likely MVP, at least in terms of objective numbers and value to his team (and what else is there?) of the whole league this season.
The abuse he takes, in a sport in which players do not wear protective pads, is tremendous. One of the most common basketball injuries is the broken nose (and we have seen James in protective facemasks after suffering them) or the dislodged tooth (he now wears a mouthpiece for the first time). All of those tall shot-blockers swinging all of those Gumby arms around mean it's a miracle more players aren't knocked silly.
"At my size and strength, it might not look like I get fouled," James said. "But I feel it. Absolutely."
He always shoots the most or close to the most free throws in the league. It is part of a great player's mystique to get to the line. Only Reggie Miller became a certifiably great player as a jump shooter first. Going to the rim ("With authority!" as Marv Albert, the great play-by-play man might shout) is like running the ball successfully off tackle in football. It is a method of occupying enemy territory and dissolving opponents' will.
James likes to say he is a football player, although that was in high school only. He has a point. The comparison for him should be to the previous Cleveland benchmark for team sport greatness, Browns running back Jim Brown, not to basketball players.
Power players, at least until Orlando center Dwight Howard's Superman routine in the slam dunk contest on All-Star weekend, are not as aesthetically pleasing as the cutlass slashes of Miami's Dwyane Wade or the quantum quickness of New Orleans' hummingbird, Chris Paul.
James, however, is the ultimate synthesis of speed and strength. With the speed to get inside and the strength to take a blow like that given him by the Wizards' Michael Ruffin in the playoffs in 2006, James can shoot the ball on the way down, finding a backboard angle stolen from a pool hall, and win the game.
He is ambidextrous around the rim. He swerved through three defenders to hit a left-handed reverse layup in traffic this season to beat Portland with an eyeblink of time left in the game.
He drove the baseline with his "off" hand (his left) and wormed around Antawn Jamison, knifing in for the game-winning layup later in that thrilling 2006 series, scoring an instant before the Washington cavalry came thundering over the hill.
He has made many dramatic shots. It would be hard, however, to top the 3-pointer that tied the epic fifth game at Detroit, just before his slalom run down the lane for his 24th and 25th straight points won it.
The Cavs trailed, 107-104. All the body angles that are so important in shooting mechanics seemed wrong. Heading to his left at top speed, with double- team help sicced on him, wheeling behind the arc, the only way to get open to brake the runaway train and fade back, the game absolutely, positively over if he missed - and James banged it home like it was a duck in an arcade. Detroit players, seated inches away, gaped at him in disbelief.
There is no denying that James has some traits that annoy fans. His sense of self is certainly healthy. Then again, with everyone touting him as the greatest, it could not happen if he did not believe it himself.
But look at him as player, and see how little self-aggrandizement has to do with his game. He could put up Wilt Chamberlain numbers if he were a me-first gunner. Instead, like Magic and Larry Bird, he is a great passer.
Such players are an example of unselfishness in a game too often dominated by ball-hogs. The most ridiculous criticism of James' spectacular career was for making the correct basketball play and passing in the last seconds to a wide-open 3-point shooter to try to win the first playoff game last year against Detroit.
Cleveland celebrates the fact that James is the youngest player ever to 10,000 points in NBA history. The greatest irony is, with all the points he has scored, he would rather pass
