WELL, sometimes, certainly, in certain games, when a player takes a game by the scruff of the neck and with a combination of superior talent, overpowering commitment and sheer strength of will.
Yet what about for more than just one game, what about for an entire season? LeBron James has, creating a perfect storm with all of the aforementioned attributes to lead the Cleveland Cavaliers to the NBA post-season play-offs.
In a league dominated by superstars such as Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett and Dwight Howard, not to mention the likes of Steve Nash and Dwayne Wade, whose teams didn’t even reach the post-season, ‘King’ James has towered above them all and was rewarded with the league’s Most Valuable Player award for 2009.
But can he go one major step further and carry his team all the way to the NBA championship. Can he drag his Cavaliers onto that victory podium and watch as his lesser team-mates collect exactly the same winners’ ring as he does?
Wednesday night’s Eastern Conference final game between the Cavs and Howard’s Orlando Magic perhaps gave us all the answers we need.
James was awesome, racking up 49 points with a hoops masterclass and yet it still wasn’t enough to get the job done, the Magic edging it in Florida 107-106.
LBJ had powered Cleveland into a 63-48 half-time lead that Magic coach Stan van Gundy admitted later he had had no idea how to overcome, such was James’ dominance.
Yet overcome it they did. As a team, holding firm in the face of adversity like Ali on the ropes and coming out fighting when the Cavaliers ran out of ideas, or rather, James ran out of capable team-mates.
I may be wrong and LeBron may summon the basketball gods once more to lead the Cavs to victory in this best of seven series but as he struggles manfully alone, over in the Western Conference, Kobe has Andrew Bynum and Paul Gasol behind him on the Lakers team, while the Denver Nuggets’ Carmelo Anthony has Chauncey Billups riding shotgun.
Garnett had two fellow musketeers on the 2008 Championship-winning Boston Celtics team in Ray Allen and Paul Pierce to help beat all-comers, and even ‘His Royal Airness’ Michael Jordan had Scottie Pippen by his side as he led the Chicago Bulls to dominance 15 or 20 years ago.
Everybody needs a helping hand once in a while.
