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WestCoastBadger wrote:

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Here is a summary from the great Kevin Arnovitz:

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/46336/lebron-james-and-the-end-of-all-that

I’d been quietly pulling for the Miami Heat to win the title since April -- and not because I find LeBron James to be sympathetic or because I like the Heat’s brand of basketball or even because I have a lingering attachment to the Heat after covering them in Miami during the 2010-11 season.

I simply wanted it all to be about basketball again, because the public exercise of trying to probe James’ inner life had grown tiresome. The ease with which epithets like choke artist, fraud and much worse have been thrown at James has always been petty and, when examined closely, they usually rang false. In recent months, those takedowns had also become boring, and the prospect that they’d continue to dominate the NBA for at least another year was excruciating.

This first championship won’t make James more palatable to his critics, and some will find a way to belittle the achievement. They’ll affix an asterisk to the title or remind us that James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and Pat Riley were killjoys who stacked the deck. As insubstantial as those arguments might be, they’re far easier on the ears than the noisy certitude of those who know James is a born loser or a beta male or someone whose personal failings will relegate him to a career of futility. Because you can have a reasonable debate about the legitimacy of a 66-game season, but listening to someone count off the deepest character flaws of a total stranger doesn’t advance any kind of discussion.

Fans should experience the game however they want. If the pleasure of watching pro basketball is derived from casting heroes and villains, as if the league were a landscape of fantasy kingdoms like “Game of Thrones,” then terrific. If the offensive and defensive choreography feeds the joy of watching beautiful systems at work, then that’s cool. If you’re a lifelong hooper who loves to see the game played at the highest level by the very best, then it must be a thrill to watch these guys ball.

I can think of a zillion reasons why a person’s curiosity would be drawn to the NBA. But it became increasingly difficult for me to understand how someone whose interest is vested in a game they supposedly love could watch James during this postseason run and not want to commit his performances to their catalog of fan memories.
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Admiring James’ talent as a basketball player has never been about unconditional worship or letting personal and professional shortcomings slide. For many who daydream about what basketball can be, James has simply been the game’s most fascinating player who, at his best, offered us a glimpse of the platonic future -- size, speed, vision, finesse and intuition in a single package.
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All that talk is over. The next time James falls short -- and he almost certainly will at some point -- we’ll measure that failure in the context of the game, not in the language of hysteria.