It would’ve been all over the news. The morning headlines
would’ve been just the beginning. “THE
KING DETHRONED” over a picture of James grimacing without his headband. “LEBRON’S
LATE-GAME TURNOVERS COST HEAT CHAMPIONSHIP” beneath a snapshot of James lobbing
a ball up to nobody before falling out of bounds.
Had Ray Allen missed that shot with
five second left in Game 6 we wouldn’t have been able to turn on ESPN without
being reminded of how LeBron James choked for the remainder of the hot summer
months. What else do you think ESPN would talk about? Baseball? The talking
heads would’ve run with it. Skip
Bayless would’ve gone into epileptic shock on air. The SportsCenter Center
Pieces: “Can LeBron rebound from championship loss next year?”
“Are the Heat too old?” “Is LeBron the best regular-season
player in the history of the game?”
Regular-season. Those two words would have been
tethered to the King like a lead ball and chain. The invisible asterisk hanging
over LeBron’s career. What could have been, some would wonder. What should have been, others would
demand. What wasn’t, we would all
remember.
Legacy?
Definitely salvageable, but a 1-3 record in the Finals would have handicapped,
if not crippled, the King’s pursuit of the “Best Player Ever” title. We would
remember his 2012-13 season not as the pinnacle of James’ career, but yet
another blemish and ammo for the argument that LeBron isn't clutch. Doctor J, Oscar
Robertson, and Wilt would have replaced Jordan, Russell, and Kareem in comparisons
of LeBron James. A player who
dominated the league during his prime, but not the relentless competitor and
professional winner that we associate with greatest to ever lace up. The 27-game
winning streak? A defining stamp
of a team’s dominance impressed upon history reduced to a mere trivia
question. You can’t be in the
“Best Team Ever” discussion if you weren’t even the best team of your
respective season.
The
drama would continue until a week before football season is almost close enough
to talk about, which is when ESPN begins covering it. If LeBron’s lucky, Aaron Hernandez kills a guy, which takes
some of the spotlight away from him.
But not for long. Dwight
Howard gets traded to the Clippers and the analysts begin questioning whether
or not the Heat can stack up Dwight in the post, and whether or not they can even make it to the Finals in the first place. The Heat would attempt to acquire players who will remedy
their dearth of size. They would
sign a Joel Pryzbilla or a Nazr Muhammad. As the 2013-14 NBA season draws
nearer the buzz surrounding the King’s window of opportunity grows louder.
Derrick
Rose is healthy again. Danny
Granger is healthy again. Russell
Westbrook is healthy again. A
Kevin Love-Carlos Boozer/Jimmy Butler trade would send one of the league’s best
power forwards to the Bulls. The
teams in the Eastern Conference are tailoring their teams around beating the
Heat. Wade is deteriorating. Bosh
has deteriorated. After another
stellar regular season from LeBron, a matured Pacers teams would bounce the
defending champs from the playoffs in the Conference Semis. More disappointment.
Following the early exit, the King would
contemplate his options as a free agent. A developed Kyrie Irving and a
sophomore Nerlins Noel would entice James to return to his hometown Cavaliers
where he begins his journey towards redemption. Even though the team has talent, it would take James a
season or two to really gel with his new teammates. Wade and James, Dwight and Kobe, Melo and Amar’e*; history
tells us that bringing together two superstars doesn’t produce a champion right
away.
*I’m only including Amar’e because I’m not ready emotionally
to handle the reality that the Knicks still owe him almost $50 million over the
next two seasons.
In Cleveland, LeBron would win one,
maybe two more championships as he fades out of his prime. Best case scenario: he ends his career a three-time NBA Champion, three-time Finals MVP, five-time regular season MVP, and he
regains the respect of the city of Cleveland. Not six titles and six Finals MVP’s, but a
sure-fire Hall of Fame career and a spot at the 10 Greatest Players Ever
table. LeBron would say that it
didn’t matter. That he doesn’t
play for legacy and that he accomplished everything that he wanted to
accomplish in his career, all of which would not doubt be true. But he would always kick himself for
the way he played down the stretch of Game 6, even if he’d never show it.
But none of that matters because
none of it happened. Chris Bosh
got an offensive rebound, Ray Allen sunk a three with five seconds left to
force an overtime, and David Stern’s henchmen wheeled the Larry O’Brien trophy
back down the tunnel and stowed it away until Game 7. LeBron James should make
a Helga from Hey Arnold! style bubble-gum shrine to Ray Allen for
single-handedly keeping his run at Michael alive (with Bosh as Eugene breathing
heavily into his ear).
Three years from now, nobody will
remember LeBron’s two late turnovers in Game 6. We will only see a triple-double in the box score and a
2012-13 NBA Championship banner hanging in American Airlines Arena. We will see a back-to-back NBA Champion
(with a chance to become the first three-peat since Kobe/Shaq) and back-to-back
NBA Finals MVP. We will see the
highest elimination game PPG in NBA history and the second most playoff
triple-doubles ever. We will see a
player who still has a legitimate shot to make a run Michael.
Just know that years from now, when
LeBron James retires and the analysts stack up his legacy against Michael’s,
Ray Allen will be watching somewhere next to his mom who is no doubt still in
her bedazzled Celtics jersey. He’ll
glance at his 2013 NBA Champion Ring, and he’ll know that even though it was
LeBron who shepherded the Heat to the Finals, it was Allen who saved that season,
and a substantial part LeBron’s legacy, with one of the most historically
significant shots in NBA history.
Shout-out to the bitter Celtics fan JBFink
#DJLR
