We Are All Witnesses

This thought might seem like it was stolen or pieced together from the thoughts of people much smarter than me who have much greater outlets to voice their opinions, but I think anyone with a sense of the sports world as we know it that saw the end of last night’s Portland-Miami game had a similar reaction to mine. LeBron’s previous ad campaign while he was in Cleveland included the one-liner, “We are all witnesses.” Well, last night we witnessed the completion of LeBron’s character transformation from beloved superstar to hated villain. After waking up from a little pre-bedtime nap, Krissy went to bed. I told her I wouldn’t be far behind, but I wanted to load the dishwasher first. I turned the channel to NBA TV, which was in the middle of a live look-in to the Heat-Trailblazers game. As a result, a chore that should have taken all of 2 minutes took 15 or 20.

Facing a hostile Portland crowd and down by 7 with only a few minutes to go in the 4th quarter, James almost singlehandedly brought the Heat back to force overtime. James continued to take over the game in extra time, hitting a deep, dagger 3-pointer from the right wing that all but ended the game. I forget how much time was exactly left following the play, but Portland called a timeout to try to come up with some type of last-ditch desperation strategy. As James, Wade, Bosh, and the other 2 Miami players de jour strode to the bench the Portland crowd serenaded the Heat with some light booing. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, and in that situation any good crowd would have done the same thing. I’m not even sure that half of the boos weren’t directed at the overall situation (the home crowd seeing their team’s chances of winning that particular game being extinguished) rather than James and the rest of the Heat themselves…but James took the opportunity – seemed to relish in it even – to rub it in the Portland fans’ faces a little more. As he walked towards the bench, James raised his hands and motioned to the crowd as if to say, “Keep the boos coming,” and the booing continued to get a little louder. He took a few extra steps to the baseline adjacent to the Heat bench, and continued to motion in the same way to the crowd. By the time he actually got the bench, the derisive cheers had continued to swell. It was a different kind of booing than what occurred when the Heat played in Cleveland for the first time this year. Those boos were the boos of hatred, of a fan base whose heart had been ripped out several months earlier by James. It was personal. These boos in Portland were reminiscent of what a “bad guy” would receive at a WWE event. To steal a few wrestling terms, James’ turn from a face to a heel was finished. The transformation was complete.

One of the things that was so off-putting about the Heat earlier in the year – in addition to the fact that we had to subject ourselves to watching them play so lousy – was that they seemed to have no self-awareness at all. Sure, they probably figured the crowds in Cleveland, Toronto, New York, and Boston would be rough on them, but I don’t think they anticipated how much everyone in the league outside of Miami would hate them. Now, not only do they seem to actually get it, but they seem to be thriving off of it…as evidenced by the fact that last night marked their 13th straight road win. Out of the Big 3, the change is most evident in LeBron. After all, he was the most hated to begin with, and he seemed to be the most shaken by all of the negativity directed towards him during games. See, this was already Wade’s team by the time James and Bosh arrived, and while some hate has been directed his way he has mostly only been guilty by association in the public eye. Bosh, who looked lost earlier in the year (but seems to have found his niche on the court), will always be the 3rd banana out of the Big 3, and as a result any hate directed towards him will continue to be tertiary. LeBron is the one that lost the most in the court of public appeal as a result of the Big 3 fallout. He is, after all, the self-appointed Chosen One, the star of the misguided “The Decision” special on ESPN, and the one that took his talents to South Beach.

Through the first 20 games of the season, LeBron seemed to shrink at times on the court. Now, it seems like he is everywhere at once, just as he was in years past. He seems to play better on the road, where the booing appears to fuel him. Not only that, but James seems to finally be embracing this new role. You don’t have to be an actor to know that the villainous roles have to be most fun ones to play, and LeBron has discovered that. What makes this fun for us [fans] is that LeBron, if he plays this right, is on the verge of becoming possibly the biggest sports villain ever! Imagine Bill Laimbeer, only if Bill Laimbeer was the most physically gifted player in the whole sport. I will actually be disappointed if LeBron tries to fight wearing the black cowboy hat of the sports world, and instead eventually tries to market his image the way that he did in Cleveland. In this age of Twitter and AAU teams, everyone knows each other and likes each other just a little bit too much…we need a quality sports heel for old time’s sake. Hopefully, we can look back at this and say that this was the night we were all witnesses…to LeBron doing the equivalent of joining the sports world’s nWo.