Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
LeBron: Older & better
This series win would be LeBron’s finest hour
Dave Hyde says a finals win now would be James’ best.
A career isn’t a static idea. Even the greatest careers.
He can’t do it himself. Can he?
He won’t win one-onfive. Will he?
LeBron James starts his eighth consecutive NBA Finals tonight against Golden State, and the question this time isn’t whether he can win another ring. The question is how he even got here, lugging this Cavaliers roster like locomotive up a mountain.
This isn’t a mouth-shutting run, as his first titles with the Heat were. This is a jaw-dropping one. But the answer to how he’s done it is so simple-Simon basic that anyone who follows sports will need a moment to digest: He’s old and improved. He’s 33, in his 15th season, and still honing his game.
LeBron belongs to that rare club inside even among the all-time greats, the discontented one where legends are incapable of simply riding greatness to wherever it takes them. He didn’t have an inside game when he arrived with the Heat. Remember? He developed one, as well as a play-any-position mindset.
Now compare the Heat LeBron to the one that takes the court tonight. It’s not even close. He’s better. He’s stronger. He has more weapons.
“It’s remarkable,’’ Golden State coach Steve Kerr said. “You think back five years ago when he was with Miami, they were playing the Spurs in the final and the Spurs were going under every screen, daring him
to shoot. Contrast that to know where he shoots fadeaway threes from 30 feet to close games out.
“His confidence level in his shot is his biggest thing. It is pretty remarkable when you have a guy already considered one of the top few players to ever play the game can make that much improvement late in his career.”
This is the part that’s missing from those insipid LeBron-vs-Michael Jordan debate. It’s not that LeBron isn’t done. It’s that his game is somehow still rising. This is something we don’t talk about much in sports and should. A career isn’t a static idea. Even the greatest careers.
“You guys always talk to me, ‘What’s your ceiling?’ ” LeBron said Wednesday at an NBA Finals media day news conference. “I said I never had a ceiling. I just want to maximize what I can do and be as good as I can be. At one of the post-game interviews after one of our games this year [a reporter] asked me, ‘How do you feel and how are you able to do this?’
“I told her, it was the best I’ve ever felt in years. I don’t know if she believed me. I don’t know if you guys believed me. I felt that. I continued to play at an all-time level and standard and, hopefully, I can continue. I’ve been blessed to be available. That’s what I take pride in.”
It’s good that everyone has come around on LeBron from his Heat days when he was public enemy No. 1. It’s revealing this NBA spring, too, because this isn’t even yet his best accomplishment when you stack them up.
That’s not to be dismissive. It’s just to cite recency bias as people celebrate today. Look at his top feats:
1. Bringing Cleveland back from 3-1 deficit against Golden State for the title in 2016. Speaks for itself.
2. Beating championship-era Boston in Game 6 of the 2012 playoffs with 45 points, 15 rebounds and 45 minutes en route to first title with Heat. Don’t undersell this. The Heat stood on the brink of infamy against a seasoned Boston team that would have labeled The Big Three a bust.
3. Taking the 2007 Cavaliers to the Final. The starting lineup: LeBron, Drew Gooden, Sasha Pavlovic, Larry Hughes, Zydrunas Ilgauskas. That’s worse than the Kevin Love-aided lineup this time.
4. Losing the 2015 NBA Finals. Love was hurt. Irving was lost in Game 1. Sound familiar? He averaged 35.8 points and 13.3 rebounds in a six-game series loss to this Golden State team.
5. This run to the Finals. He has seven 40-point-plus games (Dwyane Wade has seven in his career). Two of those 40-plus games, against Indiana and Cleveland, came in Game 7s.
Of course, if he somehow beats Golden State, one-on-five, this becomes his top accomplishment. But even the old and improved LeBron can’t do that. Can he?