As the Cleveland Cavaliers took the NBA championship on Sunday,
June 19th, LeBron James truly established himself as a basketball legend,
bringing Cleveland it's first Championship title in over fifty years. According
to an article called "The Arc of the LeBron James Story Reaches Its
Climax" by Marc Tracy, "his legacy had definitely been
chiseled." This is because, even though he won the MVP award in the NBA
four times, won two championships with the Miami Heat, played on the U.S.
Olympic basketball team, and seven finals appearances, his latest feat brought
his career to a fantastic climax.
The article talked about James'
career with varying detail, and took to using the word
"bildungsroman" to describe his career. It is a German word that
roughly means "novel of development," in reference to James's time in
the NBA, going from Cleveland to Miami, and then back to Cleveland again. As
his time as a free agent came in 2010, James made the decision to play for Miami
and leave behind his home. This decision left him branded as a traitor to
Cleveland and he was unfairly slandered as "The Whore of Akron" by a
book. While this massive backlash against James was completely unreasonable,
due to the fact that, like all other players, as a free agent, he was free to
go anywhere he wanted to, James realized after four years with the Heat that he
wanted to go play for his home team once more.
In the end, it was
necessary for him to go and play with a different team and gain new experiences
and opportunities to better himself as a basketball player. With the experience
of two championships under his belt, James was welcomed back with open arms at
the end of the 2014 season when he came back to the Cavaliers. With the fact
that he was one of the best in the NBA long confirmed, his next goal was to do
the impossible, win a championship for the Cavaliers, and more importantly, for
Cleveland. It was a goal that only The King could accomplish. Within one
season, this goal nearly became a reality, only to be squashed by the Golden
State Warriors in the 2015 championships. The very next year, 2016, the
Cavaliers faced the Warriors once again in a grudge match. However, this time,
the Warriors lost and James had done the impossible. He led the Cavaliers to
their first NBA Championship victory in 52 years. This is truly the climax of
James' career simply because the feat was so monumental. As said in the
article, anything after this event is merely an epilogue, or a prelude to the
retirement of yet another legend simply because anything else just pales in
comparison.
Article
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/22/sports/basketball/lebron-james-nba-title-cleveland.html?ref=basketball
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