This is a guest post from friend of the blog Eddie Perez, who can be found at @eddieperez23 on twitter.
This has been a fun week for the LeBron James detractors, as “LeBrick” and “LeFraud” tweets filled my timeline with the Heat losing 3 close games all ending on missed 3 point attempts by the “King” in the final seconds. This recent string of poor end game play has further fueled the perception that LeBron James is un-clutch, a choker, isn’t a “closer” (a popular, yet maddening term used by many basketball talking heads) and above all comes up small in the biggest situations. Couple the undeserved clutch reputation, with the ill-conceived off court “Decision” where he infamously took his talents to South Beach, and throw in the blame of playoff failures heaped solely on him and you have…Pre-2009 Alex Rodriguez.
While the impact an NBA superstar can have on a game is much greater then that of any position player in baseball, many of the terms used to describe LeBron were also previously used by people who disliked A-Rod, including many Yankee haters and even Yankee fans (i.e. the Jeter “zealots” and members of the Cody Ransom fan club). There is no question both James and A-Rod’s off-field actions (e.g. 2007 World series opt out, PED usage, aforementioned Decision, the silly “What should I do?” commercials) have turned fans to root against them and if you feel that way, that’s fine. I get it…most of us need a heel to root against, especially if our team isn’t playing, that’s part of what makes sports enjoyable. What I do have an issue with is when the dislike of a player completely warps the view of their performance. Think back to A-Rod:
- He was given the goat horns for the epic 2004 collapse, but if Mo closes Game 4 or Gordon doesn’t implode in Game 5, A-Rod probably wins the ALCS MVP
- As he struggled in the ’05 and ‘06 ALDS (a grand total of 9 games), A-Rod detractors and many Yankees fans began to dismiss his previous playoff statistics as a Mariner and even his great series versus the Twins in ’04 because he “wasn’t a Yankee” and because the “ALDS doesn’t matter because the Yankees are only about winning the World Series…blah blah blah”
- In 2007 despite having a historic MVP regular season and carrying the Yankees to the playoffs, his 4 for 17 postseason was the lead story for Yankees failures (instead of the two game C-M Wang meltdown)
- Even his manager fell prey to the madness dropping him to 8th in the lineup in a playoff game (Could you imagine Spoelstra or even Pat Riley making LeBron come off the bench in a deciding playoff game?)
All the walk-off homeruns, game-winning hits and MVP awards he had during those years were minimized, because “A-Fraud couldn’t get it done when it mattered most.” Never mind that the Yankees starting pitching was the main culprit in those playoff series losses, it was ALL A-ROD’s FAULT. Heck even players from other teams would chime in and take shots at A-Rod as did Torre in his book. Thankfully 2009 happened, silencing most of the critics.
LeBron finds himself today, where A-Rod was 2 years ago. A HOF player, who is hated and disliked by most fans/media, resulting in a skewed analysis of his play. Under this pretense, Regular season MVP awards are trivialized. Stellar post-season performance is conveniently forgotten (Regular season: 27.7ppg-7.1rpg-7.0apg, Postseason: 29.3ppg-8.4rpg-7.3apg). “Clutch” shots and “closing out” games (LeBron has made four game-winning shots in the playoffs and rates well statistically in clutch situations as of 2009) are swept under the rug. The fact that until this season, his supporting cast has been mediocre to poor (see the Cavs this season without him), will also be nothing more then a mere footnote for the LeBrick backers. The perception won’t change until LeBron wins a ring. Until then he’ll have to hear about how he doesn’t have the clutch gene (Ian O’Connor’d: Yes Jeter was born with this gene and A-Rod wasn’t) and how he’s afraid to take and make big shots. A-Rod finally broke through and LeBron will one day as well. On that night I hope LeBron hooks up with A-Rod once again, this time to get wasted on championship champagne. That is one scene I want the A-Fraud/LeFraud supporters to all be witnesses too.
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13 Responses to We Are All False Witnesses: First A-Rod and Now LeBron
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TIQ IQ
….or do you mean that Lebron finds himself hated by a segment of the fanbase who set ridiculous expectations (i.e. “He MUST come to my team! We earned it after years of sucking!”), much like Alex did? Sure.
To most rational sports fans, a brief slump is a brief slump is a brief slump, and that’s what I see Lebron in. Glad to see some agreement there.
The thing everybody has to remember about Arod is, nobody is talking about him like that anymore. I feel the reason for that was his performance in the ’09 play-offs and World Series, and I don’t think I’m alone in that department.
However, I was one of the guys who slammed him for not performing at a “high” level while in the earlier play-offs. Right or wrong the attention comes because of his paycheck, that and the display his agent put on during the WS in the opt out year. So let’s not cry too many tears for poor Mr. Rodriguez, after all he’s dating a woman now that not too many of us would have a shot at, he has a salary that fewer get a crack at, and he gets to play for the Yanks everyday.
Really why should anyone care if the fans were mean to him or Lebron, they gotta know the derision’s gonna follow them no matter what, just because lots of people don’t like it if they perceive a person’s better off than they are.
I believe both those guy’s have thicker skin than people give them credit for.
Next to Joe Dimaggio’s career 361 Hr vs 369 K’s, my other favorite stats for a Yankee are Derek Jeter’s regular vs. post season lines.
Regular .314/.385/.452
Post .309/.377/.472
During the post season (about a seasons worth of games) he has had some great series and some crap series, but over time it looks a lot like his regular season. My guess is 95% of all players, given a large enough sample sizes worth of playing time, would put up stat lines that are similar between regular and post season. And I think that would rise to 99.99% of all “All-Stars”.
Which brings me to this, and I suppose I know the answer is “because of the stakes involved”, but why are people aware of SSS issue at the start of a season or career, but then don’t get that it’s the same concept, SSS are SSS no matter when they happen, when it comes to a playoff series?
I’d say that having identical post-season stats to the regular season is a significant upgrade given that you are playing championship-caliber teams that are only using their top starting pitchers and players. Whether it’s just legend or reality somehow Jeter has gotten his hits and made defensive plays when they matter most.
Can anyone see A-Rod diving into the seats in the 12th inning and risking his face and his career for a foul ball? And if he did, does he catch it? Jeter did…and he came out with the ball.
Add some luck (and Jeffrey Maier/Mayer….however he spells it) and the Jeter legend seems bigger than life.
Now add the pure class of Jeter to the mix (think Alex and Maddona/Kate Hudson/…) and you’ve got why Jeter is a Yankee legend and A-rod will always be just another really superior player.
I’d agree that similar stats can be perceived as better in the post season, but not every team has a Randy Johnson or Pedro Martinez, and they all have bullpens. And being a Jeter fanboy at this point, I don’t ever want to take anything away from what he has done.
Some of what Jeter has done has turned to legend, but selective memories means you aren’t taking into account some of his less than spectacular post seasons. Sometimes he has gotten the hits and made the plays when they mattered most, but sometimes he hasn’t, that’s the point. Given enough time, with a talented player, at some point they all will come through when it matters most, AND they will all fail when it matters most. At least that’s my theory. I seem to rememeber a recent post season where A-rod, time and again came through when it mattered most. His face wasn’t bloody, but his actions caused the draining of blood from a few relievers faces.
And I’ll grant you the class thing, as far as a fan’s perspective is concerned, but in this discussion I don’t think it really has any affect on clutch performance.
Nice article. My friends know I’ve been rooting for the C’s since Russell/Cousy and thought I’d be upset about the LeBron/D Wade/Bosh deal. I did think the talk and especially the ceremony were more than a little over the top, but I applauded them for getting together like that. If I were an NBA star, that’s what I’d want to do as well.
I think Lebron is a great player, but not as good as a lot of the ESPN types are saying. That has nothing to do with ‘clutch’ (as mentioned in your article, he’s done just fine in that aspect), but does have to do with my opinion of his all-around game. All of that being said, I deplore the feeding-frenzy/pile-on aspect of journalism. My first exposure to how nasty it could get was Maris in 61 (the year, not the movie-which is a lot better movie than I thought it would be). Once a few journalists got away with making up some pretty nasty stuff, many of the rest of the sporting media did the same thing. ESPN’s nastiness regarding Arod after he signed with Texas should have been deplored by everyone else-instead, almost to a person, they embraced it.
I’ll actually agree on some points and disagree on some others. While I agree that Lebron is suffering from his first extended taste of negative PR, I disagree that (1) he’s getting it nearly as badly as A-Rod ever got it and (2) he’s universally hated.
There’s still a segment of the media population that has a vested interest in seeing Lebron succeed. Heck, ESPN even poached Brian Windhorst, formerly of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, to work for them because they wanted the one and only guy with true access to Lebron for their online and TV content. ESPN may play both sides of the fence on occasion but they’re still a net proponent of Lebron.
The same could never be said of Alex Rodriguez. He took his fair share of criticism and then took an extra fifty helpings of unfair criticism on top of that.
agreed
MJ,
Good points. On the whole ARod has been dumped on more then LeBron, but the similarities still exist.What we’re seeing now is how LBJ’s getting most of the criticism, while Wade despite playing very poorly in the “big” games this year, is given a complete pass b/c he won a ring in the past (eerily similar to Jeter/ARod). If the Heat don’t win I suspect some of that ESPN protection will begin to erode as it has for Tiger Woods. But thinking back you’re right, despite the parallels between the two as a whole the ARod hate has been an order of magnitude larger.
Most people aren’t jumping on LeBron because they hate him for leaving Cleveland and going to Miami, most REASONABLE basketball fans are mad at him for 1. “The Decision” and 2. The celebration Wade, Bosh and Bron had the day after they signed where James said they weren’t going to “win 1 championship, not 2, not 3, not 4, not 5, not 6″ and implied they are going to win 7 rings, it rubbed me the wrong way and I have been and still am a huge LeBron James fan.
If you are going to put a bullseye on your back you can’t complain if people start taking shots, so while I like LeBron and I respect what he does on the court I don’t feel bad for him for asking for all of this. He made himself the center of an hour long TV show, he chose to say this Heat team will win more rings than Michael Jordan, he wanted to play with his buddies and be in a media market like Miami… None of this is wrong but it does have side effects and you know that before you do it, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Those 2 things have definitely fanned the flames, but he has been labeled with the ARod-eque choke tag before the Decision. He was accused of “quitting” in the series vs Boston in a game he had a triple double. Compare his team to the Celtics/Magic/Spurs teams he went up against, and it really wasn’t fair to expect his team to win. Now he’s afraid to take the big shots, which when you look at any clutch metrics or just view his playoff game log is a complete distortion of reality. As the “heel” team of the NBA now, no doubt he’s feeling the side effects you referred too. LeBron was headed down the ARod path of media/fan treatment and the Decision/WWF style intro accelerated it.
Interestingly, someone I rarely agree with, Ian O’Connor posted a story tonight:
http://sports.espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/columns/story?columnist=oconnor_ian&id=6182780
Talking to ARod about LeBron and the similar experiences they’ve had.The scary part is I think this is the first time O’Connor and I are on the same page. ;)
Hey Perez, you’re a gifted writer, but not much of a researcher to your claims. The Cavs are in no way the same “cast” that supported Lebron last season. Last season the Cavs had Shaq, Delonte, and Ilgauskas. Furthermore, their best player, Varejao, has been out since the beginning of this season, Mo has just been traded, and JJ is also recently been benched for injury. So please inform me how the Cavs this season resemble the dynamic team that Cleveland had last year? Face it, the Cavs of last year (with Lebron) would walk all over the Heat (with Lebron) of this year. Lebron is a fool, he had the championship team up in Cleveland and got impatient.
ChrisO,
I respectfully disagree with your assessment. The fact that Varajao is their best player speaks volumes of how lousy that roster is. He’s a nice energy guy, but nothing more then a solid role player on a good team. Varajao played until 1/5/11 before he got injured…the Cavs at that time were a pathetic 8-27.
http://tinyurl.com/4unscjw
In putting that 8-27 record together, Mo Williams was also their. Shaq and Ilgauskas last year were shells of their former selves averaging 12ppg and 7ppg respectively…Hickson buried behind them last year, is playing at a higher level then either of those 2 this year. Delonte West is an barely a rotation player in the NBA. In summary the same supporting cast LeBron led to 61 wins in 2010, was 8-27 the following year without him. The team was dreadful without him. There’s no doubt the Heat current roster is severely flawed with no inside muscle (Bosh is like tissue paper soft) and no defense at the PG position where they’re getting scorched, but in no way, shape or form is the Cavs roster anything close to what the Heat have this year. LeBron wasn’t going to win in Cle with that team, whether they would’ve brought someone in we’ll never know.