There’s a famous saying that goes, “You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.” That’s something that can be applied to many things, LeBron James being one of them.
James has recently been on one of the most ridiculous stretches of his career. His averages over the past seven games go something like this: 32 points, 7.4 rebounds, 6.6 assists, 1.7 steals and 69 percent shooting.
Those are not typos. Those are real numbers that the undisputed best player in the world has been putting up night in and night out.
With a streak of games like that combined with Michael Jordan’s 50th birthday, the inevitable happened — the talking heads at ESPN decided to go back and compare James to Jordan. LeBron responded to this chatter with a short but powerful tweet.
“I’m not MJ, I’m LJ.”
That’s something everyone has to realize. LeBron is not Michael. LeBron will never be Michael. Whether he winds up passing him as the GOAT one day or never coming close, James is his own man and his own player. But he’s more than just that. He’s our player.
We are living in the era of LeBron. We have the privilege to watch all of his games and be constantly amazed. We get to see every highlight dunk, no-look pass, ferocious drive, silky-smooth shot and defensive stop that he has. We get to see every ballooned box score that comes with his nightly conquers. We get to see the way he effortlessly makes foes look silly with the perfect combination of strength, size, speed and skill.
We get to see it all, but one day, it will all be gone.
Sure, James may have bitten off a bit more than he can chew in his promise of, “Not two, not three, not four, etc.” but if there’s any man who can do it, it’s LeBron.
Wouldn’t that be something? To see James dominate the league like only one man has before? Imagine the Heat win six more titles and all of a sudden LeBron has seven rings, one more than Jordan, along with all of the stats and accolades he has collected throughout his career. That would be something special that all of us could tell our kids and our grandkids about later on in life. I saw LeBron James’s career. And boy was it something.
So let’s take a step back now and relax. Let’s not scrutinize every little move the man makes. Let’s not take arguably the best athlete of all time and put LeBron next to him. Let’s enjoy the ride. The remarkable things James does will seemingly never get old. Now that he has one ring and has matured as a person along with it, it’s a lot harder to hate him, and nearly impossible to disrespect him.
So why not root for LeBron James? Why not root for him to have one of the best basketball careers ever? Players like James only come around once in a generation. He’s the player of our generation. And before you know it, he’ll be gone.
