Ruminations, etc..

Sunday night, the Dallas Mavericks beat the Miami Heat in game six of the NBA finals.  This made me very happy.  Not because the Miami Heat are classic head-case bullies — arrogant in victory, self-pitying in defeat — and deserved to lose, but because I placed $60 on the Mavericks winning the series in six games.   I took home $330. Go me.

Actually, that’s disingenuous. Truthfully, I really, really, wanted the Miami Heat to lose.

Really, this team is loathsome.  From their unearned arrogance, nauseating self-pity when things don’t do their way, to Chris Bosh and his flopping (including the most egregious flop in the history of the NBA.  Even Manu Ginobli thought that flop against Carlos Boozer was over the top), this team runs afoul of all that is good and true. If you think I’m being harsh, well, I’m not.  What other team, in any other sport, do you know that holds a triumphant pep rally, the kind normally reserved after winning a championship, before one goddamn minute of the next season has been played?

Pictured: Chris Bosh, Lebron James, Dwayne Wade. Not Pictured: 2010-2011 NBA Champions.

I mean, my God — that pep rally.  I thought James’s The Decision was bad.  However, as bad as it was, that could be chalked up to poor decision making and a misguided desire to be more marketable from a tone-deaf, insulated star.  Tacky, foul, but forgivable if someone wanted to be charitable and acknowledge the fact that James lives in a bubble.  But this pep rally was planned and executed after the public fallout from James’s insane television spectacle.  Great idea guys.   You managed to make The Decision look like an exercise in humility and self-restraint.  Kudos.

And there is really only one explanation for that absurd spectacle: the Miami Heat wanted to rub their free agency coup in everyone else’s face.  Classy, guys.  Especially flashing “YES WE DID” on the big screens behind the players. Great plan.   And Miami, what did you do?  Rings aren’t won in July.  All you cats did was spend a boatload of money on a guy who’s turning into the biggest head case in the NBA and another guy who always looks like someone hit him in the face with a 2×4.  Oh, and you resigned Dwayne Wade. Congratulations, I guess.

Chris Bosh...oh my god...

So yeah, the Heat are loathsome.  And I don’t feel bad saying that.  They brought this on themselves.  They wanted to be hated, to be villains.  Now they are and they don’t like it.   So we’re supposed to stop piling on.  The rest of us are supposed to be nice to them, now that they’ve lost. No way.

Anyway, now that the basketball season is over, and a major lock-out is looming, there’ll be nothing to talk about except how the Heat failed and LeBron James wilted in the fourth quarter of pivotal games.  And make no mistake: this Heat team is a complete failure.  Last off-season, Pat Riley and company went out and signed two marquee free agents and a guy who should just be happy to be there.  There was only one reason to wrap up that kind of money in three players: multiple championships.   This isn’t a team built to make a strong push for the playoffs or to get to the conference finals every other year.  No, this team was constructed for one purpose: to win now and in the future.   This was Riley’s attempt to custom build a dynasty, and cousin, did it go down in flames.  But that’s what happens when you have no point-guard or center, and one of your best players decides not to show -up in the fourth quarter.

And speaking of James, like all “great athletes” he doesn’t stand pat, resting on his laurels.  Somehow he managed to one-up both The Decision and the pep rally in one fell swoop.  I didn’t think that was possible.  I  didn’t think LeBron James could make me like him less.  Then he said something so arrogant, so condescending, so downright insulting it literally made me laugh at the sheer absurdity that now surrounds a once promising athlete. Here’s what he said during the post-game conference:

“All the people that were rooting me on to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life they had before. They have the same personal problems they had to today. I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want with me and my family and be happy with that.”

Wow.  Just wow.  Where do you even begin with that?  I think the world needs a break from LeBron James.  Luckily for him, he’ll get it with the lock-out.

But in all honesty, James is right.  His life is vastly different from mine.  For example, I can go to Ohio without having to worry about death threats.  I don’t know why I would go to Ohio, but there you go. But even with major lifestyle differences, James, you and I have a lot in common.  We’re both human beings after all.   We both want to be loved, to be respected by our peers, and neither one of us has a post-up game.   And until one of us changes that, we’ll also have the same amount of rings: zero.