LeBron, Barry Sanders, and Decisions

LeBron James' capital-D "Decision" came with a familiar edge to us Lions fans. Cleveland, another eternally put-down Midwestern city in another eternally put-down Midwestern state, had been abandoned by their beloved star at the peak of his powers. After years of hype and speculation, after several teams gutted their rosters in an attempt to afford him, after incalculable volumes of hot air had been expelled in anticipation of the moment, LeBron "took his talents to South Beach." The pearl violently plucked itself from the oyster; the Cavs were left a broken shell of a team.

What Barry Sanders did to the Lions felt similar. On the literal eve of training camp, Barry faxed a Dear John letter to his local paper, the Wichita Eagle.  Lions fans waking up that morning felt like they woke up into a nightmare.  The lynchpin of an entire fandom's hopes and dreams had suddenly been pulled—and the Lions’ wheels fell off.  Even so, his mere memory kept our collective hopes alive.  Throughout the subsequent years, talk of “Barry coming back” allowed us to pretend that one day soon, the nightmare would be over—and the Lions would be relevant and exciting again.

In the moment, we were hurt, confused, and even angry for a little bit.  But then, Barry had come like a ghost, played like a ghost, and left like a ghost. He was a blessing, a force of nature, an Act of God.  If Barry came, stayed for a decade, and left without winning a title, well, whose fault was that?  If Barry would rather retire than go through two-a-days hustling for a team both uncommitted to, and incapable of, winning a title, who were we to blame him?

LeBron's Decision, though, was different. He wasn't leaving the game because his competitive fire had gone out, quenched by years of management decisions that couldn't hold water.  No, he was leaving for another team, another city, to achieve his greatest glory elsewhere.  Not only did he leave the honest, hard-working, downtrodden folk of Cleveland, he left them for the flashiest party city in the continental US.  Not only did he leave the perennially contending Cavs for the floundering Heat, but joined Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade in a move that now seems as though it’d been coordinated for months, if not years.  Worse yet, he took a pay cut to do it!

The idea that he would take millions and millions less just to walk away from Cleveland was appalling enough.  But he didn’t just walk away, didn’t just fax a letter to the Akron Beacon Journal.  He set up a one-hour prime time ESPN special, where his “Decision,” or more accurately the announcement of his long-made decision, would be made.  After the parade of suitors had come through Akron, after team after team showered him with affection and pitched him woo, Cavs fans were subjected to twenty-odd minutes of LeBrondi Gras before the King abdicated his throne.

Clevelanders quickly responded:

I’m not cool with this.

Yes, Cleveland, LeBron halfheartedly danced with you for months, weeks, days before he pulled the rug out from under you.  Yes, his “marketing company” put together a tedious, revolting one-ring narcissistic circus that featured your city as the clown.  Yes, your days of perennial title contention are almost certainly over.  But uh, your days of perennial title contention?  They happened.

Seven years is a long time in the sports world; practically nothing lasts that long.  Players, coaches, front office staffs, most have a far shorter life expectancy.  James left Cleveland on the heels of four straight playoff appearances, two Eastern Conference Finals, and an NBA Finals.  In the last two years, the Cavs had the best record in the NBA, going 127-37 in that stretch.

LeBron was unquestionably the driving force behind that success—and don’t take my word for it, he’s got two league MVPs.  The sad fact is that in seven years in Cleveland, the only players LeBron’s had to work with are hundred-year-old Shaq and that dude with the rat tail patch thing haircut.  The last two years proved to LeBron that the best he could do by himself in Cleveland wasn’t good enough to win a single title, let alone the many he covets.

As I said above, I was appalled by the way LeBron went about it.  It was terrible, it was obnoxious, and it did rub Cleveland’s nose in it.  Further, I was deeply disappointed in ESPN for not only agreeing to the stunt, but going all-in on the hype and ridiculousness, bringing in a host and three studio analysts to preview, cover, and break down one sentence for 48 primetime minutes.

But Cleveland, at the end of the day, you got seven years in the sun.  You got your home-state superstar at the top of the draft.  He had an instant impact, and blossomed into the best player in the game.  He singlehandedly carried you to the mountaintop, even if he couldn’t manage to plant your flag there.  How many games will the Cavs lose without LeBron?  How long will abundant cap space keep you happily daydreaming about the future?  I know it hurts, it sucks, and you can’t believe you’ve been played for a fool.

But, not every franchise gets blessed with a player like that—and many franchises never experience success like you experienced.  Some day soon, Cleveland, you’ll wish you hadn’t burned that jersey.

Technorati Tags: nfl,nba,lebron james,barry sanders,the decision,espn

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Tom Izzo and the Balrog

Please forgive the wildly off-topic post.

Those of you who’ve been reading for a while, or follow @lionsinwinter on Twitter, likely know that I’m a Spartan fan.  Not just a fan, I attended Michigan State—as did my wife, my in-laws (father-, mother-, sister-, her husband, and other sister-, plus grad school for two of those five), my mother, my stepmother, and my grandfather.  That’s right, I’m a third-generation Spartan, and fiercely proud of it.

One of the things that comes with being a rabid sports fan is getting asked “What’s up with” local sports happenings, especially in a city so profoundly intertwined with its major university.  So with all the reports of the face of said university, Tom Izzo, talking to the Cavaliers about their open coaching gig, I’ve been fielding quite a bit of these.

One must understand how deep Izzo’s roots in the community are.  He’s been head coach since 1995, yes—but he started at MSU part-time in 1983, and was named associate head coach in 1991.  He’s been a fixture in the community for decades, deeply involved in charity work and fundraising, and highly visible as a university advocate and spokesperson.

Were Izzo merely wildly successful, he'd be popular; such is the nature of the beast.  But since he’s not only built Michigan State into one of the most powerful programs in America, but done so with almost entirely local talent, espousing a philosophy of relentless effort and physical play . . . well, he’s become a minor diety in this Rust Belt town.  There are cars in Lansing still rocking this bumper sticker:

BUSH GORE IZZO

Cavs owner, MSU alum Dan Gilbert, is pitching his coach's gig to Izzo--and drawing comparisions to Art Modell in the process.  Is it really all that dramatic?  Is it really all that sinister?  Does Izzo really mean so much to Michigan State that if he leaves, they might as well close the town down?  Besides, it’s immaterial, right?  Izzo wouldn’t go, would he?  Would he?

. . . WOULD HE?!

Former Spartan guard Tim Bograkos, himself very active in the community and university, writes a cool blog, The Sixth Option.  His most recent post delves into Izzo's temptation to leave for the NBA:

I’ve often said that Coach has a competitive streak unlike anyone I’ve ever seen. I know he has the desire to test himself at the next level with the greatest players in the world. The chance to coach Lebron James is a very tempting offer and to get paid A LOT of money to do so makes the deal even sweeter. But will King James embrace him like our Spartan Nation reveres him? Does the chance to impact a young man’s life compare to over-paid players who don’t always play hard?

Over the years, I've heard rumblings along these lines.  Let me be clear: I’m not connected to the university, or the hoops program, in any way.  But add up the way Izzo talks in interviews, the way his name always seems to pop up in these rumors, and his apparent mastery of the college game, and it’s not hard to reach the same total: Tom Izzo wants to coach in the NBA . . . or at least, he thinks he does.

from Wikipedia Commons, copyright New Line Cinema

Tom Izzo is Gandalf, and the NBA his Balrog.  Izzo is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, college basketball coaches alive.  He’s been to nine of the last thirteen Sweet Sixteens, seven of the last twelve Elite Eights, and six of the last eleven Final Fours.  Of course, he also won a national title in 2000, and was the national runner-up at Ford Field in 2008.  Outside of winning a second national title, he’s accomplished all there is to accomplish at the college level.

The wizard Gandalf the Gray from J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, is similar; he is a being of incredible supernatural power.  He is more wise, and more powerful, than nearly anything on Earth.  Like Tom Izzo, he walks almost without peer in the world of Middle Earth (this opens up a line of Mike Krzyzewski/Saruman reasoning that I find infinitely funny, but won’t bore you with).

Balrogs, as dramatically portrayed in the film adapation of the books, are enormous, powerful beings of “shadow and flame,” incredibly powerful, and nigh-on immortal.  What the movies don’t say is that in the world of Lord of the Rings, Balrogs are archdemons.  Serving as the most powerful lieutenants of Morgoth—essentially, the Devil—Balrogs slew countless elves before being driven deep underground.

In the story of the first book of the Trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf avoids leading the party through the mines of Moria at all costs, for he knows a Balrog dwells there.  Yet, you get the sense that Gandalf knows a confrontation is inevitable—and to a degree, he has to have the challenge.  He has to know: as powerful as he is, is he powerful enough?  Can he go mano-a-mano with the most powerful adversary imaginable and win? 

Very few college coaches have made gone to the NBA and succeeded.  The players are better in the NBA, and the margin for error much smaller.  With massive, guaranteed player contracts, the inmates run the asylum; if a star player quits on his coach, the coach is shown the door.  The skill sets that make college coaches excellent, like recruiting, program-building, and fundraising, are mostly irrelevant in the NBA—and the primary talent an NBA coach must possess, motivating pampered millionaires, is rarely found in the college ranks.

In the story, Gandalf avoids the Balrog until there is no choice.  In order to save the future of Middle Earth, Gandalf fights the Balrog, and time he buys the Fellowship allows them to flee.  The battle rages, from the bridge of  Khazad-Dûm, to an underground lake, to the top of a mountain, where Gandalf finally slays the Balrog—but dies in the effort.  Gandalf is sent back from the afterlife “until his task is complete,” and assumes his true form: Gandalf the White, more wise and powerful than he’d ever been before.

Izzo faces no similar pressure.  He can, and may well, happily stay at Michigan State until the end of his working days, going to Final Fours, winning national titles, and overthrowing Saruman—er, I mean, eclipsing Mike Krzyzewski, as the greatest college coach in the land.  I fully believe that’s possible, even probable, and Michigan State’s AD Mark Hollis is “very confident” that Izzo will be coaching Michigan State’s basketball team in the fall.

But no matter what he does here at Michigan State, Tom Izzo will always wonder if he could have taken on the NBA and won.  He’ll never know if he could have slayed that demon.  He’ll never know if he could have become the second member of basketball’s most selective coaching fraternity: those who’ve won a title in both college and the pros.  No, until he’s tested his strength against that evil, Tom Izzo will always be Gandalf the Gray, and never Gandalf the White.

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