It happened a year later then everyone expected, but it finally happened — LeBron James won his first NBA title with the Miami Heat.
James caught a lot of Heat (no pun intended) when he jumped ship from Cleveland to Miami in the summer of 2010.
He was heavily criticized and mocked for joining up with his friends Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.
People have mixed opinions about LeBron. Some feel that he should have stayed in Cleveland and been “the man” for the Cavs while others feel he did the right thing by joining the Heat, but just feel like he should have handled it better when moving to another team.
However you feel about what he did, there is one thing that no one can deny, and that is that every decision LeBron made was centered on the fact that he wanted a championship.
When the big three formed two years ago most of the experts had the Heat winning the title, only to see them fall to Dallas. Ironically, this season a lot of those same experts had them losing in the Finals this year and they were actually able to pull it off.
So he finally won the championship after his third trip to the NBA Finals, and what a performance he put on. LeBron realized that he doesn’t need to be “the man” in Miami and has been able to be very content with scoring less and passing more.
When the big three got together, it seemed that the only people that would score points would be either James, Wade, or Bosh; but LeBron has been able to get everyone on the team involved, what he’s doing is very unique in the basketball world.
His ability to play just about every position on the court is amazing. He can play the point, or he can hand it off to Chalmers someone else and get open without the ball, he can post up, whatever the team needs he is willing to do.
The only other player that comes to mind at having success in all positions on the court is Magic Johnson, pretty nice company for James to be in.
The Heat winning the title shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, they are simply too talented to not win a title.
I think what catches a lot of people off guard is how good of a team they are. Sure they have the big three, but this is a really good team.
They play great defense and play smart offense, plus they have those three guys that you can really on when it gets tight.
And how symbolic for LeBron to finish the series with a triple-double in game five; showing that he truly deserved his NBA Finals MVP.
After game one, LeBron facilitated every game and led the Heat to four straight victories over the Thunder who, many believe were a much better team than the Heat.
James is at the top of his game right now, it will be interesting to see just how many more titles he will win with the Heat.
Ironically, LeBron James won his first championship at the same age of 27 that Michael Jordan did, go figure.
Tyler Rollason is a Winder-Barrow High School graduate and mass communications major at the University of West Georgia. You can e-mail comments about this column to tyrollason@yahoo.com.
