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What Is LeBron James’ Legacy Now?

By Gerald Bourguet

Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images /
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LeBron James has finally delivered a championship for the Cleveland Cavaliers after winning the 2016 NBA Finals. How does it impact his legacy?

LeBron James is the most polarizing figure in NBA history. His supporters are belligerent diehard fans. His critics are just as loud, yet neither side of the spectrum ever seems to be able to present a coherent case for his rightful place among his peers over all the noise.

People are simply too entrenched in their opinion on King James. He’s like the Donald Trump of the NBA, only if Donald Trump actually had something useful to offer the human race.

After his historic performance in the 2016 NBA Finals, LeBron James’ status as a top-five player of all time is no longer in question. The fact that he won a championship for the Cleveland Cavaliers just makes it that much sweeter.

As soon as the buzzer sounded, the outpouring of emotion from LeBron was overwhelming. This is the man whose jersey had been incinerated by Cavs fans when he announced he was leaving for the Miami Heat back in 2010. This was the man who won two championships elsewhere only to return.

This was a man who had the odds stacked against him in the wake of the Golden State Warriors’ unexpected rise to prominence, not to mention his own progression into his early 30s. The Dubs were a well-oiled machine and LeBron’s prime wasn’t going to last forever.

Cleveland’s “All In” hashtag was hauntingly appropriate. In LeBron’s return home, this was as close as the franchise was ever going to get to a championship. If not now, when? Could the tail end of LeBron’s career really be derailed by this dynasty-in-the-making?

Luckily for the Cavs, they were able to pull off the magnificent and wholly unexpected feat. The tears from LeBron were the tears of a man who put everything he had on the line under the full weight of a 52-year title drought — and all the expectations, pressure, hopes, fears and dreams that came with it.

If only LeBron James could’ve seen the city of Cleveland’s reaction as he wept upon the completion of his Herculean task.

It’s amazing how quickly the narrative can change.

It was only a few weeks ago that King James was still on the other side of public opinion. Even with Draymond Green‘s groin-kicking antics, the Golden State Warriors were the media darlings, a 73-win juggernaut whose title reign as back-to-back champs seemed all but inevitable.

James took a ton of unnecessary flak when the Cavs fell behind 3-1. Despite averaging 24.8 points, 11.0 rebounds, 8.3 assists, 2.3 steals and 1.8 blocks per game through the first four games, he was hammered for not being assertive enough on offense, for not playing at an otherworldly level, for not transcending the sport itself.

It was basically a microcosm of his entire career.

Despite the unbelievably well-rounded numbers he was putting up, despite not having enough help around him and despite being outmatched against a superior opponent, the focus was on how LeBron wasn’t being assertive enough.

The world got a glimpse at what a motivated King James looks like from that point on. Even after averaging 35.8 points, 13.3 rebounds and 8.8 assists per game in last year’s Finals, it somehow took this year’s championship series to remind the world that King James is a once-in-a-generation legend who brought everlasting joy to a long-tortured fan base.

In Game 5, LeBron was masterful with a 41-16-7-3-3 stat line on 16-of-30 shooting from the field and 4-of-8 shooting from three-point range. He got a ton of help from Kyrie Irving (41 points, 17-of-24 shooting), but Game 5 was dominated by the King.

Even so, none of it would’ve mattered if he came out complacent in Game 6 and lost his fifth NBA Finals.

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With the Cavs counting on another all-time performance to force a Game 7, LeBron delivered once again in Game 6 and was arguably even better, dropping a 41-11-8-4-3 stat line on 16-of-27 shooting from the floor and 3-of-6 shooting from deep.

Every time the Warriors tried to rally a comeback, LeBron responded with a made jumper, a layup right at the basket, an alley-oop to Tristan Thompson or another backbreaking play to carry his team to victory.

It wasn’t always graceful, and if not for Stephen Curry‘s ongoing struggles and Draymond’s suspension, this series would probably have been over already. But the results were poetically undeniable nonetheless.

In Game 7, LeBron poured in a 27-11-11 triple-double, with three blocks and two steals.

He didn’t shoot the ball particularly well, but his impact extended to both ends of the floor, including the defensive play of the game when he pinned Andre Iguodala‘s layup on the backboard to preserve an 89-89 tie that Irving would soon break with his dagger three-pointer.

Irving’s three put the Cavs ahead for good, but it was only fitting that the last point scored in the game to officially end Cleveland’s 52-year title drought came from LeBron James’ fingertips at the free throw line.

Not only did James provide a cursed sports town with its first ever NBA championship, but he was the driving force behind the Cavs becoming the first team to come back from a 3-1 Finals deficit…against a 73-win team.

Home teams had been 15-3 all-time in home Game 7s in the Finals before Sunday night. The Warriors hadn’t lost three straight games at home in the Steve Kerr era, they were 50-4 at home before Game 7 and they had the reigning MVP on their side.

None of it mattered in the end, because the Cleveland Cavaliers had a Hulk. A Hulk by the name of LeBron James.

There were a myriad of factors that contributed to Golden State’s downfall. Curry’s MCL sprain robbed him of his consistency, Andrew Bogut‘s absence forced Festus Ezeli and Anderson Varejao into the game, Harrison Barnes bricked everything in sight, Klay Thompson shrunk from the spotlight, Draymond Green’s Game 5 suspension was a turning point, yada yada yada.

But if you’re looking for the biggest reason behind the greatest comeback/upset/collapse in NBA history, look no further than LeBron James.

For the series, the King won unanimous Finals MVP honors behind his absurd averages of 29.7 points, 11.3 rebounds, 8.9 assists, 2.6 steals and 2.3 blocks per game on .494/.371/.721 shooting splits.

He became the only player other than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to win a Finals MVP Award with multiple teams, he became the third player in Finals history to post a Game 7 triple-double and he joined Michael Jordan as the only players to ever win four regular season MVPs and three Finals MVPs.

LeBron was the game-changer in every sense of the word in this series. He tea-bagged Draymond Green and somehow got him suspended. He was the best player in a series featuring Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Kyrie Irving.

If not for The Block in Game 7, his block on Curry in Game 6 would’ve been the defining moment of the 2016 NBA Finals.

After Klay Thompson made his comments about it being a “man’s league,” LeBron became more than a man among boys; he was the proverbial Boogeyman, a terrifying monster lurking in the nightmares of the mere children that represented his competition.

It was almost enough to make you wish he’d pick on someone his own size, until you realized he was doing all this against a 73-win juggernaut.

After leading Cleveland to its first ever NBA championship against arguably the greatest team ever, King James reminded the world that he’s so much more than the modern day Jerry West. He’s not just some all-time great who gets to the Finals only to fall short every time. He is one of the game’s all-time winners, and now he’s got the defining Finals victory to back it up.

In 2015, LeBron was shorthanded and overwhelmed by a superior Warriors team, which people forget has basically been the story of his career. Despite a less than savory 3-4 record in the Finals, it’s worth mentioning that the only championship series he ever lost when his team was favored was in 2011.

Context is so important, but it’s so often overlooked in conversations like this. LeBron James’ Finals record will never live up to Michael Jordan’s perfect 6-0. He’ll never win 11 rings like Bill Russell, and he may not even reach five like Kobe Bryant.

But if you’re still judging King James primarily on the hardware, you’ve probably been missing out on the career of an all-time great anyway.

Think about it: How many players in the history of this league would have been able to almost singlehandedly defeat this Warriors juggernaut with superb and timely plays on both ends of the floor the way that LeBron did?

MJ…maybe Magic Johnson…maybe Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O’Neal, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Tim Duncan, because of their size? And…well, that’s pretty much the list.

After the world caught glimpse of an emotional LeBron James, his crying face spread through the internet like wildfire, trying to replace the Crying Jordan meme as the new Twitter sensation.

It’s only natural; Twitter has the power to take any memorable image and make it an everlasting joke. It was an admittedly funny freeze frame, for the haters and for those who understood the years of struggle, hard work, patience, faith, blood, sweat and tears that went into it alike.

For Cavaliers supporters, it was an all-too familiar image, but a refreshing and unexpectedly warm glow emanated from it. The tears were nothing new, but the relief and joy behind them was a new feeling entirely.

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The image of LeBron crying embodied the struggle of being a Cleveland sports fan and the triumph over that painful fandom all at once. In the past, it would’ve been the iconic illustration of what it means to cheer for a Cleveland sports team, but this time around, it came with the liberating joy of a curse being lifted. It was the feeling of fandom misery being exorcised in a single moment of championship glory that no one can ever take away.

It was the reward for all the trials and tribulations along the way, and no one knows that struggle more than LeBron James. In that instant, he was transformed into the most defining athlete in Cleveland sports history, even more than he already was.

The hometown hero not only lifted the Cleveland curse in the second year of his homecoming, but he did it against one of the greatest teams of all time. His legacy is untouchable now, no matter where you place him among Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Larry Bird, Kobe Bryant or the other all-time greats.

More hoops habit: 2016 NBA Finals: Game 7 Recap And Highlights

Jordan will always be the GOAT in my book and in the books of many. But after LeBron’s transformation from Cleveland’s Sisyphus — constantly rolling that boulder up a hill in a fruitless attempt to complete an impossible task — into Hercules, his name should probably land somewhere right under Jordan’s on that list.

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