LeBron James is no Luke Skywalker

First appeared in the Lebanon Reporter
on June 24, 2015

When I was seven my family took me to see Star Wars. The movies were a new world. One where things appeared larger than life, including the bottomless buckets of popcorn that were strapped on like feedbags. Everything was covered in chocolate or coated with sugar or came in a container no human should be expected to eat alone.

For the last thirty years every movie I’ve seen has fallen short of that first experience, but at the time I had no idea what I was watching. There were swordfights with lasers, talking robots, space monsters and a main character who flirted with his sister and tried to kill his dad.

Surprisingly, this year’s NBA Finals were no different. For you found yourself bloated with a bag of microwave popcorn in your lap and a warm two-liter of Tab at your side, debating whether or not to eat something off the floor, all the while wondering just what am I watching here? Was it really about Golden State proving the doubters wrong by winning small or was this more about LeBron James?

And just as everything in Star Wars revolves around Luke Skywalker, so to does the NBA with King James. And though one is a fictional character and the other a freak with out- of-this-world talents, parallels do exist in their lives. Young Skywalker resisted the Dark Side unlike James. LeBron gave his heart and soul to Darth Riley when bolting for Miami.

But, when that didn’t reap the passel of championships he promised, he threw himself from a sky bridge over a Death Star reactor chasm only to have a garbage chute spit him out in Cleveland, where he dusted himself off while proclaiming his goal all along was to bring a title there.

On a completely unconnected and somewhat random side-note, few have recognized just how difficult leaving the comforts of Miami for Cleveland must have been. After all Miami is a utopia where everyday is sunny and 78 and beautiful women in string bikinis walk down the street handing out free drinks, tart ones with little umbrellas in them. Meanwhile the people of Cleveland, who have been floundering through a championship desert for low these 40 years, welcomed James home as if he were C-3PO and they a tribe of Ewoks.

However, instead of becoming a leader amongst the Rebel Alliance LeBron chose to preach about leadership while treating his head coach as if he were a domesticated animal somebody had staked to the Cavalier bench. Dismissing him during time outs, failing to credit him in post game interviews and then, wham, just like that Darth Vader had cut his hand off.

Between the roster he had by the end of the Playoffs and the fact he kept David Blatt at arm’s length, LeBron charged in to the Finals with both hands behind his back. The fact alone he put up ridiculous numbers (numbers which warranted a Finals MVP nod) and had Cleveland in the drivers seat three games into the series only proves he’s the best player in the world.

But for this thing to work, LeBron has to have both feet in and doing so will be more mentally challenging than a workout with Yoda in the bogs of Dagobah. Skywalker was a hero who threw himself in wholeheartedly when things got tough. The sooner LeBron realizes that even Luke welcomed help in the form of Han Solo, Chewie and Princes Leia, the sooner Cleveland can rock once again. Until then, King James will be left to forge ahead alone, relying upon an ultra-rare combination of his own freak talents and the Jedi Force to get it done.

© 2015 Eric Walker Williams