ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?

Football, especially in its professional incarnation, has always had somewhat of a bad reputation among people that are not avid sports fans. To an outside observer, the cerebral, exacting, and technical aspects of the game are rendered invisible by the violence, bravado, and muscle mass that also permeate the gridiron. For true sports fans, this balance is appreciated fully and it is what makes the game of football such a joy to watch: its graceful athleticism and carefully constructed game plans blend perfectly with the crushing blows and bone-jarring impacts that NFL and college players (not to mention players at any age group, from Pop Warner to high school) subject themselves too. It is this refined sort of violence that makes football so alluring at the end of the day, but as a regular viewer of the action that takes place on both Saturdays and Sundays in the fall, I cannot help but feel a knot beginning to form in my stomach that is due to the sheer destruction the game can bring to those who play it.

I’m not just talking about the controversy over concussions, short lifespans, or missing memories that many current and former players have come face to face with as the years go on, but I will say that those realities are what initiated this post in the first place. I’ve become an avid reader (as should every football fan) of a season-long back and forth between writers for the famous/infamous Deadspin (they’re the guys that gave us the pictures of Lil Brett) and the folks at Slate Magazine, who explored the football player’s existential dilemma with aplomb two weeks back. I don’t want to just rehash what those enlightened fellas had to say, because the facts regarding head injuries, short lives and rolling marbles in the football player’s brain are documented and chilling, but are not what has changed the way I view the game I love over the last couple of seasons.

I have read the statistics and processed the consequences, but there is something much more visceral acting on my spectating conscience than cold hard facts and medical records. It comes from simply watching the game of football and realizing that in my approximately 20 years as a cognizant football fan (I would say my initial years watching the game were spent more worshiping players and cheering the action as opposed to actually understanding the actual intricacies of game play) the game has changed for the better in terms of entertainment value, but that has come with some heavy baggage that is beginning to create pains in my intellectual lower lumbar. Although Jim McMahon’s account of not being able to remember what the hell he was just doing is one of those documented cases of abuse that garners my support for his lawsuit against the league, the players know what they’re getting into, and stories like McMahon’s have simply let the general public know what they’re getting into as well.

But like I said, all of the already established risks aside, as legitimate advancements in everything from training regimens, supplements and weight lifting programs have occurred alongside less publicly accepted strides in making football players faster and stronger like steroid use and detection prevention, human growth hormone, and starting a young athlete’s road toward athletic fame and fortune at increasingly young ages, the game of football as a viewing experience has become an undeniably violent contest that entertains its masses at the price of its competitors. The obvious and tired analogy to the human spectating evolution lies in comparisons to the Roman Colosseum and gladiators dying en masse at the whim of the emperor and to the delight of the crowd, and the more I watch collegiate and professional football, the more of a connection I feel to those ancient spectators. Sure, nobody is being eaten alive by a tiger or run through with a longsword, but if you’ve watched enough football, you’ve seen enough horrifying injuries and near death/life-altering experiences to make you question whether or not in the year 2011, this sort of violence for the sake of entertainment is still an acceptable way to pass your idle time on the weekends.

A week and a half back the NFL and NCAA saw two gruesome injuries on their respective fields of play, which you can check out here and here if you happen to have the stomach for it. I usually can’t watch injuries like the ones Eric Foster of the Indianapolis Colts and LaMichael James of the Oregon Ducks sustained more than once, and that holds true with these two videos. There is just something about watching a person’s body parts move at angles that would challenge a geometry student employing a protractor that gives me butterflies in my stomach. I’m not the only one either, as Foster’s injury was so gut-wrenching that it reportedly had teammates and opposing players alike crying on the field. These two injuries are only the latest in a long litany of football casualties––from Joe Theisman’s broken leg (perhaps the single most devastating injury you will ever see) to Willis McGahee’s shredded knee ligaments––that make you realize just how brutal the sport can be. And while I know that other sports have their share of similarly hard-to-watch moments, football stands alone as a sport where something like this can happen on any play.

It stems from the very nature of the game, which I guess is my point at the end of the day. I love football, but I do not like to see my fellow man dismembered in order for my weekend TV watching to be entertaining. Along with the type of injuries I just mentioned, the sheer size and speed of players has made football the most violent form of entertainment in America outside of a horror film. And when you hear a helmet crack against another one or see someone not moving after leading with their head on a kickoff tackle, there really is no other form of guilt quite like it. You know at that moment you’re getting your sporting jollies from the pain of other people and perhaps at the cost of the lives of other people, and it can become unsettling. Like I said, this guilt has become particularly prickly for me over the last two seasons, and I feel myself at a crossroads in my life as both a fan and a dood with a decent head on his shoulders.

My brain can’t help but start asking certain questions. Should I continue to watch a game that I know does nothing but damage to those that play it? Should I enjoy rooting for my favorite team when the guys that suit up for them have the chance to be killed as I watch? Can I be a true fan when in my heart I’m not really comfortable with concussions, memory loss, short life spans, and post-career suicides?

The plain truth is that I just don’t know. For now I’m enduring some serious cognitive dissonance side effects and I guess I’ll just have to see if the drug of American football keeps working enough to make me forget about the other(s) pain it causes.

THINGS DONE CHANGED

When I relaunched Bo Jackson’s Hip last year I did so with somewhat of a mission statement. I refocused my intent on illustrating why sports are important to me and how the inner workings of athletes and the games they play provide a lot of analogous material to what it means to be human and to play the game of life. I also explained why I call my missives about the world of sports Bo Jackson’s Hip. If you don’t want to go back and read all about it, here’s a quick summation:

Bo Jackson is perhaps the greatest athlete I’ve ever seen and definitely the favorite athlete of my youth. He played two professional sports exceptionally well and may have gone on to be one of the all-time greats in both football and baseball had it not been for avascular necrosis, a condition that made his hip fly out of socket when he was tackled playing for the Los Angeles Raiders. After that day his football career was over and his baseball career was never the same (even though he did hit a dinger in his first post-recovery at-bat, because like I said, he’s the greatest athlete I’ve ever seen). Did I also mention that he allegedly forced his own hip back into socket on the field after he felt it pop? The Raiders' athletic trainer said that no one is that strong. This writer believes that Bo was.

Nevertheless, it changed that fast for Vincent Edward Jackson. One play he was on top of the world, the next, his career as an athlete was all but over. It taught me something about life as a bright eyed sports fan to see my hero’s future dim so quickly, and I like to think I have taken that life lesson with me as I approach thirty years on planet earth. Bo’s injury speaks to me on many levels. It hits on a lot of cliché but ultimately true sentiments you always hear about existence. Life is short. Life is not fair. Tomorrow everything could change. Success is not guaranteed. Take nothing for granted.

With the news that Peyton Manning’s season and career may now be in jeopardy due to a neck injury coming on the heels of Sidney Crosby’s press conference about his lingering concussion-related symptoms, Bo’s story and his connection to my writing have truly come into focus over the last week or so. While I hope it is not true, it’s possible that two of America’s big four sports might lose their most recognizable athletes. Crosby’s prognosis probably isn’t that dire, and it’s too early to tell if Manning really is watching his career slip away from him, but their two predicaments certainly brought to mind Bo Jackson and the fragility of life on planet earth for me all over again.

Manning is the face of the NFL. He is a borderline genius at the position he plays, which I’ve talked about before as being the most important and difficult position in all of sports: NFL quarterback. Likewise Sidney Crosby, “Sid the Kid”, is the 24 year old phenom who has become the face of the National Hockey League. With MVP, Stanley Cup Champion, and Olympic Gold Medalist already on his short but impressive resumé, the sky is the limit for the already dominant hockey player.

But for both players, as Biggie would say, “Things Done Changed.” Manning was on the path towards owning every important record that an NFL quarterback can hold and perhaps more Lombardi trophies to add to the Super Bowl victory he earned against the Bears in 2006. Crosby has already climbed many of the highest peaks in hockey and his ascent is just beginning up the staggeringly tall mountain that Wayne Gretzky currently sits atop as the greatest hockey player that ever lived. Now, both of their careers hang in the balance.

Manning sustained his neck injury in 2006 (if you believe what his former coach Tony Dungy says) and it eventually led to two surgeries to try and repair the damage. Over the last week news broke that a third surgery that involves the removal of a damaged disc in his neck is necessary and the guy who urged others to “Cut that meat!” will be getting cut for the second time in the span of five months. It doesn’t look good. Manning need only look to Sterling Sharpe, a dynamic wide receiver for the Green Bay Packers that had his career end early because of a similar infirmity to see that not only his season, but his remaining days as an NFL player are in jeopardy. The paradigm for Manning has shifted and he is now staring into the abyss of a career cut short. Not only a career, but what is already among the greatest in NFL history and one that might be the greatest if he is allowed to keep going.

For Crosby, he is a prime example of the growing attention and concern related to concussions, which has plagued the NFL in recent years and is now reaching into the NHL as well. If you read about what Crosby has been going through, things don’t look good for him either. He sustained two head injuries in consecutive games last season, ending his pursuit of another Stanley Cup abruptly and putting him in a position of extreme uncertainty regarding this season as well. He has complained of a foggy feeling in his head while doing everything from skating to watching television. Even more chilling, the Kid says he’s also had moments of not being able to sense where his limbs are. This kind of brain malfunction is scary for anyone, but especially an athlete that plays a sport like hockey that is so predicated on contact and physicality.

Like Manning’s corollary Sharpe, Crosby also has an athlete he can learn from in Justin Morneau, a baseball player for the Minnesota Twins that suffered a concussion that continues to plague him and prevent him from reaching his full potential. Morneau and Crosby are both young, approaching their prime, and now sidelined by hits to the head that have resulted in puzzling recoveries that point to the still unknown damage that concussions can do to a person’s brain and overall health.

My hope is that Manning and Crosby, along with Morneau, are not victims of a catastrophic injury that turns their world upside down. I hope that they are not on their way to becoming the next Bo Jackson. As a fan, I want to continue to watch their greatness, and as a human being I hope that tragedy hasn’t befallen them. I hope they return to the games that they love and are better than ever. I hope that the world isn’t as cruel to them as it can be and that sports writers and fans can one day construct their comeback stories and tell future generations that they faced down the most traumatic experience of their lives and came out stronger on the other side.

But...if things end up as badly as they possible can, this period will be remembered as momentous and tragic in the world of sports. The tail end of 2011 could very well be the tipping point in the careers of two of the most recognizable athletes in American sports. While both Manning and Crosby sustained their injuries previously, the news that Manning is out indefinitely and Crosby’s less than reassuring press conference have come in quick succession and might be the first words in the sentences that describe each of their retirements. While it seems unlikely that two such prominent athletes would have their careers cut short, I think it’s important to remember what kind of injuries they are dealing with.

Injuries to the neck and brain are nothing to mess around with. This isn’t a damaged knee or wrist or a sports hernia in either case, these are injuries that have the potential to be life-damaging or even life-threatening. If Crosby and Manning’s doctors tell them that a return to their respective sports has the potential to affect their quality of life, how do you think they will react? In Manning’s case, he already has a distinguished career, but more importantly a wife and children. I’m guessing he won’t let his competitive drive (even though it might be the most competitive drive in sports) interfere with a chance to watch his children grow up. And in Crosby’s case, at such a young age, how can he possibly return to the ice if the doctor’s tell him it could result in something permanent, like brain damage? Would you live the rest of your life with a few marbles rolling around if you were only 24 years old?

It’s a shame that the situations for both Crosby and Manning have come to this, and as a fan it is tough to think about hockey and football losing their respective superstars. Bo Jackson’s hip injury is a lesson to every fan in how quickly things can change, but it’s a lesson I don’t want to vicariously learn again, or see two such prominent  and gifted athletes learn first hand.

Get well soon fellas, we’re all rooting for you.

LABOR DAYS

The country is currently in the position of watching two unfortunate public squabbles, one in the political arena, and the other in the sporting world. While the fight over raising the ceiling on the debt limit might have more of a real impact on our day to day lives, the childish obstreperousness of Democrats and Republicans is eerily similar to the fight between NFL players and owners, which has been going on for an even longer period of time than the war over how much money the United States can continue to spend. Political debates like the one we’re seeing right now are hard to stomach because the actual opinion of the American public seems to be disregarded completely, while the NFL labor dispute inspires the same kind of disgust for this writer, and I'm assuming most fans, as our interests and opinions are similarly dismissed.

While the fight over the debt ceiling continues to rage, the lifting of the NFL lockout is all but a done deal and football will soon be back in working order. As such, I feel the need to vent about why this whole process has rubbed me the wrong way and why football fans throughout the country should be revolted by the way both NFL owners and players have treated spectators. Despite how much both sides continue to behave as if we actually give a damn about their court cases and litigation and petty arguments, all we really want is for some football to be played after the usually compelling NFL off-season has been ruined by a fight over a breathtaking $9 billion in revenue.

I've talked a few times about how I still think baseball is America's pastime, but that football is now America's game. Baseball might always be the sport with the most soul and the most purity, but football is now the game of choice for most every American sports fan. If we were talking music, and not athletic competition, it would be safe to say that the blues has finally lost out to rock and roll.

It's why though baseball has a near monopoly on the world of sports right now (aside from some soccer played by women--a boring sport made even more boring; perhaps?), the NFL labor battle still dominates the headlines on a daily basis. The NFL lockout has swallowed up its off-season story lines and left the American sports fan in a strange place when it comes to things to talk about and ponder. If you think baseball is a tiresome thing to watch and discuss, try replacing your usual NFL off-season talk at the water cooler or the corner bar with headlines about court cases, mediation, and the petty public squabbling that is the NFL labor dispute.

It’s not necessarily the subject matter, but the participants involved that get my goat at the end of the day. That’s because I know about labor issues and I'm a big union supporter; always have been. I was born in Toledo, Ohio, which is a stone's throw away from Detroit and like the Motor City, its workforce is largely dependent on the automotive industry. That said, I have friends, relatives, friends of relatives, and relatives of relatives up the wazoo that are union guys. They make the parts for and the actual cars that a lot of people in America and other parts of the world drive around in, and I know how important those jobs are to the people and families they support, and how much a strong labor union means to their pocketbooks and livelihoods. You could say I grew up on lofty ideals [sic] like a decent wage, the 40 hour workweek (supplemented by overtime of course), and ample vacation time to spend enjoying the money you work so hard for.

This belief in the importance of unions was galvanized in my teen years by the art and information I surrounded myself with. Through a teenage obsession with Rage Against the Machine, I learned about organizations like UNITE! and was pointed towards books like the Autobiography of Mother Jones and Out of This Furnace, and I would eventually encounter similar texts in college and find more bands, like Fugazi, who carried a similarly burning torch. I learned about how much a good job and the right to organize labor means from this music and literature, and felt the sympathy in my heart for unions and belief in decent working conditions continue to grow. My education was far from over though.

My first job was bagging groceries at the local Kroger, where I was a part of my first and only labor union, but a few years back I got the chance to work for the AFL-CIO's community outreach arm, Working America, where I truly learned what the union experience is all about. Going door to door, canvassing for support, I learned about how real people felt about jobs, the economy, and what it is to be American. I found out that these ideas are intertwined to a staggering degree and that even those who don't support organized labor support the idea of having the right to the best job they qualify for, and the right to have that job provide for them and their families. It only enhanced those feelings from my youth about how much I care about the causes surrounding labor and the right to organize, and only made for added vitriol toward large corporations, such as Wal-Mart, that go to the depths of hell to prevent their workers from unionizing.

It's why though the NFL has a labor union, and I understand the Players Association fighting for what they feel is right, their situation not only doesn't jibe with my union sensibilities, it doesn't interest me whatsoever. I went off for a few paragraphs a few posts back about this very fact, and my ambivalence towards the outcome of the NFL lockout has not wavered in the time since I put those words out for the world wide web to see. Even though I have sympathy for a union fighting for its rights against the company that it works for, the plight of the NFL players is anything but a plight. Instead it is a classic example of a way to alienate fans and treat those that provide the revenue that creates your outlandish paycheck with derision and contempt.

The truth of the matter is that I don't give a damn about labor disputes in professional sports. I have ignored nearly all news about the fight between the players and the owners and the public bickering between Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell as much as I possibly can, despite how difficult the sports media makes this ignorance. What I should be enjoying right now are compelling story lines and off-season shake-ups surrounding the game I love. Instead, I have "sources close to whoever" and "some nobody close to the talks" giving me useless information that doesn't make a damn bit of difference to my existence as a football fan.

See, the NFL is a year-round sport, even if it really only lasts around 5 months. After the regular season, we get the playoffs and the Super Bowl. Then, after a brief hiatus, draft speculation and free agency heats up. Next, the draft happens and trades and roster moves are made as free agents find new homes. Before you know it, OTA's have begun, training camp comes along, Hard Knocks kills it on HBO, and the preseason is here. Then you're on the final turn towards opening weekend, and the process starts all over. The NFL is big in America and it is near ubiquitous in the sporting world. It is a very, very powerful game and one of the biggest businesses in the country.

More than that, its a break from the daily grind, not only on Sundays in the fall, but all year round. It takes your mind off the day job or the problems with your reality, big or small. It lets you into a different world where you can think and talk about the game or your favorite team and forget about your troubles and focus on the progression of a rookie wide-receiver, the addition of a big-time free agent, or the shake-ups in coaching staffs that might affect how a team looks come the regular season. The NFL off-season is important to sports fans, and it has been ripped away from them for no apparent reason.

The lockout is winding down, the two sides are soon to come to an agreement, and no part of the 2011 season will be lost to the labor dispute. I've been of the opinion all along that this was going to be the case, but now that an agreement is actually happening I'm only more upset that the off-season was ruined by the league's labor strife. No matter how you slice it, even for a union supporter, the NFL's long labor battle is still millionaires fighting with billionaires about how much money each side gets.

There have been labor struggles in sports that make sense, like Curt Flood leading the way towards the abolition of the reserve clause in baseball and the formation of the MLB Players Association (HBO just did a doc on Flood and his intriguing fight for justice for ball players, which you can read about here). Since then though, strikes and lockouts have been nothing but bad news for sports. Hockey and baseball saw labor battles scar their leagues for years, and the NBA lost a chunk of one of its seasons to the same greedy arguing (and just might be repeating its own history if their newly initiated lockout doesn't end well). Football players have a bit more to fight for considering the damage they can do to their bodies and the shortness of the average career, but their troubles (if you want to call them that) are nothing compared to what the average worker (read: fan) goes through in the world of work or in a country where the unemployment rate is hovering near the double-digit mark.

Football owners have absolutely no right to moan about the billions of dollars in revenue that their teams create through television rights and ticket sales, and players don't have much more to be teary-eyed or angry about either. For one, if you're an NFL player, chances are that you were a scholarship athlete in college. That means that you had a free ride to track down the necessary skills for a job and life after football. And even if you only play for the average number of years an NFL player lasts (3.5) at the median league salary ($700k, though the average is near $2 million), you could probably still retire the day after you can't hack it anymore and live a comfortable life. Not to mention the added opportunities that arise through coaching positions and jobs in the media, where ex-players are usually the most qualified to find careers in both fields.

So when you're anywhere from wealthy to holy-fucking-shit wealthy from playing a game where you chase a leather ball filled with air around all day, don't expect me or any other fan to sympathize with the fact that your boss won't let you come to work. Especially when everyone knows that football is going to be played eventually anyways and that the money involved can be split up any way you want and both sides will continue to get rich. Fans don't care about what you're going through Drew Brees, so don't lead yours and the other team in a show of solidarity before a game on national television. Same goes for you Tom Brady, for while I know that attaching your name to a lawsuit against the owners in a court case is a symbolic gesture, all it symbolizes to me is a guy fucking Giselle Bundchen and throwing a football for a living bitching about how rough he's got it. The owners and players have said repeatedly that they just know the fans are on their respective side, when in reality we're on our own side, the side that wants both of you to shut up and play.

Perhaps players really don't understand that fans don't want to think how much money they make. If you're like me, you have to put pro athlete salaries out of your head entirely in order to truly enjoy sports, just so you don't get sick to your stomach when you compare the average athlete's salary to that of a teacher or industrial worker or landscaper or short-order cook. Maybe they don't get the fact that all of the public arguments and allusions to slavery are truly in poor taste. It's possible that they don't know that with nothing to talk about, ESPN and every other major sports media outlet will cram a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo down our throats about the NFL when the only thing to focus on are labor issues. If they do understand any of this, they need to shut up and play. If they don't understand it, they need to shut up anyways because every last sports fan in America has had just about enough of all this BS.

At the end of the day, the NFL is probably too big of a money making and marketing machine to let the lockout slow them down, and starving their fans all summer will most likely lead to even more interest in the sport once it actually gets moving towards the beginning of the 2011 season. I'm not sure which one of those facts disgusts me more. Fans have had the door shut in their face, and while they've slept out in the cold, the owners and players have been patiently waiting to let them back in to sit by the fire, no doubt unsurprised that we were still curled up by the door.

The lockout has been ugly, and created a bitterness towards the game inside of me that I don't know will ever leave. I hope that the NBA is taking notes right now, because while the NFL has the luxury of being the sporting equivalent of a dead-beat boyfriend that we just have to take back, the Association doesn't have nearly that cache with sports fans. Like a lover with low self-esteem, we'll take the NFL any way we can get it, because we love it so goddamn much. I just hope fans have learned that those who play and profit from the game they love seem to take their adoration for granted to a nauseating degree.

REASONABLE DOUBT

Whether you want to look at this year's NBA Finals as the one where Dirk finally got his ring or the one where the Miami Heat failed to reach their goal, the six-game series was one of the best closing chapters to a basketball season in recent memory. The NBA lucked out and got two great Finals match-ups two years running now, with the Mavs and Heat giving us just as much intrigue and drama as the Lakers and Celtics did last year. It didn't go seven games, but nearly every single game was full of big runs and thrilling comebacks, coming down to the final possession and reDirkulous heroics more often than not.

It is obligatory when talking about this year's Finals to give the Mavs their propers before moving on to LeBron and the Heatles, so that's what I'mma do too. The Mavericks played spectacular team basketball and Dirk Nowitzki was transcendent. J.J. Barea and Jason Terry were potent scorers. Shawn Marion returned to form as the Matrix. Jason Kidd held it all together. They played a cohesive, collaborative brand of defense and made every big play when they had to. They beat the Heat in 6, something most folks, including this writer, didn't see coming. I picked the Heat at the beginning of the series, but should have known better considering the thumping the Mavs gave my LA Lakers and the resiliency they showed in their opening round series with the Blazers and the Western Conference Finals against the Thunder.

I'm glad to see Dirk get his ring, sort of glad to see Kidd get one (he is a wife-beater after all), and definitely happy to see an entire team full of players that had never won a championship come together as a unit and beat the big bad Miami Heat. Now that I have that out of the way, let's get down to South Beach and talk about the real story from the Finals: LeBron James, D-Wade, and Chris Bosh coming up short on their short-cut to a championship ring. 

If you watch sports long enough, you come to realize that games and series truly have a feel to them. You can stare at stats and match-ups and highlights all you want, but sometimes there is a feel to the game play that lets you know what's really going on. It's that same kind of feeling of impending doom you get when no matter how safe a situation should be, something is amiss. Something doesn't seem right. You have a feeling that something is going to happen. It's exactly how I felt watching the Heat lose this series. There was a vibe, a certain something hanging in the air when they played, that made it clear that they weren't going to get it done.

Even when they went down 3-2 after the three middle games in Dallas, I was still telling anyone that would listen that the Heat were going to prevail. It just made more sense. They were more talented, they were going home for the final two games, they had two of the top five (if not top three) players in the league in Wade and James. But after watching the first half of game six, I realized what my gut had been telling me all along: they weren't ready to win this year. They looked out of sorts in the half-court and confused on defense and their two biggest stars seemed either too reluctant (in the case of James) or too skittish (in the case of Wade) to make plays when they had to. Oh yeah, and Chris Bosh isn't as good as people think he is and not nearly mentally tough enough to play on the size of the stage the Big Three have created for themselves in Miami.

I mean, did you see him after they lost? He was on his knees in the tunnel, crying like a baby. Emotion is what sports is all about, but that kind of stuff you can take home to your girl or your mother if you have to Chris. The guy looked like a whining little kid, not a guy who had poured his heart into this season and was grappling with a gut-wrenching defeat. Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra said earlier this season that some of his players were crying in the locker room after one of the team's particularly tough losses. One guess as to who he was talking about.

I know, I know, that might be a petty point to make, but it illustrates the larger problem that this team is facing: an emotional and psychological lack of control. I could break down every single thing that the Heat did wrong on the court, but the truth is, I don't think that's the team's problem. They are immensely talented and will only become better as the years roll on, but what needs to be fixed is their attitude and their psychological resiliency, not their mid-range game or post-up moves. While Bosh is the weepy cherry on top, LeBron James is the hot fudge sundae of frayed nerves that is at the root of the Heat's lack of composure.

I wrote a post a while back about the enormous level of expectation this Heat team created for itself with LeBron's "Decision" and their pre-season victory celebration, and the spotlight they drew on themselves is certainly part of their problem. The bigger issue though, is the expectation level for their best player, LeBron James. James, if he is not already, will soon be the greatest basketball player on planet earth. Just think about that simple fact for a second: imagine being the best in the world at what you do, and how people might look at you if you don't succeed at it. That's a lot to handle, but the greatest players that have played any sport have a near sociopathic imperviousness to the weight of the pressure this creates. They ignore that pressure or thrive on it, they don't keep passing the ball off to teammates and have the body language of a girl who just got stood up on prom night.

James is facing a crossroads in his career that I don't think he was ready for. I think that the move to Miami when he became a free agent should have been the turning point, but if the way he has handled his teammates, his coach, the media, and the general public over the last year is any indication, he needs to do some mental house cleaning before he can start heading in the right direction. The NBA has been waiting for the next Michael Jordan for a while (and I'm one that would tell you that Kobe Bryant is already that guy, but I digress) so there is absolutely no patience or empathy in the heart of most fans for the failings that LeBron has encountered both on and off the court (you can check out Josh Levin's Slate piece about how Michael's shadow is doing bad, bad things to LeBron here).

He has failed twice in the NBA Finals, yes, but more importantly he has failed to grasp a true sense of himself as an athlete and as a celebrity. I think he was truly astounded by how negatively the public reacted to "The Decision" and totally caught off-guard by the fact that he is now a heel in the world of sports. LeBron is a nice guy (maybe too nice). A guy who hosts SNL and the ESPY Awards, a guy that starred in Nike commercials featuring multiple comedic likenesses of himself. He loves being loved, and I think his desire to back that up with success on the court led him to Miami, but did not prepare him for the consequences.

He is now in a place where not only is expectation to be the next Michael Jordan astronomically high, but he doesn't have the fan support to lean on like he did in the past. All he has are his fellow villains in Miami--Wade and Bosh--and a young coach who doesn't seem to have the force of personality to scream him out of his basketball daydream of times gone by--times when he was the GOAT in-waiting and a media darling at the same time. Because of all this, James looks shy when the game is on the line, becoming too willing a passer and timid to shoot the big shot. Joe Posnaski wrote a great piece on James and the Heat's failure in the Finals where he described himself screaming at the television in disbelief that James kept passing the ball in game 6. I was equally appalled, but not as similarly surprised.

LBJ just doesn't feel ready to me. He has every skill a basketball player could desire and is basically an NFL tight-end playing in the NBA. He's fast, he's powerful, he has incredible court vision, he passes effortlessly and accurately, he's developing into a good, soon to be great shooter. His head? That's a whole 'nother story. He should have the mental tenacity of Tiger Woods pre-Thanksgiving-spousal-golf-club-beat-down. Instead he's got the gelatinous gray matter of Tiger post-string-of-banging-gross-skanks-dealing-with-sex-addiction-and-bad-knees-can't-get-his-head-straight. You can ask Eldrich yourself, that's a bad spot to be in.

I've mentioned before that I've always been reluctant to try and get inside an athlete's head, because it's hard to know what someone else is thinking. In LeBron's case, I have an unending desire to sit him down on a reclining leather couch to try and help him through his problems Frasier Crane style. Before this series I never thought I would ever look at LeBron James with sympathy again, but now that it's over I want to simultaneously give the guy a hug and slap him in the face and tell him to act like a man. I don't know which one he needs more, but something has to be done or this guy is going to unravel, mark my words. He needs to talk to someone like MJ or Bird or ideally, Magic, who has that amazing blend of likability and competitive killer instinct that LeBron wants and needs to no end right now.

Because I'm a sports fan, I admire and love watching greatness. It's why I want LeBron to win deep down, and why even after he acts like the epitome of a spoiled athlete, like the way he did during the post-game presser after the Finals loss, I still want him to succeed. I want him to chase Michael's legacy, fill his fists with championship rings, and to be comfortable with where his decisions in life have taken him (perhaps because I have trouble doing this myself...TMI?...sorry). I want him to be the Man, but he needs to get straight between his ears before this can happen. Entitlement is a bitch, and it can catch up to you quick when you've won at life for so long, but now find yourself losing. LeBron James is slowly learning this fact.

To go back to Tiger for a moment, he's always reminded me of a truism that I think also pertains to LeBron: in the world of sports (and the game of life), you doubt greatness at your own peril. I think this is something LeBron needs tattooed on his forehead. He needs to forget the old, fun-loving LeBron and embrace his role as villain the way he claims that he already has. He needs to get his own version of MJ's fist pump or Kobe's underbite. He needs to want the other team dead before he lets them beat him, and needs to be the one leading the charge with a battle axe in his hands. He needs to shut the people who doubt him up quick, and like I've said before, I still think he will. I think...

THE MALICE IN DALLAS

Before any of this gets started, and in case you didn't already know, I'll tell you that I'm a Los Angeles Lakers fan. A big one actually. I've loved Kobe Bryant since he came into the league and started loving the team that he plays for a short time later. Ever since then, the Lakers have been one of my "we" teams. It's a designation that I only use with three sports teams in the world: the Ohio State Buckeyes, the Detroit Tigers, and the aforementioned LA Lakers. 

If I talk about these teams, I say "we". I say it like I'm a part of the team, but what it really means is that the team is a part of me. They take up large chunks of my brain space and their performances have an affect on my overall mood and well being. Their losses hit hard, ruining the days and nights and weeks spent watching them, and their wins can lift me similarly, painting a smile on my face and placing a lilt in my heart that endures long after contests and seasons are complete.

For me, one of my "we" teams is already in some big trouble and causing me unwanted stress, they being the Ohio State Buckeyes football program. I say "we" for all of the Buckeye teams, but the football team at OSU is really the original "we" team for me. I have loved Ohio State since I was knee high to a grasshopper and the Buckeyes are mired in controversy and dogged by looming NCAA sanctions; with the fate of head coach Jim Tressel currently hanging in the balance and the future of the program floating somewhere in the ether. 

While OSU is being put through the investigatory ringer and the autumn of 2011 fraught with uncertainty and probable doom, I thought that I at least had the Lakers to make my summer vibrant and enjoyable, with another ride to the NBA Finals likely and a third consecutive championship possible, if no longer as certain as I may have thought at the season's start.

That all changed when the Lakers played the Dallas Mavericks in the second round of this year's NBA playoffs. When they were swept out of the playoffs 4 - 0 in their seven game series with Dallas, when they flat-out embarrassed themselves on national television time and again, with a disgraceful 36 point loss on Sunday putting the icing on a cake made of a Kentucky Derby-sized pile of horse manure. The day after the Derby, the Lakers were blown right of the gym and acted like a bunch of spoiled children who had their favorite toy taken away, alternating between a pouty, unprecedented petulance and a tantrum-throwing disregard for their coach, their star player, and the purple and gold uniforms they wore that day.

It is likely head coach Phil Jackson's last memory as a Laker coach, and it was crushed into a potent nugget of disappointment by the Dallas Mavericks as he was disobeyed and disgraced by his players. The Lakers not only committed the grievous sin of quitting on their leader, but also committed ugly, unprofessional fouls down the stretch that cannot be called anything other than dirty plays. With their season coming to an end thanks to a Dallas team that seemed better than them at every facet of the game and one of their best players in Pau Gasol moping around the court like the jilted lover he is rumored to be, the Lakers decided to play dirty and without class, committing fouls that had no other intention than to harm players on the other team under the guise of extreme frustration.

The Lakers were rightly disappointed, down 3 - 0 to a team that had proven in those first three games that they were clearly the better squad. The Mavericks were faster, more determined, and locked-in on their goal, three things that the Lakers perhaps did not expect, and seemed unable to return in kind with their effort on the court. So as the season drew to a close and with one of their players, Ron Artest, already marred by a dirty play in game 2 that led to a suspension in game 3, Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum decided to act like bullies and turn their sub-par performance into an absolute disrespect for their opponent and head coach by flagrantly fouling Dirk Nowitzki and J.J. Barea respectively. These were dirty, nasty, uncalled for plays that left me aghast not only as a Laker fan, but a fan of professional basketball in general.

Phil Jackson is perhaps the greatest head coach in the history of sports, with 11 championship rings and a trio of three-peats under his belt. He announced early on this year that it would be his last with the Lakers, and Kobe Bryant seemed determined to help Phil go out on the right note by completing a fourth three-peat and giving Jackson an even 12 for his career. Instead, the team that Kobe has led alongside Phil for over a decade crumbled under the pressure of trying to win their third consecutive championship and melted down in front of a sold-out crowd in Dallas and millions of fans watching the game at home.

Lamar Odom might as well have had hockey pads on the way he blatantly checked Nowitzki at the top of the key in the fourth quarter, which was bad enough. But minutes later, Bynum threw an elbow into Barea's rib-cage while the diminutive point guard was mid-air near the basket, watching the young man crash to the ground with what was enough force to knock the living daylights out of him. They were both egregious fouls that led to the players' ejection from the game and do not speak to the character of Jackson or the pride of the Lakers, who have won 16 world championships in the NBA.

What those fouls and this swift exit from the playoffs have done to the legacy of both Phil Jackson and Kobe Bryant remains to be seen. Jackson was pursuing an amazing 12th title, while Bryant was searching for his 6th, something that his idol Michael Jordan achieved playing under Jackson himself. In the long run, Jackson will likely return to coach another team after a hiatus with a chance to rekindle his legacy, and Bryant will continue to play under a new coach and doggedly seek his 6th ring, but the game did little for either in terms of the public perception of their greatness.

My "we" team let me down. Okay, it's a bummer, I'll just have to wait 'til next year. But the way the Lake-Show went out this season has me still scratching my head these two days later, and wondering how Bryant will be able to continue with the cast of characters he has around him. Dallas most assuredly exposed the retooled Laker bench as markedly inadequate, but there are deeper issues at play. Rumors are swirling in Los Angeles that Bryant's wife contributed to the end of Pau Gasol's long-term relationship with a girlfriend, leaving the Spanish power forward listless and uninterested in playing meaningful basketball. Odom's hard foul on Nowitzki and uncharacteristically lackluster playoff performance point to his level of distraction in Los Angeles, where he is a reality TV star and husband to a Kardashian, a truly unfortunate combination for a professional athlete.

Bynum, while young, showed a level of immaturity that cannot be attributed solely to his age, and the Lakers rock-solid, but obviously slow point guard Derek Fisher may have turned from "veteran leader" to "aging liability" right before our eyes. I'm not one to panic when it comes to my "we" teams, but the truth is that something has to be done in LA if Kobe is going to end his career as the legend he wants to. He is already a five-time champion and one of the top-five talents the game has ever seen in my eyes, but in order to move from an honored resident in the House of NBA Legends and start down the hallway to the wing where players like Michael and Magic rest, he needs another ring and even more proof of worth on his already crowded resume.

My guess is that the gears in Kobe's head are already turning and he is making a list of those he does and does not want around him next season. A list that includes players and coaches and one that the management and ownership in LA has to abide by in some way shape or form. Say what you want to about Kobe's off-the-court and on-the-court personality and proclivities, the man is as determined an athlete as the sporting world has ever seen, and this writer seriously doubts that we have seen the last of his greatness. Los Angeles is a city of stars, and Kobe is among its brightest. I have a feeling that we'll find out just how hard he'll burn in the coming months and NBA off-season, and I hope that my "we" team bounces back from this inglorious exit and makes me a proud Laker fan once again.

If not, I've still got Justin Verlander and the Detroit Tigers to try and pick me up, and a no-hitter in May sure isn't a bad place to start...