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LeBron James’  highly-anticipated return to Cleveland finally took place last night, and his Miami Heat defeated the Cavaliers soundly. Big deal. When watching James play, I’ll admit he is a terrific talent. I’m also convinced that he will never play on a championship team, no matter where he goes or how many other superstars he teams up with. The problem is that wherever he goes the team’s style of play has to revolve around him. I don’t think it’s an accident that both Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh have been a bit disappointing so far this year while James has thrived. Wade and Bosh are slowly becoming what James’ former teammates in Cleveland became – spectators. James is basketball’s equivalent of football’s O.J. Simpson and Dan Marino – their teams never won because the style of play of those teams had nothing to do with winning. It had to do with piling up gaudy statistics for those players and hoping that would add up to winning. In the end it didn’t. In James’ own sport, Pistol Pete Maravich is a good example of the same type of thing. He was an electric shooter and a great showman, and the type of player you’d pay to see play. But there was no way any team he played on was ever going to win a championship. In baseball, the greatest player who never won a World Series is probably Ted Williams, but I don’t put him in this category. Baseball players can’t really hog the ball. They all get their turns at bat, and can only field and throw the ball when it’s hit to them.  While watching James, the impression I get is that he doesn’t take his profession very seriously, and in no way, shape or form has the work ethic or drive of Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson, Julius Erving or Larry Bird. If James gloats or struts around after thrashing the Cavs, I really don’t want to hear it. Talk to me when you stop getting routed by the Celtics, or when you beat the Lakers. After all, these guys promised “multiple championships”. The only thing “multiple” they’ve produced so far is multiple beatdowns at the hands of the Celtics.

This was really predictable right from the start. When the Miami Heat signed LeBron James and Chris Bosh to join Dwayne Wade and form a “superteam” , they held a big event to introduce all their new stars, and the trio promised multiple championships – not 2 or 3, but 7 or 8. Unfortunately, the NBA isn’t a fantasy league, they have real teams that play real games. Now with the Heat barely over the .500 mark so far, and having been soundly beaten twice by the Boston Celtics, there already are rumors that Heat players are beginning to blame coach Eric Spoelstra for the poor start – saying that his schemes are too simplistic and aren’t taking advantage of the players’ skills. It was also reported that Spoelstra called out LeBron for not taking practice seriously enough. I feel sorry for the coach. He’s probably a great young coach, but he’s in a no-win situation. Obviously, his new superstars aren’t willing to do what it takes to win, the dirty work – like practicing for instance – and instead feel they just need to show up on game night and the wins will just come. Spoelstra had scapegoat written all over him as soon as the new stars were signed. The presence of Pat Riley, who coached the Laker “Showtime” teams in the Magic Johnson era, in the front office doesn’t help either. There were reports right from the start that Riley would wind up coaching the team, although he insists that Spoelstra is his man. We’ll see how long that lasts if the losses pile up. The Heat have a 10-8 record at this point, and LeBron’s old Cleveland Cavalier teammates aren’t far behind them, with a 7-10 record, not bad when you consider that the team is in an adjustment period dealing with the loss of James. Yes, you could argue that Miami needs to go through the same type of adjustment, but that’s not what the players themselves were hyping before the actual games were played. They were already planning multiple championship parades. Of course, when reality sets in and the whole thing comes crashing down, make no mistake – it’ll be Eric Spoelstra’s fault.

From left: Chris Bosh, Dwayne Wade, LeBron James.

The National Basketball Association regular season begins tonight with the league’s new Barnum & Bailey Traveling Circus Show, also known as the Miami Heat, meeting the Boston Celtics in a much-anticipated game. This off-season the NBA was all about free agency and player movement, and Heat general manager Pat Riley made the biggest free agency splash of all time. He signed Chris Bosh, a talented big man, away from Toronto, and convinced LeBron James to join Bosh and Heat star Dwayne Wade in Miami to form an NBA “Superteam”. LeBron didn’t just sign with the Heat, he scheduled an hour-long special on ESPN to announce that he was “taking my talents to South Beach”. So the Heat now become the odds-on favorites to win the league championship, and the guy I feel the most sorry for right now is Miami coach Erik Spoelstra. If the Heat do indeed win the title, he’ll get no credit at all, and if they crash and burn, he’ll be the scapegoat. He’s in the ultimate “no-win” situation. I would be inclined to predict that the Heat will have a pretty good winning season – they were already a decent team before adding Bosh and James – but that they won’t win a championship since putting together “fantasy” teams of all-stars rarely works in pro sports. Just ask Washington Redskins’ owner Dan Snyder. The trouble is the NBA has become such a playground game these days that it probably is possible for Miami to win the title. Tonight’s opener will be a good measuring stick actually. It will pit the SuperHeat against the Celtics, a team that has had recent success by playing the game the way their ancestors in Boston did – unselfishly. One weakness that Miami has is the lack of a dominant big man in the middle. Bosh is a talented player but more of a finesse strong forward type than a center. Boston, meanwhile, added Shaquille O’Neal to what was already one of the NBA’s toughest front lines. The result of this game should tell a lot about which direction Miami’s season goes.

As far as the rest of the league, even though Miami made all the off-season headlines, the Los Angeles Lakers are two-time defending champs so it’s hard to bet against them. The Western Conference had eight 50+ win teams last year while the East had seven clubs with losing records, so it’s obvious which conference is stronger. The West is loaded with teams that are always impressive in the regular season, then underachieve in the playoffs, teams like Phoenix, Portland, Dallas, Utah, Denver, and recently, even San Antonio. The exception is the young Oklahoma City Thunder. The Thunder played a hard-fought playoff series against the Lakers last season and should be even better as their young star, Kevin Durant, gains more experience. They are the second best team in the conference right now. I would place Dallas next, as owner Mark Cuban resigned star Dirk Nowitzki to keep his team intact. Phoenix lost Amare Stoudemire to the Knicks, Utah saw Carlos Boozer leave for the Bulls and Denver has star Carmelo Anthony begging to be traded, so they should all take backward steps this year. San Antonio is a proud championship franchise but they are aging. A team that could come out of the woodwork to contend is the Houston Rockets, if center Yao Ming stays healthy.

Despite all the Miami hype, the best team in the East is the Celtics. Their Achilles heel is their age, but it didn’t seem to affect their play last year. The Orlando Magic faltered in the post-season last year, and didn’t change their roster at all. Still, they are probably also better than the Heat, based on having a player, Dwight Howard, that Miami won’t be able to stop. The Milwaukee Bucks and Atlanta Hawks have talented rosters but aren’t elite teams. If there’s a sleeper in the East, it’s the Chicago Bulls. They played a tough playoff series against the Celtics 2 years ago and were expected to improve last year but wound up with a disappointing 41-41 record. The free agent signing of Carlos Boozer immediately improves this team however, and should make them a force in the conference. The addition of Boozer was a case of adding the perfect missing piece to an already talented young team.

These days, more than any other sport, professional basketball has become a glamour sport. It’s all about the superstars. The recent teaming of Dwayne Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh in Miami was unprecedented. The players are basically running the front offices of NBA teams now. This morning there is a report that New Orleans Hornet all-star guard Chris Paul wants out of New Orleans, and would like to join a different team in a situation similar to the Wade/James/Bosh situation, perhaps even the champion Lakers to team up with Kobe Bryant. I’m sorry but I don’t see Paul doing anything to improve the Lakers. He can’t improve on what unsung veteran Derek Fisher brings to the table, especially in the clutch. Players like Fisher are overlooked more than ever now in the NBA in this superstar dominated environment. Every team has players like him, and you never hear anything about them. The headlines are dominated by Kobe, LeBron, Wade, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, etc. In the meantime, the “grinders” like Fisher and Ron Artest of the Lakers, Rip Hamilton of Detroit, Manu Ginobli of San Antonio and Glenn Davis of Boston are ignored. Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder are a young team on the rise, and Durant is getting a lot of media attention. He is their key player, but the success of his individual game and the Thunder’s collective game will depend largely on Durant’s unsung teammate, Russell Westbrook. Orlando’s Dwight Howard is the self-proclaimed “Superman”, but Orlando goes nowhere without significant contributions from guys like Jameer Nelson and Rashard Lewis. It seems to me that in the past, role players on great teams, like Bill Laimbeer, Rick Mahorn, Scotty Pippen, Bill Cartwright, Horace Grant, Dennis Rodman, Robert Parrish, Danny Ainge, James Worthy and Byron Scott, got a lot more attention. Rodman may be a bad example, since he was an attention-hound, but the “dynasty” teams of the Pistons, Bulls, Celtics, Spurs, Lakers, etc. all were carried to greater heights because of the grinders. Going back even further, players like Phil Jackson, Dick Barnett,  Jim McMillian, Bob Dandridge, Don Nelson and Tom Heinsohn all were under-appreciated players on great teams. So far, I don’t see any of these type of players on the current Miami Heat roster.

So now that the National Basketball Association’s free agent frenzy is pretty much over, it’s time to sort through all the moves made and figure out who won and who lost. Let’s get the no-brainers out of the way first. The Cleveland Cavaliers and Toronto Raptors are going to not only struggle to win games next year but are most likely facing huge losses in attendance also. The loss of LeBron James is a big blow to the Cavaliers, but this team won more games than any other team last year. The rest of the roster had something to do with those wins. If the remaining players can figure out how to play together and share the load rather than being spectators to the King James show, they can still be competitive. As far as winners in free agency, the most obvious winner is the Miami Heat. However, in today’s NBA it seems to me it’s all about size and “length” as the analysts call it. You have to have good big men to compete for championships. A lot of NBA experts say the era of the dominant big man is over, and that is probably true, but you can’t win in the league without a dominant physical presence inside. It’s just that most successful teams do it by committee now. The champion Lakers have Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum and Lamar Odom. The Eastern Conference champion Celtics go with Kevin Garnett, Rasheed Wallace, Glenn Davis and Kendrick Perkins. After Perkins was injured in the finals, the Celts signed Jermaine O’Neal in free agency in case Perkins can’t start the season. The New York Knicks are still a long way from being a title contender, but signing Amar’e Stoudemire, a terrific big man, was a step in the right direction. I think a team that may have moved themselves into the contender category is the Chicago Bulls. They signed Carlos Boozer to go with Joakim Noah and Luol Deng inside, and have one of the league’s best point guards in Derrick Rose. The Bulls have been slowly putting together a good team in recent years, and Boozer may be the missing piece that puts them over the top. The Heat have been anointed as the league’s Superteam, and James recently promised Miami fans multiple championships at a rally to welcome the new players. With the roster they currently have, however, the Heat will be easily pushed around inside. Chris Bosh is a terrific player but he is a finesse player. They recently signed Zydrunas Ilgauskas, LeBron’s long-time teammate in Cleveland, but there’s no way he matches up with the big men in L.A., Boston or Chicago, and certainly can’t match up with Orlando’s Dwight Howard either. There are rumblings that Miami may try to sign Shaquille O’Neal. That would help but still, King James couldn’t win it all in Cleveland with Shaq and Big Z, why would Miami be different?

Ever since Curt Flood, an outfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1960s, refused a trade to Philadelphia and challenged baseball’s reserve clause in court, free agency has been a major part of professional sports. Free agency has turned out to be mostly a good thing for fans and players, as long as the sport involved has something of a fair system for all teams involved. The National Basketball Association has a salary cap, so teams are pretty much on a level playing field. In all sports, free agency when it involves a high profile player has included that player doing a tour of each city that shows interest in him and being showered with good will by each of those organizations and the communities involved. Tomorrow night on ESPN, however, free agency will reach a new height of ridiculous, as LeBron James makes his announcement on where he will play next season on a one hour special broadcast on the sports network. I’m sure whatever team he is signing with has already purchased some commercial time on the special to sell season tickets. Proceeds from the special will be donated to the Boys and Girls Club, so at least the agents involved in it are doing some good, and I’m absolutely certain the show will get huge ratings numbers. The player drafts in most of the major sports are huge television events now, so I guess this was a logical next step. In my mind, though, this is just more evidence that NBA basketball is becoming less and less about playing unselfish basketball, hitting the open man, moving without the ball, doing the dirty work like rebounding and taking a charge, and more and more about individual skills and showing off individual players.  It’s almost to the point where they put a superstar on each team then fill the court with a bunch of Washington General types to take up space. (For basketball laymen, the Generals are the patsy team that the Harlem Globetrotters beat up on every night on their tour). Here’s hoping that the NBA title is won next season by a team that still plays somewhat unselfishly – the San Antonio Spurs come to mind – and as far as where LeBron plays next year, I’ll just make one prediction. Whatever happens Cleveland will likely get the short end of the stick.

Recently, after the Chicago Black Hawks won the NHL’s Stanley Cup, I highlighted the last Hawks team to win the Cup, in 1961. If I did the same thing for this year’s NBA champs, the Los Angeles Lakers, I would only have to go back to last season. So instead I’ve decided to look back at the 1972 Lakers, who won the team’s first title in that city that year. The Lakers, behind legend George Mikan, won 5 titles in Minneapolis before moving to L.A. But despite having one of the league’s best teams year after year, they were frustrated throughout the 1960s, mostly by the Boston Celtics, and didn’t win a championship until the 1971-72 season. After dropping game one to the Eastern Conference champion New York Knicks, the Lakers stormed back to win the next 4 games and claim the title. The Knicks were handicapped by an injury to center Willis Reed, and the much shorter Jerry Lucas was forced to try and stop the Lakers’ Wilt Chamberlain. Also, Dave DeBuscherre was forced to play hurt throughout the series, and was ineffective.  The series win was sweet for Laker veterans Chamberlain and Jerry West, with Wilt coming close but not having won a title since 1967 and West  chasing that elusive NBA title for his entire long, storied career. Both of them were nearing the end of their careers at that point, and another Laker legend, Elgin Baylor, had been forced to retire because of injuries and unfortunately wasn’t a part of this team. West played well throughout the Finals but Wilt was dominating and wound up winning the Finals MVP award.  Young forward Jim McMillian had replaced Baylor in the lineup, and was a key player in the Finals, averaging 19 points per game. Other players on the team included Happy Hairston, Gail Goodrich, Jim Cleamons and future Laker coach Pat Riley. Another future Laker coach, Phil Jackson, played for the Knicks.

It certainly wasn’t the most artistic basketball game ever played, but the NBA championship was decided last night in Los Angeles as the Lakers combined rugged defense, usually a trait of their oppnents from Boston, and clutch free throws to win their second consecutive title. After falling behind 3-2 in games in Boston, the Lakers defended their title by matching the Celtics on the defensive end and dominating the boards on their home floor in the last 2 games. NBA referees seem to follow the same mantra as NHL game officials – “let the players play” – and fouls that would be called in regular season games are overlooked, handcuffing star players and turning the games into glorified wrestling matches. It was surprising to see the Lakers prevail in that atmosphere but they clearly have “toughened up” since losing to the Celts in the Finals in 2008. Pau Gasol was a different player in these finals, complementing star teammate Kobe Bryant and coming up huge at critical times throughout the series. The addition of Ron Artest also helped the Lakers improve defensively, and his 20 point output in game seven may have been the difference. Gasol, however, was outstanding in all phases of the game – scoring, defense and rebounding – throughout the series. The Celtics put up a proud effort and when they led by 13 in the second half, it looked like they were going to end the Lakers’ title dreams for the 10th time, but they ran out of gas in the 4th quarter, and throughout the game seemed to miss the physical presence of injured center Kendrick Perkins. That was really not an excuse though, since the Lakers’ Andrew Bynum was hobbled throughout the series. Congratulations to Kobe Bryant and the Lakers for winning and building on their long-standing successful tradition.

For the past few seasons the Cleveland Cavaliers have been trying to figure out how to transfer their regular season success, riding the outstanding play of LeBron James, into similar success in the post-season. The unlikely ride of the 1974-75 Golden State Warriors might be an ideal blueprint to follow to get there. The Warriors, under coach Al Attles, finished with a 48-34 record, good enough to win the NBA’s Pacific Division, but weren’t taken very seriously going into the playoffs. But they caught lightning in a bottle and swept through the Western Conference rounds, then shocked the heavily favored Washington Bullets, sweeping them in the Finals to claim the championship. The Warriors were constructed much like the current Cavaliers. They were led by superstar Rick Barry, one of the game’s all-time greatest shooters, while the rest of their roster was made up of lunch-bucket journeymen who played together and hustled. Centers Cliff Ray and George Johnson were no threat to score but dominated on defense and usually controlled most of the rebounds. Johnson had an uncanny shot-blocking ability that often turned into fast-break baskets at the other end for his team. They had a sweet-shooting rookie forward nicknamed “Silk”, Keith Wilkes, who would go on to greater fame with the Lakers as Jamaal Wilkes, and a solid backcourt rotation including Butch Beard, Phil Smith, Charles Dudley and Charles Johnson. Barry had one of the NBA’s all-time greatest shots, and also one of the league’s all-time biggest egos. But Attles got him to buy into his system of team play, and the unsung Warriors would go after opponents in waves, substituting freely and getting significant contributions from their entire 12-man roster. It was the closest thing to a perfect “team” that I’ve ever seen in the NBA. Getting back to the Cavs, they are in a position now where they need to replace both their general manager and coach, and most importantly, somehow re-sign James. Once they get those things accomplished, they need to take a hard look at their style of play. Their system seems to totally revolve around King James putting on a show, and that just doesn’t work in the playoffs when the defensive play gets more intense and defense, rebounding and getting open shots by movement and getting the ball to the open man is so much more important. Cleveland’s supporting cast around LeBron is plenty talented enough, they just need a coach who implements a system that gets everyone involved. LeBron wants to win more than anything, and is easily a much more unselfish player than Barry was for most of his career and certainly a better all-around player. Whoever winds up as their coach should dust off Attles’ playbook and get on with the business of transforming the Cavs into a true championship contender.