nullouvert – mit offenen Karten

Die Playoffs gehen los und ich bin vollkommen verrückt nach LeBron James. Daher eine Sammlung von gutem Material:

Be thankful for being able to watch that:

“… What we are watching is historic. This is not just a perennial All-Star, not merely the greatest player of his era, not even the next Kobe.

LeBron James is better than all that….”

Why LeBron is the MVP:

“… Not since Magic Johnson has a superstar doubled as such a galvanizing teammate. If there’s an enduring image of the ‘08-09 season, it’s the way LeBron stamped his personality on everyone around him. They orchestrate goofy pregame intros (my favorite: the team snapshot), trade countless chest bumps, giggle on the sidelines, hang out on road trips and support each other in every way. What’s telling about LeBron’s in-traffic dunks — and he unleashes them more frequently than anyone since Dominique — is how he seeks out his bench for feedback, and even better, how they give it to him. It makes the forced camaraderie of the Lakers seem glaring. If you want to watch a team that pulls for each other and follows the lead of its best player, watch Cleveland. …”

It is magic that happens in basketball right now. The whole freaking sport and/or the industry behind it is reinventing itself right now. Every one remembers the hard time we had when MJ quit after the ‘98 title. The hard time when even with the Lakers back in the championship statistics the hole MJ left was still glaring. Any other year some guard would get drafted high and be described as the “next Jordan”. Who the F cares about the next anything anyway? (except for Pro Sieben and that Uri Geller guy of course) Now you got D-Wade, a crazy Philly team, a young Portland team, you got Superman and Krypto-Nate, a Houston team playing better without its leading scorer, you got the Bulls beating the Celtics with a rookie point alley-ooping to a sophomore center, international players becoming MVPs (hello bad hairdo ballers!), international players in slam dunk contests (Rudy, you rock!). And that is just a very very brief numeration. And on top of that a guy who’s 24 and has already been to the NBA finals, all by himself. Who makes the best basketball players in the league looking no different from his high school opponents just six years ago. I’d say the post-Jordan slump is over.

If LeBron stays healthy he will be greater than anyone ever to play basketball. EVER. Yes including MJ. BTW: he tops MJ in his entertainment factor. Brutally. Could you possibly imagine MJ having tatoos and doing this:

or this

or this

or this

You think he does it before the game? Yeah, not really, check out the buzzerbeating par excellence:

Check him out killing one of the best defenses of this decade:

and another one of the best defenses

Air guitarring

…

I just realized I need to stop that immediately. You may have gotten the point without further examples.

Shortly said: basketball has headed into a new great era.