The League that Michael Jordan Made

Since Michael Jordan retired, his successor has been prayed for and prophesized.  Kobe Bryant? Close, but no.  Allen Iverson? Scoring, but no winning.  Finally, in 2005 Nike introduced the “Witness” campaign for Lebron James (who wears Jordan‘s #23), which I always interpreted to mean “Witness the second coming of Michael Jordan.”

As Lebron James announced his signing with the Miami Heat, where he will join Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and Hall of Fame manager Pat Riley, he also unofficially conceded defeat in his heretical quest to become the greatest.  His new strategy is being on the best team in NBA history.

There are a few noteworthy aspects to this development.  Pat Riley, who has already coached some of the greatest players of all time (Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Wade), has proven to be a master strategist, a tycoon of professional basketball.

Wade, Bosh, and James have also shown a remarkable amount of cooperation, including a willingness to take pay-cuts (apparently Florida’s generous tax policies will mitigate most of the losses in salary).  This deal was seemingly constructed as much by them as by anyone else, and surely half a dozen teams tried to lure each of them elsewhere, particularly the New York Knicks and Chicago Bulls.

But at the end of the day, I think this deal marks these athletes as cowards and hurts the game of basketball.

When Chris Bosh signed with the Heat several days ago, I assumed James would go to the Chicago Bulls.  That would put each of the league’s major stars on a team that could conceivably make a championship run, perhaps with James in the best shape of all.  I would have expected the next several years to be an annual competition between the Lakers, Bulls, and Heat, perhaps like the reliable Celtics-Lakers rivalries of past decades.  There would be occasional Cinderella teams to spice things up.  Perhaps Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder or Dwight Howard and the Orlando Magic would have squeezed in some championship appearances.

Instead they have executed something like the 2008 Celtics, when Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett, and Paul Pierce joined forces.  That union had more charm.  Each of those players was winding down his career, and none of them had won a championship on his own.  This was teamwork, by which three very good players could take down the best player (Kobe Bryant), which they did.

But Lebron James, Chris Bosh, and Dwyane Wade are not in immediate danger of retiring empty-handed.  They’re in their primes, and each can win a championship without the other--Wade already has, in Jordan-esque fashion no less.

This team may win every title for the next two presidential terms, but now they’ll never touch Jordan.  Jordan isn’t the greatest because he won six titles.  Hell, nine players have more titles than he does, including Robert Horry of all people.  Jordan is the greatest because he played in Utah with the flu, scoring 38 points (15 in the 4th quarter) until he collapsed into his teammates’ arms with seconds remaining.  Jordan is the greatest because every person and every child knew the Bulls would pull ahead in the clutch, by Jordan’s sheer will if necessary.

And James, Wade, and Bosh also won’t capture the excitement of classic rivalries, as they could have.  If Magic and Larry Bird had played on the same team maybe they could have won ten titles.  But each title they won against each other meant more because everyone knew they had to beat the other best player in the world to earn it.  With these three on the same team every victory will be worth less and every defeat will taste worse.  Winning a championship will be a fulfillment of expectations, while losing will always be a story of David defeating Goliath.

On the face of it, it seems hard to predict anyone could beat these three exceptional athletes.  Perhaps some alliance between Dwight Howard and either Kevin Durant or Chris Paul could do the trick.

On the other hand, however, sports karma doesn’t always favor the big money and big names.  Consider the New York Yankees losing the World Series to the much poorer Florida Marlins and Arizona Diamondbacks.  In the 2004 NBA Finals, four Hall of Famers of the Los Angeles Lakers were thumped in the “five game sweep” by a Detroit Pistons team without a single player that averaged twenty points.  In fact, Lebron James and Dwyane Wade have previously played together for the U.S. Redeem Team, which (before it won the 2008 Gold Medal) lost in the 2006 World Championship Semi-finals to Greece.

Looking at the Heat’s roster specifically, there is reason to question their championship potential.  At the moment there doesn’t seem to be a facilitator to dish out assists to the superstars.   Rafer Alston and Mario Chalmers presumably aren’t the answer.  I also can’t think of any championship team that has had two all-stars play such similar positions as Lebron James and Dwyane Wade.  Perhaps James will become more of a forward, low-post kind of player, but if not it will be interesting to see how these two divide labor.  The team also has several holes.  They lack a deadly perimeter shooter, and Chris Bosh doesn’t have the advantage matching up against Dwight Howard in Orlando.  Unless Riley makes some more moves--which he’s very good at historically--this team will show whether an overkill of talent at key positions is enough to overcome deficiency in the team as a whole.

Regardless of how this affects the reputations and legacies of the players involved, I believe it’s bad for sports and bad for basketball.  By my--perhaps naïve--definition, sports is about getting the best players and the best teams and setting them against each other to determine who is athletically, mentally, and strategically supreme.  These players, particularly James, seem so afraid that they might retire without a title that they’ll forgo the pride of leading a team to victory with their own blood, sweat, and leadership.

I, for one, will root against them in every game.