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| We've seen this Lebron James saga before, it happened to a guy name Alex Rodriguez. |
I've been sitting here over the past week pondering a different sentiment towards Lebron James then I ever have. There's something about this Lebron, the second time around, that is different from the ones we've seen before. Yes, there are times when you just wanna strangle him, most notably when he gives up an opportunity to drive to the bucket in favor of a fade away 25-footer he's obviously going to miss. Or when he's struts around after an and-1 with his chin up and no emotion on his face; you want to slap that look right off him, I know. Don't let this talk fool you, I'm not falling in love with the most infamous villain in the history of sports. I simply have found a connection to an old feeling I had for another superstar who had as pressurized and highly-criticized rise to true greatness as well. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm talking about Alex Rodriguez.
A-Rod and Lebron had almost the exact upbringings in the world of fame and fortune. Lebron most notably appeared on a Sports Illustrated cover when he was a junior in high school. A junior in high school. I was so awestruck by the fact a high school junior was on the cover of the world's most famous sports magazine that I could have sworn he played ball for Notre Dame. I mean the "Irish" on the jersey was enough to think that he was playing college basketball, right? Rodriguez on the other hand didn't get flushed on the front pages(age 21) as quickly as Lebron, but then again baseball players need a quicker time to adjust to the pro-game than basketball players do. A-Rod was called up to the show in 1994 as an 18-year-old making him only the third shortstop of that age since 1900 to don a major league uniform. Both players played like phenoms the minute they stepped onto the field and because of that they took on expectations never labeled on a player in the history of their respective sports.
Statistically and physically both A-Rod and Lebron were in another stratosphere. Lebron was the most athletic player to ever step onto an NBA hardwood and his high-flying, dominating play was so absolutely mesmerizing it was like watching Picasso paint a picture at about a 1,000 times the speed. Rodriguez was a five-tool player with one of the most picture-perfect swings baseball had ever seen. A-Rod was on pace to smash all types of home run records and it was looking as if Lebron James was going to erase Oscar Robertson from the record books altogether. But while both players were running a muck on stat sheets everywhere, there was something missing from their games and their vocabularies: the word clutch.
In 2000, A-Rod received a 10-year, $252 million contract from the Texas Rangers that shook the sports world. Was anyone really worth that type of money? It didn't matter, A-Rod was widely considered to be the best player in baseball and that was how baseball and a booming economy was going to handle it. If the NBA didn't have a salary cap you could imagine Lebron being paid a contract even the gods would be happy with. But people still questioned these high priced players, claiming that they weren't worth it when it mattered. They said "A-Rod only hit homers up 10 or down 10" or that Lebron wasn't much more than a Youtube dunking sensation. Rodriguez didn't make it to the World Series until he was 34, throwing up laughable .071 and .133 batting averages in back-to-back postseasons in '05 and '06. In Lebron's first NBA Finals he was run out of the building by a far superior San Antonio squad, and honestly had no business being there. So the pressure on them was building to epic proportions, so bad that A-Rod was constantly booed in Yankee Stadium(especially after restructuring his contract from 25.2 mil a year to 27.5 mil a year, a deal that made baseball purists sick to their stomachs) and Lebron was absolutely chastised by Celtics fans after he gave up on his Cavaliers team in the 2010 playoffs, right before the earth-shattering 2010 free agency period.
Things finally came together for A-Rod in 2009 when he not only won his first World Series, but he put the Yankees on his back during the title run hitting .365, smashing six home runs and driving in 18 runs. Rodriguez had not only thrown the World Series monkey miles off of his back he also had completely validated his career with a postseason MVP award, an award ironically named after Babe Ruth, arguably the Yankee's greatest hitter. Carrying a team to a title can instantaneously erase 13 years of pitiful clutch performances. People came around on Rodriguez once he started to swing a hot stick when his team needed him most. They finally stopped looking at A-Rod as an overly talented pre-Madonna who just didn't have the guts to win when it mattered. Better yet, he now assumed the title of Yankee Legend, a title that is synonymous with the greatest players to ever play the game of baseball.
10 years may separate these two individuals, but their careers are so eerily similar. Lebron may only be in his ninth season, but basketball players primes don't work the same way as baseball players primes do. If we want to even out the two sports for the sake historical significance, Lebron is at the same point in his career as A-Rod was in his when he first won a championship. With the way Lebron is playing right now don't be surprised if he wins a title and is crowned Finals MVP. It would only be fitting.
I came around on A-Rod during that 2009 run. I began to respect his masterful swing and I tipped my cap to him when he won. I wasn't a Yankees fan, I will never be a Yankee fan, and actually I still hate the Yankees with a burning passion. I hate the Heat, can't stand their joker fans or their scummy team President, but if Lebron carries Miami to a title and earns Finals MVP I'll throw him a head nod in respect and then go back to hating his f**king guts.
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