Just because LeBron is bent over, it doesn't mean you need to abuse him (Source: Yardbarker.com)

Okay, I know this is FanSided, not The LeBron James Non-Stop-Coverage Blog, but as has been stated by many people, the Cavs’ shocking loss has the potential to not just change the Cleveland franchise, but NBA history. Wherever LBJ goes, eventually championships will follow. So I’ve been shocked at the number of people who have summarily discounted his past performances to now label him as a player who just doesn’t have it. Bill Simmons, aka The Sports Guy, is a wonderful writer, but he’s a self-acknowledged knee-jerk sports fan. He writes what many others have said/written/twittered over the last few days:

There’s a feeling that [LeBron] can still get better, and with better teammates, maybe he could. But fundamentally, to paraphrase Bill Parcells, he is what he is at this point — a gregarious, larger-than-life, supremely gifted basketball player who’s better at making us say “WOW!” than anything else. If he owned that cutthroat Jordan chromosome, or Magic’s leadership chromosome, it would have surfaced by now.

Okay, LeBron doesn’t have Jordan’s cutthroat quality, but c’mon, Kobe’s the only other player who’s ever had that.  Then again, I’m not certain that killer quality is always best for a team.  Bill Russell has more rings than anyone, so clearly winning is a huge part of his genetic structure, but he would never mentally eviscerate a teammate the way Jordan did with Kwame Brown.  There’s something mesmerizing about that killer mentality in Jordan and Kobe, but that desire to win can be expressed in various ways as shown by Tim Duncan, Magic Johnson and tons of others.

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