Dwight Howard scored the final basket for the Lakers in the championship-clinching game! Just like all Lakers fans assumed would happen back in *checks notes* 2012!
A 30’ shot, too
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Raijin QuickfootI'm your Huckleberry YOU'RE NO DAISYRegistered User, ClubPAregular
So, the worst debate in sports, but once again the most essential, Jordan vs. Lebron.
I'm workshopping a newish take on this, tell me what you guys think.
When we debate Lebron vs. Jordan, what we usually end up talking about is almost never their basketball skills, their stats, or their accomplishments, except for as symbols of the broader debate, which is about values, and narrative. For me, what ends up being the most persuasive case for Jordan over Lebron is the linearity and perfection of his narrative. He won at the lower level, was an immediate star, had to work to learn some lessons, eventually dethroned his nemesis, and won forevermore. Lebron's has many more twists and turns. More failures, more shades of gray. The victories are less total, more pyhrric, and less complete.
In the end, these two players careers represent much better the kind of characters and stories we as a culture appreciated during their time. For Jordan, who came up in the 80s and reigned in the 90s, he is the real life version of the kind of action, sports, or kung fu movie heros we watched at the time. They had the perfect killer mentality, were effortlessly cool, and always iconic. What they did didn't even need to be plausible, certainly not relatable, as long as they threw out a nice one liner as they walked away from the explosion. The conflict was always external, some big bad opponent, who is always overcome. The hero never questions, or becomes insecure, or displays vulnerability. In the end, they walk into the sunset on top, leaving us clamoring for more. In fact, they eventually give us more, in the form of a sequel, where someone finds them in self imposed exile, bring them back to fight the new breed of baddies that can't be handled without them, then win again. If they were a cop, its usually because they were too good for the corrupt force that's holding them back (Reinsdorf).
The Jordan fable really has all the cliches, even down to the loyal sidekick who sometimes gets his moments to shine, the wacky wildcard brought into spice up the sequel, and the mentor figure who dies and gives the hero our only moment of self doubt. Its a perfect distillation of who our heroes were in the 80s and 90s. The only part that doesn't fit, is the awkard Rocky 5 like comeback to the Wizards. As we get to the turn of the millennium, we saw our old heroes getting old, and we promptly reject it, excise it from collective memory. Just like Jordan on the Wizards, everyone pretends it doesn't happen. Not because Jordan wasn't good (he averaged over 20 and nearly dragged the worst team in the league to playoffs as 39 year old), but because we weren't ready for that kind of story. Despite something that should add another element to his legacy and career, his partisans would rather act like it doesn't exist because it mars the perfect sheen.
Lebron, is much more of the kind of hero we got in the 2000s, 2010s, and probably 2020s. Now, the cultural centerpieces are not Rockys, John Mclains, or Terminators, but complex antiheroes in serialized television. We don't get the linear narratives, perfect endings, and perrennial triumphs, instead we get flawed humans, internal struggle, and peaks and valleys. We don't even get the breaks anymore, with the hero riding into the sunset (like Jordan retirements or breaks between sequels), instead we get a grind, where year after year the player faces new challenges, mental and physical, and brings in new members of the cast. The biggest moments are often personal failures (2011 Finals, the decision), but the payoffs can be so much richer. There is nothing in the Jordan ouvre which matches the 2016 championship for thematic resonance and catharsis. It also goes on much longer, with quality starting to waver a bit in the back half. If Jordan was the KickBoxer, Lebron is Jon Snow. He doesn't have the perfect record, but his narrative is more personally resonant.
As Lebron goes into the 2020s, we'll see if his story continues to evolve in the same ways. If I had to guess, I would imagine it will. I think the overall narrative theme of the 2020s in America will be empire in decline. I think we might see something similar on the court.
They’re totally going to promote Ty Lue without realizing Lebron made him look good, aren’t they?
Lol
Ty Lue isn't bad. Ty Lue is a good coach. The problem is that he's a good coach in a sea of serviceable-to-good coaches. The difficulty comes in finding the next Spoelstra or Nurse.
The problem is the Clippers very clearly had a culture issue that festered all season until finally bubbling over at the end.
Promoting Ty Lue from assistant to head coach doesn't seem like a path to solving that issue. Especially because his Cleveland tenure was more about being a figurehead while Lebron set the culture tone. Kawhi and PG are not the leader that Lebron is, which puts more onus on the guy who's most famous for being stepped over by Iverson in the NBA Finals. And I don't really know if Lue has the coaching chops to overcome that.
3DS: 2981-5304-3227
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Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
The problem is the Clippers very clearly had a culture issue that festered all season until finally bubbling over at the end.
Promoting Ty Lue from assistant to head coach doesn't seem like a path to solving that issue. Especially because his Cleveland tenure was more about being a figurehead while Lebron set the culture tone. Kawhi and PG are not the leader that Lebron is, which puts more onus on the guy who's most famous for being stepped over by Iverson in the NBA Finals. And I don't really know if Lue has the coaching chops to overcome that.
To be fair being an assistant coach is not nearly the same thing as being the head coach. But yes, it doesn't bode well that he was part of the previous Clippers regime and they had a lot of cultural issues.
The Cavs were probably the most miserable group of players the two seasons after their title
Losing Lebron and becoming irrelevant was a more pleasant experience for most of those dudes
Not a Lebron bash- I think knowing you’re going to be in and lose the finals, so playing like 100 games and getting nothing for it, broke a lot of those guys
There was an really excellent article posted on BlazersEdge, the sbnation blazers fan blog, that is about Damian Lillard and how he fits into the Joseph Cambell's Hero's Journey narrative structure that I thought was excellent. I've excerpted a bit here, but if you like this kind of abstract thinking about the NBA, or care about Damian Lillard' career arc, it's worth reading the whole longish piece.
Campbell calls the final stage of the hero’s journey The Return. In it, the hero brings the Holy Grail back to his or her home, forever transforming the community . The hero’s journey has not been completed until they take what they’ve learned and use it to inspire positive change in the world around them. Think Luke restoring balance to the Force, or Simba saving the Pride Lands.
Lillard’s Aunt Val summarized the final stage nicely in a mantra she would repeat to a young Damian: “Our gifts are given not for us. They are given to us to share with others.” The story’s not about the superpowers. It’s about how you choose to use them.
LeBron’s narrative hinges on his ability to win at a more prolific rate than anyone else in league history. He has become unstoppable and inevitable, making it to nine of the last ten NBA Finals. If he were an Avengers character, he’d be Thanos, a titan who dominates the competition on a quest to collect more jewelry (He can even snap his fingers and make half the Lakers roster disappear).
Lillard provides a different take on the traditional sports hero. The night he was drafted, his father told him, “Now you are in the NBA and in a position where you can pick other people up...Don’t just think of it as you are a basketball player. You can be bigger. This is bigger than you.”
In a league shaped by stories of individual transcendence and superstars so talented they became larger-than-life icons, there’s little room for a sentiment like This is bigger than you. In his own words, Lillard measures success differently from other superstars. His impact cannot always be measured in wins and losses.
Yes, Dame could conform to the rest of the league and follow a more traditional path of superstardom. Yes, he could prioritize winning above all else, join the superstar rat race, jump ship and join a super team. Or he could trade away his favorite teammates to build one in Portland. All these options would give him a much better chance at winning a ring than if he stays the course.
But is that really the ending we want?
LeBron has mastered the art of telling a certain story. Maybe instead of trying to fit Damian into a similar narrative, we should let him tell a different one.
I just love ideas about how we can find more success conditions in sports beyond the capitalist, dehumanizing, shallow binary of "win titles or be loser forever" that dominates sports discourse. There are so many more ways to appreciate sports, be they aesthetic, narrative, artistic, or what have you when we find more type of positive outcomes, and don't require every result to be so zero sum (or, honestly, negative sum since we always have 29 losers and 1 winner).
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Raijin QuickfootI'm your Huckleberry YOU'RE NO DAISYRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Stan Van Gundy will be the new head coach in New Orleans.
This is a pic of him putting on a basketball camp about a year ago...
I love Shawn Kemp, my all time favorite player but what is he going teach kids at camp?
Be 6’10”, shredded, and the most athletic man in the world and you have a chance at NBA stardom?
I remember he had relatively small hands for his size. Kids, you, too, can overcome slight disadvantages in life. You just need all those other things listed.
I just had a thought about that Jordan vs. Lebron debate and the point @burbo made a few posts up. I just listened to a podcast (not at all sports related) where the guest talked about Jordan vs. LeBron, but not from a playing perspective, but access. Jordan was this mythical figure, because we only ever heard and saw his hightlights. We are able to follow basically every move, and especially misstep, modern players make. And it made me think, what would Jordans legacy be, if we were able to follow him as closely as we can LeBron now? It took Jordan 7 years to get to the top and win a title. How much would todays 24h news cycle and legions of arm chair GMs and analysts treat those 7 years? What about him going to play baseball in the middle of his prime?
I think my point is - if LeBron and Jordan switched places somehow, would LeBron be the same mythical figure? I think yes. Obviously the game is played alot differently today and there are obvious differences in their games, but I think the whole way we have access to todays players and the whole media landscape and their ability to lay a players life completely bare have an equal role. The same role as their oncourt performance and physical gifts have.
You could be right. I think that a big part of Jordan's legacy is that he had that invincibility to him that Lebron has never really had. However, we do scrub Jordan's legacy to make him appear more invincible. Like, we don't count his year in baseball as losing (the dude took a mental break from basketball because it was too much. You don't think Lebron could have used one of those somewhere in his 8 straight finals?). We excuse away the loss the Magic. We ignore the fact that he retired because his team was going to be bad, and we pretend like his final years in Washington didn't exist. All of the times when he was proven not invincible, is either excused, or actually spun to somehow make him seem even more invincible.
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Raijin QuickfootI'm your Huckleberry YOU'RE NO DAISYRegistered User, ClubPAregular
I don’t think people would like Jordan very much with today’s access.
He’s not a good person at all.
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Raijin QuickfootI'm your Huckleberry YOU'RE NO DAISYRegistered User, ClubPAregular
edited October 2020
Also, it is heavily believed his 2 years of baseball were essentially a suspension for gambling.
Ok...maybe not heavily believed.
Raijin Quickfoot on
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ButtersA glass of some milksRegistered Userregular
It's heavily believed the moon landing was faked as well
You could be right. I think that a big part of Jordan's legacy is that he had that invincibility to him that Lebron has never really had. However, we do scrub Jordan's legacy to make him appear more invincible. Like, we don't count his year in baseball as losing (the dude took a mental break from basketball because it was too much. You don't think Lebron could have used one of those somewhere in his 8 straight finals?). We excuse away the loss the Magic. We ignore the fact that he retired because his team was going to be bad, and we pretend like his final years in Washington didn't exist. All of the times when he was proven not invincible, is either excused, or actually spun to somehow make him seem even more invincible.
...he took a mental break because it was too much, yeah, but part of why it was "too much," was that his dad got murdered
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
I love Shawn Kemp, my all time favorite player but what is he going teach kids at camp?
Be 6’10”, shredded, and the most athletic man in the world and you have a chance at NBA stardom?
I don't know why but this just got under my skin. Even as a joke it feels like a goosey take. Sorry, just made me twitch
I understand that Shawn Kemp was a very skilled big man in the NBA who could teach kids a lot about basketball.
He’s my favorite player. In no way do I think he was only super athletic...though he was and it did help immensely.
I get ya! And I do not think you were trying to imply otherwise, it just buzzed inside my skull and I needed to post it, no worries
As far as switching Jordan and Lebron, I wouldn't discount Jordan as he is an extremely competitive person (and huge jerk) and I believe his drive to win would put him right back into mythological territory. Would he succeed in the ESPN/social media era with the same decisions as in the past? Highly doubtful. But I look at his success in not only playing, but in marketing himself and his legend, and I think he'd do just fine. Plus that puts him at UNC during Roy's first year with a team that will win the Tournament in 2005, (and adds Hansbrough in 2006) so that'd be fun
You could be right. I think that a big part of Jordan's legacy is that he had that invincibility to him that Lebron has never really had. However, we do scrub Jordan's legacy to make him appear more invincible. Like, we don't count his year in baseball as losing (the dude took a mental break from basketball because it was too much. You don't think Lebron could have used one of those somewhere in his 8 straight finals?). We excuse away the loss the Magic. We ignore the fact that he retired because his team was going to be bad, and we pretend like his final years in Washington didn't exist. All of the times when he was proven not invincible, is either excused, or actually spun to somehow make him seem even more invincible.
...he took a mental break because it was too much, yeah, but part of why it was "too much," was that his dad got murdered
Well, yeah, exactly. I wasn't saying that too imply he's weak, I said it to imply that he actually is human and not a marble statue. But his myth tends to scrub away that relatable, personal, human struggle, and usually replaces it with more of an "Alexander wept. . ." Type of story beat.
I love Shawn Kemp, my all time favorite player but what is he going teach kids at camp?
Be 6’10”, shredded, and the most athletic man in the world and you have a chance at NBA stardom?
I don't know why but this just got under my skin. Even as a joke it feels like a goosey take. Sorry, just made me twitch
I understand that Shawn Kemp was a very skilled big man in the NBA who could teach kids a lot about basketball.
He’s my favorite player. In no way do I think he was only super athletic...though he was and it did help immensely.
I get ya! And I do not think you were trying to imply otherwise, it just buzzed inside my skull and I needed to post it, no worries
As far as switching Jordan and Lebron, I wouldn't discount Jordan as he is an extremely competitive person (and huge jerk) and I believe his drive to win would put him right back into mythological territory. Would he succeed in the ESPN/social media era with the same decisions as in the past? Highly doubtful. But I look at his success in not only playing, but in marketing himself and his legend, and I think he'd do just fine. Plus that puts him at UNC during Roy's first year with a team that will win the Tournament in 2005, (and adds Hansbrough in 2006) so that'd be fun
Oh, he would definitely succeed. I guess my point was - switch them around and the narratives switch around as well. LeBron would be this mythical figure and we would scrutinize Jordan way more in todays media world.
we'll get there with lebron at some point, history's already sort of scrubbed the whole "taking my talents to south beach," thing out of his narrative
It didn't happen right away but he eventually expressed regret and then full on apologized in a published open letter when he returned to Cleveland. That letter is something I can't ever see Jordan doing.
Also, I think it's common knowledge that LeBron isn't the easiest teammate in the world either. He definitely hogs the spotlight (something that bugged Kyrie a lot) and he has a habit of calling out teammates and his organization through the media when he thinks they aren't doing their jobs. He also plays favorites with players that sign with Rich Paul which leads to events like Wiggins being shown the door before they even kick the tires on him and Tristan Thompson getting paid double what he's worth. The drawbacks for LeBron are well known to anyone that pays close enough attention.
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Tampa just did this for the Lightning winning, plus bars are open there.
{Twitter, Everybody's doing it. }{Writing and Story Blog}
A 30’ shot, too
I believe as teams were eliminated, families were allowed in with testing and quarantine procedures.
I'm workshopping a newish take on this, tell me what you guys think.
When we debate Lebron vs. Jordan, what we usually end up talking about is almost never their basketball skills, their stats, or their accomplishments, except for as symbols of the broader debate, which is about values, and narrative. For me, what ends up being the most persuasive case for Jordan over Lebron is the linearity and perfection of his narrative. He won at the lower level, was an immediate star, had to work to learn some lessons, eventually dethroned his nemesis, and won forevermore. Lebron's has many more twists and turns. More failures, more shades of gray. The victories are less total, more pyhrric, and less complete.
In the end, these two players careers represent much better the kind of characters and stories we as a culture appreciated during their time. For Jordan, who came up in the 80s and reigned in the 90s, he is the real life version of the kind of action, sports, or kung fu movie heros we watched at the time. They had the perfect killer mentality, were effortlessly cool, and always iconic. What they did didn't even need to be plausible, certainly not relatable, as long as they threw out a nice one liner as they walked away from the explosion. The conflict was always external, some big bad opponent, who is always overcome. The hero never questions, or becomes insecure, or displays vulnerability. In the end, they walk into the sunset on top, leaving us clamoring for more. In fact, they eventually give us more, in the form of a sequel, where someone finds them in self imposed exile, bring them back to fight the new breed of baddies that can't be handled without them, then win again. If they were a cop, its usually because they were too good for the corrupt force that's holding them back (Reinsdorf).
The Jordan fable really has all the cliches, even down to the loyal sidekick who sometimes gets his moments to shine, the wacky wildcard brought into spice up the sequel, and the mentor figure who dies and gives the hero our only moment of self doubt. Its a perfect distillation of who our heroes were in the 80s and 90s. The only part that doesn't fit, is the awkard Rocky 5 like comeback to the Wizards. As we get to the turn of the millennium, we saw our old heroes getting old, and we promptly reject it, excise it from collective memory. Just like Jordan on the Wizards, everyone pretends it doesn't happen. Not because Jordan wasn't good (he averaged over 20 and nearly dragged the worst team in the league to playoffs as 39 year old), but because we weren't ready for that kind of story. Despite something that should add another element to his legacy and career, his partisans would rather act like it doesn't exist because it mars the perfect sheen.
Lebron, is much more of the kind of hero we got in the 2000s, 2010s, and probably 2020s. Now, the cultural centerpieces are not Rockys, John Mclains, or Terminators, but complex antiheroes in serialized television. We don't get the linear narratives, perfect endings, and perrennial triumphs, instead we get flawed humans, internal struggle, and peaks and valleys. We don't even get the breaks anymore, with the hero riding into the sunset (like Jordan retirements or breaks between sequels), instead we get a grind, where year after year the player faces new challenges, mental and physical, and brings in new members of the cast. The biggest moments are often personal failures (2011 Finals, the decision), but the payoffs can be so much richer. There is nothing in the Jordan ouvre which matches the 2016 championship for thematic resonance and catharsis. It also goes on much longer, with quality starting to waver a bit in the back half. If Jordan was the KickBoxer, Lebron is Jon Snow. He doesn't have the perfect record, but his narrative is more personally resonant.
As Lebron goes into the 2020s, we'll see if his story continues to evolve in the same ways. If I had to guess, I would imagine it will. I think the overall narrative theme of the 2020s in America will be empire in decline. I think we might see something similar on the court.
Lol
3DS: 2981-5304-3227
Ty Lue isn't bad. Ty Lue is a good coach. The problem is that he's a good coach in a sea of serviceable-to-good coaches. The difficulty comes in finding the next Spoelstra or Nurse.
Promoting Ty Lue from assistant to head coach doesn't seem like a path to solving that issue. Especially because his Cleveland tenure was more about being a figurehead while Lebron set the culture tone. Kawhi and PG are not the leader that Lebron is, which puts more onus on the guy who's most famous for being stepped over by Iverson in the NBA Finals. And I don't really know if Lue has the coaching chops to overcome that.
3DS: 2981-5304-3227
To be fair being an assistant coach is not nearly the same thing as being the head coach. But yes, it doesn't bode well that he was part of the previous Clippers regime and they had a lot of cultural issues.
Losing Lebron and becoming irrelevant was a more pleasant experience for most of those dudes
Not a Lebron bash- I think knowing you’re going to be in and lose the finals, so playing like 100 games and getting nothing for it, broke a lot of those guys
https://www.blazersedge.com/2020/10/20/21515405/lebron-james-damian-lillard-trail-blazers-lakers-nba-narratives-rumors
Lillard’s Aunt Val summarized the final stage nicely in a mantra she would repeat to a young Damian: “Our gifts are given not for us. They are given to us to share with others.” The story’s not about the superpowers. It’s about how you choose to use them.
LeBron’s narrative hinges on his ability to win at a more prolific rate than anyone else in league history. He has become unstoppable and inevitable, making it to nine of the last ten NBA Finals. If he were an Avengers character, he’d be Thanos, a titan who dominates the competition on a quest to collect more jewelry (He can even snap his fingers and make half the Lakers roster disappear).
Lillard provides a different take on the traditional sports hero. The night he was drafted, his father told him, “Now you are in the NBA and in a position where you can pick other people up...Don’t just think of it as you are a basketball player. You can be bigger. This is bigger than you.”
In a league shaped by stories of individual transcendence and superstars so talented they became larger-than-life icons, there’s little room for a sentiment like This is bigger than you. In his own words, Lillard measures success differently from other superstars. His impact cannot always be measured in wins and losses.
Yes, Dame could conform to the rest of the league and follow a more traditional path of superstardom. Yes, he could prioritize winning above all else, join the superstar rat race, jump ship and join a super team. Or he could trade away his favorite teammates to build one in Portland. All these options would give him a much better chance at winning a ring than if he stays the course.
But is that really the ending we want?
LeBron has mastered the art of telling a certain story. Maybe instead of trying to fit Damian into a similar narrative, we should let him tell a different one.
I just love ideas about how we can find more success conditions in sports beyond the capitalist, dehumanizing, shallow binary of "win titles or be loser forever" that dominates sports discourse. There are so many more ways to appreciate sports, be they aesthetic, narrative, artistic, or what have you when we find more type of positive outcomes, and don't require every result to be so zero sum (or, honestly, negative sum since we always have 29 losers and 1 winner).
On October 30 Shawn Kemp’s dispensary, Kemp’s Cannabis opens in Seattle.
It’s the first black owned dispensary in the city.
I wish I could go!
Also, whew, that's a lot of weed!
For sure completely unrelated
...
He’s probably not as big as he looks there
This is a pic of him putting on a basketball camp about a year ago...
I love Shawn Kemp, my all time favorite player but what is he going teach kids at camp?
Be 6’10”, shredded, and the most athletic man in the world and you have a chance at NBA stardom?
I remember he had relatively small hands for his size. Kids, you, too, can overcome slight disadvantages in life. You just need all those other things listed.
I don't know why but this just got under my skin. Even as a joke it feels like a goosey take. Sorry, just made me twitch
I understand that Shawn Kemp was a very skilled big man in the NBA who could teach kids a lot about basketball.
He’s my favorite player. In no way do I think he was only super athletic...though he was and it did help immensely.
I think my point is - if LeBron and Jordan switched places somehow, would LeBron be the same mythical figure? I think yes. Obviously the game is played alot differently today and there are obvious differences in their games, but I think the whole way we have access to todays players and the whole media landscape and their ability to lay a players life completely bare have an equal role. The same role as their oncourt performance and physical gifts have.
He’s not a good person at all.
Ok...maybe not heavily believed.
Don’t let him hear you say that!
...he took a mental break because it was too much, yeah, but part of why it was "too much," was that his dad got murdered
I get ya! And I do not think you were trying to imply otherwise, it just buzzed inside my skull and I needed to post it, no worries
As far as switching Jordan and Lebron, I wouldn't discount Jordan as he is an extremely competitive person (and huge jerk) and I believe his drive to win would put him right back into mythological territory. Would he succeed in the ESPN/social media era with the same decisions as in the past? Highly doubtful. But I look at his success in not only playing, but in marketing himself and his legend, and I think he'd do just fine. Plus that puts him at UNC during Roy's first year with a team that will win the Tournament in 2005, (and adds Hansbrough in 2006) so that'd be fun
Well, yeah, exactly. I wasn't saying that too imply he's weak, I said it to imply that he actually is human and not a marble statue. But his myth tends to scrub away that relatable, personal, human struggle, and usually replaces it with more of an "Alexander wept. . ." Type of story beat.
Oh, he would definitely succeed. I guess my point was - switch them around and the narratives switch around as well. LeBron would be this mythical figure and we would scrutinize Jordan way more in todays media world.
It didn't happen right away but he eventually expressed regret and then full on apologized in a published open letter when he returned to Cleveland. That letter is something I can't ever see Jordan doing.
Also, I think it's common knowledge that LeBron isn't the easiest teammate in the world either. He definitely hogs the spotlight (something that bugged Kyrie a lot) and he has a habit of calling out teammates and his organization through the media when he thinks they aren't doing their jobs. He also plays favorites with players that sign with Rich Paul which leads to events like Wiggins being shown the door before they even kick the tires on him and Tristan Thompson getting paid double what he's worth. The drawbacks for LeBron are well known to anyone that pays close enough attention.