All hail the King!
Lebron James is undoubtedly one of the best players in the NBA. Fans will be able to attest his performance every game – scoring an average of 27.2 points, 31,038 points throughout his entire NBA career (source), a four-time MVP and a three-time NBA Championship title holder. It’s no surprise how the 33-year-old small forward from the Cleveland Cavaliers has gained a lot of fans for his talent and hard work. Of course, there will always be haters who will continue to bash him and bring him down – but for an athlete like him, he will use this to motivate himself and grind harder.
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Jed Ferds Kreestooval confesses that he was once a hater of James – where the latter is now making his 8th consecutive appearance in the NBA Finals. Kreestooval explains through an open letter on his Facebook account how James eventually gained his respect.
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This is the post’s rough translation:
FROM A HATER OF LEBRON
Dear LeBron,
I never liked you.
Back then, I could have accepted it. You were a prodigy back then. I saw you as a genius on the battlefield, the most anticipated high school prospect to come to the NBA. And yes, you took my breath away in your first year, you changed the entire landscape of the NBA, when you showed the selfless brand of basketball – from a point guard that was once caged in the body of a power forward. I idolized you, but from afar, I felt the annoyance because of the many people that looked up to you too. I’m not another bandwagon (fan). Maybe that’s why, slowly, I stopped admiring you from what you’ve been doing.
The Decision happened. You moved to Miami (Heat) You made the Big 3 (composed of James, Dwayne Wade & Chris Bosh). What did you promise before the season started? Not 1, not 2, not 3, but a lot of championships to bring home to South Beach. But it never happened. In your first year (with Heat), you were up against my favorite team and (to me) the most humble player that I ultimately admire. It was Dirk (Nowitzki) versus the Big 3. You were the villains of NBA during that time. When Dirk got injured in time for the Finals, you made the incident a laughing stock. I wasn’t so sure if it was brought about by your immaturity back then, or it just happened that you weren’t thinking well at that time. But karma was so fast. In 6 games, Dirk and his merry men put you away. And until today, that is deemed one of the moments in NBA History where you were not destined to win the Championship.
You eventually became a champion. But I still wasn’t amused by your performance. Every year, new additions keep coming to your team. You keep on getting strong players when in reality, it seemed that it no other player was a match for your team because you were there You are The King, and every year you keep getting knights that step aside when you pass. Like a fairytale, your reign did not last.
Here we are now in your fourth consecutive finals against the fearsome machines of the West. Golden State is monstrous in so many different ways, but this is that one chance that it was only you who brought the whole team. YOU and YOU alone. You pretty much brought the entire Cavs to the Eastern playoffs. You were severely burned out against Boston.
But when I saw a king who seemed to be worn out out of years of effort to be the best in his kingdom, that’s when I felt that you are no different from us. You’re not a king either. You’re just like us normal people – YES, good, but not at all times. You’re not one Basketball God like the players of Golden State. You are one warrior full of wounds and would need to recover – because you’ll be throttling in one of the longest, fiercest and most tiring battles in your life.
Given this circumstance, Lebron, everyone knows that you’re just human. You’re not a king, you’re not phenomenal, you’re not indestructible. You are not all powerful. You are just like us. Because of this, for the first time, I greatly admire you.
LeBron, you are not Dirk – who, in my eyes, is the greatest and most humble European player in NBA history. You’re not [Michael] Jordan who (to me) is still the GOAT (Greatest of All Time), even if your fans say that you’re that. But for this case, I want you to win. I want you to become a Champion this season. I want to you to silence your critics, and for you to show them that even if even if you no longer have strength and movement as a warrior the battlefield – you will continue to fight. And you will win.
For the first time, the people who disliked you are now on your side. Because all of us, like you, wants to win, even if we have stumbled and are battered in life.
I never liked you Lebron. Because I never liked myself, and I never liked the fact that your greatness exposed how weak I was personally. But now, seeing how human you are, I want you to know I am behind the King this time around.
Go Cavs.
The Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors will face each other in the second game of the NBA Finals tomorrow, 8AMÂ Philippine Standard Time.
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