The Cavaliers of Cleveland visit The Nuggets of Denver
8:00 EST

This is not actually a game preview.

This game probably won't be all that good. The Cavaliers are a pretty boring team to watch, and a Chauncey-infused Nuggets team that doesn't play J.R.Smith and does play Kenyon Martin doesn't necessarily tickle my fancy.  But LeBron is still LeBron, and that's something.

But is it enough, really?  LeBron James is the best player in the league. I don't think it's close.  He does things on the court that most of the league can only dream of, and he boasts a combination of gifts and skills that makes me weak in the knees.  But frankly, he's boring.  He breaks down defenses, he dominates, and he's spectacular, sure.  In principle, it's everything I would want to get behind, but most of the time I can't.  I do think he's interesting to watch on an individual level; on a basketball level.  He's the type of chatterbox that the league needs from its stars, if for no other reason than to counter the stoic mold.

The relation between Kobe and LeBron is probably one of my favorite topics in the league.  Both players obviously want to be Mike.  They want the pedestal.  Kobe shares Jordan's calculation and and tried to imitate his neutral off-court life, which came with pretty mixed results.  You don't need me to list out Kobe's transgressions against neutrality and against the amorphous PR blob that allows the fan to mold the star into everything they've ever wanted.  But that in and of itself endears Kobe to me, somewhat.  With Jordan, you hated him solely because he was better than your team or your favorite player.  I think it's natural to both accept that kind of success or reject it on face.  It sort of depends.  But with Kobe, he really gives you reasons to hate him.  Of course later we would find out that Jordan did too: he may have been the biggest prick to his teammates, opponents, front office staff, and coaches that I've ever read about, particularly in comparison to his sterling, clean image.  Still, it's different with Kobe.  Sometimes throughout the various phases of his career, his image seemed forced.  His actions seemed fake.  Even when Kobes is at his most sincere, you're left wondering if that was the real thing.  Erving Goffman smiles upon Kobe from his grave, no doubt, just as he would've smiled upon Jordan.  Both engage dramaturgical lives of performance, bound by the social stage on which they perform and the backstage preparation to maintain that image.  But where Jordan essentially created something new, a basketball player turned mogul turned icon turned whatever the hell is greater than an icon (An idea?  A symbol?), Kobe seemed to spend a good chunk of his career creating himself in MJ's image.  I know, I know, this is a very revolutionary thought.  While Kobe's tale certainly has the twists and turns necessary of any tragedy or comedy or maybe mere history, the important thing to note is that the closest thing that Kobe has to a self has been maintained though his identity "changes shape."  Players choose to wear certain masks and they choose to play certain roles at particular times.  Things seem to have changed, but Kobe's always been Kobe.

For some reason, it's not quite the same with LeBron.  First I want to say that I hate all people that wear the number 23.  Well, at least I hate that particular choice.  Not because Jordan is a special kind of sacred that is completely untouchable, but because that number means something.  Wilt wore #13, but you don't think of him every time you see Nash.  Bird wore #33, but I don't see ghosts when I watch Danny Granger.  But Jordan is #23 just as #23 is Jordan.  It's a number that you cannot escape in the basketball world, and that's fine.  But you shouldn't wear it because simply the act of putting on that number either positions you to attempt to slide into those shoes or sets you up for the irony of contrast.  I love the fact that O.J. dons #32 for this exact reason.

But the real reason why I'm bothered by LeBron is his complete lack of a coherent mythology.  Kobe's narrative, though substantially longer, has the trials and tribulations, the epic successes, the small victories, the unbelievable drops of memory or knowledge.  He's distinct.  He's carved a place for himself, and that niche is uniquely his.  But whereas Kobe hand-carved that niche (not necessarily through some superior, "character-building" means), LeBron leaped feet-first into the league and resides in the expansive crater from which he landed.  He is the true Superman; inextricably linked by his actions and the symbol he bears on his chest to that which came before him.

Do not gloss over this video.  I know it's over three minutes long, but it's important:

This is one of the reasons why it's incredibly fortunate that Kobe described himself as Batman.  Not because it's fun to find the parallels of Robin or the Joker or whatever; Kobe, much like Batman, has established his own unique mythology of pain, disaster, would-be redemption, and success.  LeBron on the other hand, doesn't have such mythology.  He's straightforward: he shoots his laser eyes, he pains with kryptonite, he has the strength and the speed and the status.  But what does he really mean?  How does he relate to us?  He's superior, physically, to Batman, but what does he really provide us with intellectually?

Again, this is not some kind of value judgement.  I don't like Kobe better than LeBron at all really, much less because he had to "work harder."  But because Kobe provides this sort of cohesive, digestible narrative that just begs to be pored over and argued, his mythology is just so much more powerful than LeBron's.  His creation story (or second creation story, whichever you prefer) is gripping and rooted in realism, in a post-Jordan apocalypse full of wannabe's and stylistic posers, a rock that withstood waves of superficial desire from his peers.

What's really strange is that LeBron has already laid out exactly what I want from him:

Y'know, only without the completely offensive elements.  But otherwise, that looks pretty good.

I really hope that this cold, controlled LeBron is a phase in his development as a person and as a player.  Kobe always seemed calculated, but it was always fundamentally different from Jordan; the two were distinct, mostly because Kobe wasn't convincing enough in his performance.  But the beauty of Kobe truly emerged as he did, or really, as he abandoned the Jordan performance for something a bit more authentic.  LeBron needs to do the same.  He doesn't need to "get out of MJ's shadow" or some bullshit, because he already has.  He's a completely different player, and a completely different person.  And yet, he still goes through some of the motions like he's a boy trapped beneath the reputation of a giant, a feeling which I'm sure the media and public at large can't help but perpetuate.  I'm not asking if he's going to be better than Jordan, if he's the next Jordan, of if he's, gasp, the chosen one.  All I ask of LeBron is this: "When the hell are you going to be LeBron?"

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