I don't even know what to classify LeBron James as anymore.
Hundreds of writers have written thousands of thinkpieces in an effort to describe the kind of athlete that he is, and at a certain point I think you kind of need to throw your hands up in the air, accept that he's a literal witch, and move on with your life.
How else can you explain a guy who is currently doing this, all while playing amongst the very best players that the current NBA has to offer?
LeBron James leads everyone in everything ... literally pic.twitter.com/gvhXehdaDV
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) June 17, 2016
It's stupid and ridiculous and really all the best adjectives have already been taken so I'll leave it at that.
The interesting thing about LeBron, though, isn't that he's competing against the Warriors and Steph Curry and a Factory of Sadness that's consistently turned a profit for the last 50 years or so, it's that he's fighting to make professional Ohio sports an actual point of pride for people who should've long since given up on taking any enjoyment from paid athletes (unless you're a Crew fan, which, you know, congrats. But don't be all smug about it).
I say this as a native southwestern Ohioan with a certain clinical detachment from the Browns and the Cavs. While fans of Cleveland sports have been waiting since 1964 for their professional sports teams to win a championship, Cincinnati sports fans have only been waiting a mere 26 years, and thus can look down on the plebeians by the lake as they rend their clothing every August (when the Indians are mathematically eliminated from the playoffs) and slightly later in August (when the Browns are in practicality if not mathematically eliminated from the playoffs).
My contention has always been that fans of Cleveland sports, especially the Browns, have an inexplicable optimism that emerges every year without explanation. They'd be far better off, I've always said, by finally accepting that life is pain and that they'll never be happy. A Factory of Ennui probably doesn't get a 30 for 30 doc, but it probably hurts a whole lot less.
Of course, the point of the joke is that we should just all be Ohio State football fans (the one Ohio-based team with a modicum of self-respect and sustained success) and save ourselves endless hours of pain and suffering caused by our caring about a gaggle of franchises seemingly run by an endless parade of charlatans and hacks hell-bent on proving that the only thing the heart of the Rust Belt is good at is losing at sports and leading the nation in cautionary tales.
Learn to place your hopes and dreams in an Urban Meyer or a J.T. Barrett, and things might actually work out for you from time to time. Let your sense of inner peace ride or die with Brandon Weeden, and maybe it's your own damn fault you hate yourself for three hours every Sunday in the fall.
But on the other hand... there's freaking LeBron James.
Gigantic Ohio State sports fan LeBron James, thank you very much. In almost any other state, pro sports are dominant culturally. In Ohio, they're typically more in the realm of "embarrassing younger brother that won't stop screaming the word 'PENIS' at church." Ohio State football and sometimes basketball dominates the sports conversation in a way that few colleges can, and some might look at LeBron's outright fandom as just a way to ingratiate himself with some extremely bitter Ohioans.
That's not at all to say that LeBron's love of Ohio State isn't genuine, or that Buckeye athletics haven't benefitted enormously from his association with them. But the relationship doesn't always seem like that of a fawning, grateful public university sobbing tears of joy that the greatest basketball player of his generation would deign to acknowledge their existence. Instead it feels like more of a partnership of equals, where both sides benefit from the association.
And look, I'm well aware of how dumb that is. LeBron James the individual human being represents a net value of probably over a third of The Ohio State University's total endowment. He could buy and sell Urban Meyer's ass about a dozen times over while still having enough left over to buy and sell Thad Matta's ass a few times for good measure. The overall revenue for the Cavs last year is estimated to be somewhere around $200 million, higher than the $130-ish million that Ohio State athletics brings in (although to be fair, not that much higher).
That's not even to mention the value that LeBron has added to Ohio State athletics directly. From shoes to a legacy locker to exhibition games in the Schott, to fawning Twitter posts, to the fact that Urban has said that LeBron has an "open door" to the WHAC whenever he wants, to celebrating with the team after their championship, it's pretty obvious that the Buckeyes have done every single thing that they possibly could've to kowtow to the greatest basketball player in the world.
But we're talking about legacy, not logic. Feels factories and a public perception built on a strong foundation of generational angst means that the success someone had beyond the borders of the Buckeye state means approximately zero. Ohio State football has won championships recently, the Cavs have not, therefore Ohio State > LeBron.
LeBron needs to win a title, in Cleveland. Not to prove anything to himself or to secure his place as one of the best, but so that a horde of irrational fanatics in the state of Ohio will look at him as more than "slightly more successful Bernie Kosar." And also to get fans of Cleveland sports to shut the hell up about what somehow unexpected new indignity they've suffered this time. But mostly to get a 50-ish year old monkey off their backs.
LeBron James grew up with this in Akron, and I'm sure that he knows (maybe better than anyone) that in the minds of many very passionate, very stupid people, merely being an insane, undeniably transcendent player who will echo through the annals of sports history is simply not enough to compete with Cardale Jones, third string QB.
Standing in his way is a record-setting Golden State team with the most complete starting lineup the NBA has seen in about 20 years, buoyed by the league MVP, a maddeningly efficient pop-a-shot No. 2, and a guy who really likes to punch people in the dick. They will be playing at home and with a youthful confidence only possessed by the very talented and/or the very stupid. Or maybe just by a team that knows they haven't lost three games in a row since Nov. 23, 2013.
It's probably not going to happen. The Cavs could lose by 17, buried underneath a blizzard of Curry threeballs and their own frustration, slowly turning against each other like some crappy remake of John Carpenter's The Thing until it's just LeBron James and Timofey Mozgov starting at each other in the snow, trying to figure out who's infected and therefore doomed.
Or, maybe, LeBron somehow wins the damn thing, ascends into heaven, and brings our entire dumb state along as his posse.
@KingJames Welcome home my friend. See you this fall!!! pic.twitter.com/6rj8uwiHCp
— Urban Meyer (@OSUCoachMeyer) July 11, 2014
