You are changing the argument. You implied that the Mavs don't really play team ball. I gave you a stat that proves that do and you marginalize it by posting that stats of two players that play totally different positions.
Actually, all I "implied" was that they aren't the "underdogs" everyone made them out to be. The difference between the two teams, in both demography and style of play, is hardly black and white.
Miami's players sacrificed for the benefit of the team, too, and if you're going to be upset about teams attempting to "buy a championship," you could just as easily accuse the Mavs of doing so as Miami. If whining irks you, why stop at LeBron? Mark Cuban whines about calls more than any other owner in the league. He also makes a greater effort than any other owner in the league to thrust himself into the spotlight. So how, all of the sudden, did Dallas become "everything right with basketball?"
Throwing out the assist stat just proves how arbitrarily defined this distinction truly is. Miami's "big three" sacrificed shot attempts etc. in attempt to benefit the team. They attempted to achieve what the Boston Celtics' "big three" accomplished, only they fell two wins short. The difference between Dallas and Miami has been overblown and, in many cases, fabricated based on an archetypal narrative that bears little resemblance to reality.
But all you are doing in this case is projecting your own beliefs on a situation in which they do not apply in the real world.
Right back at'cha, slick.
Racism is very much a part of the "real world." You've just decided that it has no application here because.. well.. because you
say so, I suppose. If anyone's treating sports as a vacuum, it's you. The rest of us don't see it as wholly isolated from the racist society in which we live.
Is it really so hard for you to believe that people saw 'The Decision' special as a reflection not of an uppity black person but as an example of America's out of control cult of celebrity arrogance?
Is it really so hard for you to believe that this answer can be "both/and" rather than an overly simplistic case of "either/or?"
Here's the difference: your
opinion fails to account for varying perspectives. Anyone who disagrees with you is simply "reaching." My interpretation relies upon and reconciles varying perspectives. Yours appears to deny them. You behave as though you have a corner on the assessment of objective reality.
But to claim that they dislike Lebron because he is black is far, far, harder to believe. Is Steve Nash popular because he is white? Hell yes. That does not make your other assertion true. Besides, the attention LeBron received from the media was far and away more fawning than what Steve Nash ever received (ESPN ranked his game against the Pistons as the 2nd greatest playoff performance of all time).
That's such an irresponsible distortion. Did I ever say "everyone hates LeBron James
because he's Black"? Last I checked, he's
always been Black. His Blackness has, however, influenced the way that people have responded to his "disloyalty" and "arrogance."
People don't like the fact that Donald Trump can promise to announce his "decision" regarding a potential presidential campaign on the season finale of his own self-promoting television series, but compare that to what LeBron James faces. LeBron may be arrogant, but Trump is in a class of his own in that category. Who's more likely to get egged on the street now?
Why was this SO exceedingly harsh? It's funny that you bring up Shaq, because people still remember his "treachery," yet everyone's apparently forgotten about how Steve Nash dumped Dallas and his "best friend" to sign with Phoenix. As Mark Cuban wrote at the time, "it was Steve's choice to leave for money." Nobody seems to care about that one. Had LeBron never left, people would
still be using Shaq as the go-to example of free agent disloyalty. It
was a big deal in 1996.
LeBron became a
bigger deal for a number of reasons. He wasn't an average player, to be sure. He was the reigning MVP. He was also at the center of an enormous marketing campaign, which forced him front and center in so many living rooms around the world. Then, too, you had his television special. The Cavs were his "hometown" team. Chris Bosh, another former "franchise player," also joined Miami, compounding the effect that the "inmates" were "running the asylum." These are all contributing factors.
I'm simply stating that his race was
also a factor - and given the racial divide in how he's currently perceived - it's very difficult to argue otherwise without simply covering your eyes, sticking your fingers in your ears, and engaging in denial, because you WISH the world were otherwise.
Hey, I wish it were otherwise, too, but each day many of us are confronted with the unpleasant reality and do not have the
luxury of ignoring it.
That's sort of the crux of privilege in American life.
A useful exercise for raising men's awareness regarding sexism is to ask everyone in a room to compose a list of daily precautions they take to avoid sexual assault. Men's lists are pretty empty. It's clear, when you perform this activity, that most guys rarely give this any thought - and some may even consider women's lists evidence of an irrational paranoia. (And they can say this with a straight face even as they take various precautions to avoid "unlikely" threats like heart disease or cancer.)
Simply because you don't have to account for racism on a daily basis doesn't make it any less real. It just means that it's less salient in
your life.
