Lebron James is definitely the next something. But it’s not the next Michael Jordan, and it’s not the next Wilt Chamberlain, or Julius Erving. He’s not even the next Scottie Pippen.
The King is in line however, for the self imposed crown of a former pound for pound champion.
Lebron James is the next Floyd “Money” Mayweather.
Like Mayweather, Lebron likes to talk about himself as if he were an enterprise of one. Look at Lebron’s reaction to just how much people enjoyed him shrinking away from the spotlight again;
“All the people that was rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems they had today. I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that. They can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal. But they have to get back to the real world at some point.”
It took him an awful long time to mention that it was a whole team that had lost didn’t it? We have all heard Lebron refer to himself in the first person, and claim that he wants to be a global icon, just as we have with Mayweather.
Both men seem more concerned with being successful businessmen than they do with actually winning.
Lebron claimed he wanted to win a title with the Cavs, even talking the talk by telling ownership to get him the players needed to make it happen. Then he quit on his team against the Celtics, a team that couldn’t stop him when he wanted to get to the rim, and couldn’t defend him in the low post if he decided he wanted to go there. Instead of using the loss, and attacks on his corazon as motivation, he bailed on Cleveland. Instead of heading to New York, where he could have truly become a global icon, and a basketball god, by bringing an NBA team back to Madison Square Garden, he joined up with one of his chief rivals. He didn’t want to fight Wade, so he joined his team. All the while he has said that he WILL win, and that he IS the greatest.
When Muhammed Ali said “I must be the greatest”, it was after he had shook up the world by beating Sonny Liston. Lebron said it after beating up on his own team, when they weren’t looking.
Mayweather was on pace to join the conversation, with Ali, Tyson, and Frazier, for the best fighter of all time. He had never lost and seemed to fight on a different level than his opponents (Think about what Lebron did his first few years in the league. This is what it was like watching Mayweather. Love him or hate him, the man was born to box.)
Mayweather took out an over the hill Oscar De La Hoya, then dismantled an outclassed Ricky Hatton. As excited as we were about his ability, we were thrilled to death about the possibility of a worthy adversary. Unlike many fighters, who are judged by the fact that they destroyed weaker competition and never had a defining fight, Mayweather actually had his nemesis. His worthy adversary was lurking a few pounds away in the form of hammer fisted southpaw Manny Pacquiao. The hype surrounding a potential fight between Pacquiao and Mayweather was huge. It was the same excitement we felt when we thought that Lebron and Kobe were on a collision course to meet in the NBA Finals.
Just like Lebron, Mayweather wanted no part of that fight. The entire world knows that it was Mayweather, and not Pacquaio, who derailed the mega fight.
It’s the difference between men like Jordan, Pacquiao, even Kobe Bryant, and men like James and Mayweather. The former did whatever it took to be great. They wanted it more than anything in the world and only faded once they had killed themselves trying to prove it. For the latter, being called the greatest, even if it is only by your self, is more important than actually putting in the work to earn that legacy.
Boxing isn’t a team sport so Mayweather couldn’t join Pacquiao’s team the way that Lebron did with Wade. But what he did, retiring and then returning to fight more over the hill, outclassed opponents, was ducking his main competition in the same way. He knew he couldn’t win the big fight, couldn’t take the weight on his shoulders and deliver so he bitched about blood testing and beat up Juan Manuel Marquez.
Lebron took his talents to South Beach.
Mayweather fought Shane Mosley and is now saying he wants to fight someone named Victor Ortiz. Pacquiao, by the way, has been fighting everyone that Mayweather beat, and beating them worse. It’s like he is goading him to fight, wagging a silent finger in Mayweather’s face with each knockout.
Can you imagine this ever being allowed to fly with Ali? Or Jordan? The sight of someone else one upping them would have flipped a switch and they would have been forced to act.
Lebron watched his teammate take control of games, while he shrunk away. Lebron let himself get bitched out by his teammate, and shrunk even further away.
Mayweather and Lebron don’t care what we think. They have all the money in the world, all the fame that goes along with it, and at the end of the day they won’t lose any sleep over their wasted talent.
Any kid that grew up playing basketball heard how Michael Jordan never slept, and would stay up for hours practicing. That’s why he was better than all of us.
It’s too bad for anyone that loves sports, that like Mayweather, Lebron wasn’t born with that same competitive spirit to accompany his immense talent. If he was, he would be compelled to prove his greatness on the court, instead of just boasting about it in the offseason.
Until he figures it out, I’m done talking about Lebron. I’m on to the next one, on to the next.
——Corey
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