Top 10 moments being a fan of Lebron James

No blog is complete without at least one Top 10 list. To celebrate his comeback to the NBA, and to front run, hopefully, his fifth title (which is a real possibility this season), I have constructed a Top 10 list of my favorite athlete of all time, Lebron James. If you are unfamiliar with the NBA, this is probably a post worth skipping. We will continue with our regularly scheduled programming on Wednesday.

1. Game 7 against Golden State

I was in a sports bar in Ft Lauderdale. I was on vacation. The game was in Golden State. The Cavs were in the midst of the greatest comeback in Finals history. After having fallen down 3-1 to the Warriors, there was a real conversation in the media about who the best player in the world was. In my eyes, it was clearly Lebron but Steph Curry had a case. The Warriors had just beaten the Cavs the year prior, but Kyrie wasn't healthy. This year Kyrie was. If Steph was able to beat Lebron again with a healthy roster then even I would have to admit that Steph was better. Well, the Cavs won game 5 on the road in heroic fashion. Both Lebron and Kyrie scored over 40 points. Lebron was Lebron, and Kyrie was unbelievable. Draymond also called Lebron a bitch and was suspended for Game 6 because of it. You can't talk to the king like that. The Cavs blew out the Warriors in game 6 at home, something I didn't think was possible. Lebron had 41. He also emasculated Steph with a block in the second half asserting his dominance. He had heard the whisperings in the media and he had something to say. I fucking loved it. The stage was set for an all-time Game 7. I was sitting next to a dude that hated Lebron. He was from Miami and had apparently met Lebron a couple of times. He said Lebron was an asshole in person. Apparently, Lebron didn't take the time to address this dude's kids properly. First-world problems. Anyway, I and this older black guy had a healthy back-and-forth throughout the game. The game itself was fantastic. Close the whole way. The Warriors were up at half but JR Smith came out and knocked in 2 big threes right at the start of the 3rd quarter. Game 7s are usually lower-scoring. People get tight as there is a lot of pressure. Buckets become harder to get. Cannot emphasize enough how important those two three-pointers were. The game stayed close pretty much the entire second half. No one could score in the last 6 minutes of the game. Everyone was exhausted. Then it happened. The Warriors were on a fast break with an easy layup opportunity. Out of nowhere, Lebron flies in for one of his iconic chase-down blocks. It was superhuman! Kyrie then hits a step-back 3 over Klay to put the Cavs up three. The entire bar was going nuts! I looked over to the older black guy. He couldn't look at the TV anymore. I rubbed it in as much as I could. The Warriors missed their next shot. Lebron went up for the greatest dunk of his life on the next possession and was hard-fouled by Draymond. It initially appeared that Lebron had broken his hand. He landed right on it. There is no great time to get hurt, but the last minute of the last game of the season is not the end of the world. Unsurprisingly the most robust athlete of all time was just fine. Lebron missed the first free throw. All those Skip Bayless thoughts were in my head. He's not a good free-throw shooter. He can't perform in the clutch. He shies away from the free throw line late in games. Lebron promptly made the second free throw and the Cavs won the series. His third championship. His third finals MVP. Steph who?

2. The time he single-handedly beat Boston

Of all the games I have watched Lebron play, I would say this is the game he was under the most pressure. The Heat had just gotten embarrassed the year prior by the underdog Mavericks. Lebron flat-out choked in that series. In the Finals, in front of the entire world. It was bad. Those were dark times. I remember going into my internship the next day and two of the brokers in the elevator were saying how he would never win a title. I almost agreed with them. Fast forward a year and the Heat were down 3-2 to the Boston Celtics. I fucking hated the Celtics. I hated Paul Pierce. He thought he and Lebron were rivals. Get the fuck out of here. Paul Pierce was a good player, but Lebron is an All Timer. It didn't help that Paul Pierce hit the dagger over him in Game 5 in Miami. Game 6 was in Boston. I had flashbacks to the year prior. He would never win the title. He would always choke under pressure. I watched the game at home with my family, a tradition that we keep to this day. Every time there is a Lebron playoff game, we all watch it together. Well, Lebron made us proud that day. He went into Boston and snatched the Celtics' hearts right from their chest. He missed his first jumper and promptly went into 'fuck it' mode. If they were going to lose, they were going to go down with him shooting. As a Lebron fan, this is all we ever wanted. We don't care if you miss Bron, we just want you to take the shot. You're the guy. And that night, he was. I don't think he missed another jumper that night. He finished the game with 45 points. The Celtics as a team had 79. Paul Pierce had 9. He had his best game ever when he was under the most pressure. That is what legends are made of. That is Lebron James. The Heat took care of business at home in Game 7.

3. Ray Allen's shot

I was watching the game at home with my family. The Heat were down 3-2 to the Spurs but games 6 and 7 were in Miami. I thought the Heat had a good chance of winning those games. The Spurs, to their credit, are just the worst kind of team. They do everything right. They take the right shots and they play great defense always. They are the NBA equivalent of the New England Patriots. Greg Popovich is the greatest basketball coach of my lifetime. No one understands the game better. To take a small market team to 5 titles is insane. Of course, having Tim Duncan helps. And Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, and a young Kawhi Leonard. But he drafted those guys. That Spurs team was insanely talented and insanely well-coached. They should have won that series. On the other side were the Heatles. People gave Lebron a lot of shit for teaming up with Wade and Bosh, and some of it was deserved. But what you cannot say, unlike Kevin Durant and the Super Warriors, is that they did not have adequate competition. The Heat never had an easy path. Game 6 was too close for comfort. And in the second half, the Spurs started to pull away. With two minutes left, it appeared the Spurs were going to win the title. Heat fans were starting to leave the arena. I couldn't watch it anymore. I couldn't go back to Lebron losing. I just wasn't ready. People would think his first title was just a fluke. He had to win more. The Heat had won 27 straight games that year. 27! They were a great team and to watch them lose was heartbreaking. I went over to the window of my apartment and prayed to God for the Heat to magically win this game. And then they fucking did! Lebron bricked a 3, got it back hit the next three. Yeah, we're going down with him shooting. Love it. The Heat had to foul. Kawhi goes to the line and misses both free throws! Yes, the very same Kawhi Leonard. All he had to do was hit one and he missed both! The Heat come back the other way, Lebron fires up another three and misses. Bosh tips the rebound to Ray Allen and he drills a step back corner 3 with seconds left on the clock! My entire family was jumping for joy in our apartment. Probably the greatest moment in Finals history. The Heat won Game 6 in overtime and won Game 7 behind more Lebron 4th quarter greatness. Back-to-back titles, back-to-back finals MVP. That's more like it. Thanks, God!

4. When the Lakers traded for Anthony Davis

I was in Central Park for book club. We had just read East of Eden by John Steinbeck. Great book by the way. The message of the book is that free will is a choice. It's good stuff. One of my friends gets an alert on his phone. He immediately tells me that the Lakers have just traded for Anthony Davis. I literally jump up from my laying down position and do a lap around the park. I was that happy! It had not been good times as a Lebron fan. The last few years in Cleveland were a disappointment, albeit only by his insane standards. Obviously, the Cavs made the Finals every year. Every fucking year. Oh, by the way, Lebron made the Finals 8 straight years. That's never going to happen again. Ever. Unfortunately, he ran into the Super Warriors the last two times and lost both times. Fucking Kevin Durant. Durant went to the store and bought two titles. Then Lebron went to the Lakers and the first year was also garbage. Lebron was hurt for a third of the season, they played no defense, and the Lakers didn't make the playoffs. I placed a bet that year that they would win the championship. LOL. Imagine going from making it to the Finals 8 straight years to missing the playoffs! It sucked. The Anthony Davis rumors started the second Lebron got to LA. He and Lebron had the same agent so everyone in the media pretty much assumed that the Lakers would get him. Those rumors ran for a year and a half though and fatigue had set in. But then the trade finally happened. They got Anthony Davis! At that moment I knew Lebron would win at least one more title. If you give Lebron another top 5 guy, you're going to win titles. And that is exactly what happened. The Lakers were the best team in the league in 2020. Then the pandemic happened. I feared that Lebron might get cheated out of another title. But no. Lebron used his vast power of influence to make the NBA bubble a reality. The teams went into the bubble and the Lakers won the title. Lebron won his fourth Finals MVP. The Lakers had the best defense in the league. Of all the titles that Lebron has won, I think the bubble title is his greatest accomplishment as a leader. The world was burning around them. Covid headlines were everywhere. The players were in the bubble without their families and the comforts of home. So as a team, you had two choices. Either you can mentally collapse, lose, and go back home or you can come together and play the most focused brand of basketball ever. No distractions. Just eat, sleep, and hoop. This resulted in some of the best basketball I have ever seen. And yet the Lakers were still so much better than their competition. It was absurd. Quite a contrast from the LA Clippers, who were touted as the Lakers' most formidable opponent. The Clippers did not want to be in the bubble. They couldn't handle the adversity. Kawhi Leonard, their quiet leader, had just won a flukey title with Toronto and claimed that LA was his town now. Well, Lebron put that to rest in the bubble. Leadership matters more in times of adversity, and there has been no greater leader in my lifetime than Lebron James. Maybe Tom Brady. No one has so consistently made his teammates better.

5. When Nick Wright got on television

Steven A never did it for me. He was the LeBron guy back when he and Skip were the only game in town. But he turned out to be a Jordan truther too. He probably owes his career to Jordan in some way, kind of like Skip. Shannon Sharpe was a touch better but something about Skip and Shannon has always left me wanting more. Enter Nick Wright. Now there are many things I absolutely love about Nick Wright. As a matter of fact, I could write another Top 10 list of reasons that I love Nick Wright. Has anyone ever done a Top 10 list inside another Top 10 list? Let's change the game.

1. He has Lebron as the greatest basketball player ever and says it with his chest. He believes that Lebron passed Jordan when he won his third title in 2016.
2. He is a guy that believes in analytics, numbers, and common sense.
3. He has a hot wife.
4. He was on a show with Cris Carter. I still don't know why Fox fired him but Cris Carter was an awesome analyst. To go from a drug addict to a Hall of Fame wide receiver is fucking epic. Go watch his hall of fame speech. Do it now. I'll wait.
5. He is currently on a show with Kevin Wildes and Chris Broussard. Some people think Broussard is an idiot. They might be right but I think he is underrated and is getting better with every episode. Wildes is the funniest man on sports television. Together they have the best show on sports television.
6. He is a family man. Steven A is single, and Skip has a girlfriend he met 5 years ago. Shannon is single. Colin is in his second marriage. Nick married a woman with two kids and adopted the kids. The couple then had a third child. They live in Brooklyn now. It's very wholesome and appeals to my conservative upbringing.
7. He currently does a podcast with his son. What a totally fucking awesome thing to do as a father.
8. He somehow magically gained the ability to grow hair. He used to be very bald and now has a full head of flowing hair. Somehow he did it without surgery. Is he the messiah?
9. He is young! All the other guys on sports television are over 50 at least. He connects to the youth in a way the other guys can't even dream of.
10. He used to be a competent boxer. Think he won a white-collar boxing tournament a few years ago. The dude has hands. Badass.

6. When I discovered Skip Bayless

Besides LeBron himself, who would you give the most credit for LeBron's popularity? I would give that honor to one Skip Bayless. Now Skip is a piece of work. He is a flawed man and a Jordan truther. Most Jordan truthers are flawed human beings. He doesn't believe in numbers. He doesn't believe in longevity. He believes in anecdotes, high peaks, and clutch-time performances. But every weekday Skip gets on TV and talks about one LeBron James. And his audience is vast. He is the lead LeBron hater, only in the sense that Lebron is not Jordan. And it is not an act, I genuinely believe that Skip believes everything that he says. If you really dig into the stuff that he says, most of what he says is actually based on fact. Obviously, some of his takes are pure nonsense. No, Kyrie should not have been the Finals MVP in 2016. Like what? His biggest fault is probably that he makes excuses for every one of Lebron's championships. The Thunder were too young. The Spurs were too depleted from Game 6. The Cavs would have lost if Draymond wasn't suspended. The Clippers would have won it all if it wasn't for the bubble. Now I hate excuses and so does Skip. The dude runs 5 miles every day. Every fucking day. I doubt he is a man of excuses. So the fact that he cannot see that he makes so many excuses for LeBron's opponents is mind-boggling. But god damn it if I don't tune into his show every time Lebron does something great just to see how he will react. Ok, tune-in is wrong. I watch the clips on youtube. But you get the gist. Will Skip ever change his mind about Lebron James? The answer is no. He is LeBron's Ellsworth Toohey (The Fountainhead is also worth a read by the way). He will forever be a hater. But because of Skip, every day of Lebron's career has been over-analyzed. And LeBron has had the greatest career in NBA history. I can't help but think that the added publicity is good for LeBron's bottom line. As Floyd Mayweather likes to say, either you pay to watch me win or you pay to see me lose, either way, you're going to pay.

7. When he finally won a championship

I actually don't remember much about these Finals. All the drama was in the Eastern Conference Finals when LeBron snatched the Celtics' souls. The Heat made it to the Finals and lost Game 1. OKC was stacked. Durant, Westbrook, Harden, and Ibaka. All young, all great. Sam Presti really is a genius when it comes to drafting. OKC was a formidable opponent and they deserved to be in the Finals. However, they were not at the same level as the Heat. The Heat won in 5. A gentlemen's sweep. LeBron won his first title and his first Finals MVP. It was about damn time. That was the moment that all of us LeBron fans could proudly say that he was our guy. With our chests out. He had finally climbed the mountain. What has happened from that point on is simply the greatest run any player in any sport has ever gone on.

8. When he single-handedly beat the Pistons

This was the game that I became a LeBron fan. The Pistons were the big dogs in the East. Their entire starting 5 had made the All-Star Team. Chauncey Billups, Rip Hamilton, Ben Wallace, Rasheed Wallace, and Tayshaun Prince. At their peak, they were one of the best defenses in NBA history. They beat Shaq and Kobe in the Finals a few years earlier. They went back to the Finals the following year and lost to the Spurs, no shame in that. Then they lost to Shaq and D Wade the next year. D Wade played out of his mind that year en route to his only Finals MVP. The Pistons were still formidable in 2007. They were the favorites to make the Finals out of the East. The Pistons had 5 All-Stars. The Cavs had LeBron. That's all they needed. Basketball is the only team sport where one player can beat an entire team. It doesn't happen often, the better team usually wins, but it does happen. The series was tied 2-2, and Game 5 was in Detroit. It was a close, low-scoring game. Lebron scored the Cavs' final 25 points to beat the Pistons in overtime. It's not what you drive it's how you arrive. And this was how Lebron had officially arrived. This was the game where he ascended to the status of the best player in the world. It was also when I became a huge LeBron fan. In a sport such as basketball, where the best player can oftentimes decide the outcome of the game, it is best to root for players and not teams. What was I supposed to do, root for my hometown Knicks? That's no kind of life. Growing up I had been an Iverson fan. I quickly realized that I had bought his stock at the absolute peak. Iverson also played no defense. He was a warrior and he sold tickets. But he was inefficient. He did not have what it took to be a winner consistently. I learned from my mistake and put all my chips on Lebron. It has been a bumpy ride at times but I wouldn't have it any other way. Being a Lebron fan has been one of the best experiences of my life. Thank you for an unbelievable career LeBron. You are the GOAT.

9. When Lebron passed Kareem

I was watching the game alone at home. It was late at night on the East Coast as the game was played on the West coast. Lebron needed 35 points to get the record. That is not an easy task. Well, Lebron made it look easy that night. He couldn't miss. For a guy who is a team-first guy to become the all-time leading scorer in NBA history is simply impossible. (He is also top 5 all-time in assists by the way.) I still can't believe he did it. Who is the leading scorer in NBA history? For my entire life, it had been Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Now it's Lebron James? Are you kidding me? That is absolutely insane. I have watched this guy's entire career! I know the Jordan truthers will always have Jordan above Lebron but even they have to appreciate how great he has been for so long. 20 years of nonstop greatness. 27 7 and 7. That is what you get with Lebron. Not to mention in his prime he could defend all 5 positions. He is still the best passer in basketball and no one has a higher basketball IQ. He is 38 years old and still a top 5 player. Giannis, KD, Steph, Luca, who else? I don't have Embiid or Jokic over him. Jokic doesn't play defense. Embiid shrinks in meaningful games. Put some respect on Lebron's name. Adding all-time leading scorer to his resume certainly will bring some people to the Lebron camp. As it should.

10. When the Cavs won Christmas day against the Super Warriors

If it was not for KD going to the Warriors, I am convinced that Lebron would have one if not two more titles. He would be tied with Jordan and Kareem right now. But no. KD went to a team that had just won 73 games the year before. The second-best player in the world went to the team that had set the all-time regular season record for wins. What was worse was that the Warriors recruited him! They all flew to the Hamptons to get KD to join the Warriors. Why? So that they could beat LeBron. They knew that they were outgunned. The two greatest shooters in NBA history. The best backcourt in NBA history. Defensive Player of the Year Draymond Green. Coach of the Year Steve Kerr. 4 future Hall of Famers. Not enough. They all knew they couldn't beat LeBron. That's how great LeBron was in his prime. So they recruited KD, and KD, being the very sensitive man that he is, decided to join them. He had 0 titles thus far and knew that the only thing the media cared about was titles. On this Christmas day, the Cavs and Super Warriors played. It was a close, lower-scoring, game. Kyrie hit a fadeaway in the paint to clinch the game for the Cavs. For the next six months, I wholeheartedly believed that the Cavs could beat the Super Warriors. It was a great six months. But then, sadly, Kyle fucking Korver missed a wide-open corner 3 in game 3 and the Cavs went down 0-3 in the series. They would go on to lose in 5 games. KD won the first of his two titles and two Finals MVPs. Soooo impressive KD. Bravo.