Araton/NYT: Is James the Next Jordan or the Next Carter?

[boutons_]

The New York Times
December 28, 2005

Sports of The Times

Is James the Next Jordan or the Next Carter?
By HARVEY ARATON

East Rutherford, N.J.

IT has been tempting lately to call Vince Carter Half Man, Half Amazing, but that would be too passé, so Y2K.

Besides, LeBron James landed at Continental Arena last night, on his way to the Hall of Fame, with his Cavaliers riding a Nets-matching six-game winning streak until they fell, 96-91, to a New Jersey team suddenly hitting nothing but net.

James, we were reminded, is what Carter was a half-dozen years ago, the ascendant monarch of Nike Nation, and more. He is the prodigy who makes the pass, and everyone better, while averaging a shade over 30 points a game.

In his third season after turning pro out of high school, James has fulfilled expectations without appearing in a playoff game. It's still early, though. There is plenty of time for the mythmakers to get cranky, deconstruct the legend, shot by shot.

"It goes with the territory," Carter said before his worst game in recent memory was negated by the work of Richard Jefferson and Jason Kidd. "I've been there."

Way back in the spring of 2000, in his second pro season, Carter was faster than James into the playoffs - albeit following three years at North Carolina - as he led a mostly undistinguished collection of Toronto Raptors to a first-round defeat at the hands of the Knicks. The following year, Carter had the last shot in a one-point game at Philadelphia that could have sent the Raptors to the Eastern Conference finals.

He missed, and was summarily dismissed as a faux Next Michael Jordan, in part for leaving his team on the day before the game to receive his college degree. Under the weight of the Jordan hype that Carter has said he never sought, life in Toronto only got worse.

Tracy McGrady left for Orlando, turned off, Carter admitted, by the prospect of being the Next Scottie Pippen. Injuries and innuendo that Carter was soft and selfish turned him surly and sullen. However much of the blame Carter deserves for his own missteps and eventual misery, there is a lesson to be learned from the short-lived Vinsanity era: As much as a skills set, situations make the superstar.

Fortuitously, and fortunately for the sport, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson never had to lift or carry a franchise by themselves. Jordan did and, great as he was, he didn't start winning championships until he was 28, and had enough help.

Weeks from his 29th birthday, Carter knows he is not winning six titles, as Jordan did, not in this life. He may never win one. But the Nets are a fun, aesthetically pleasing team, and Carter may be the happiest player to be traded to the Nets in the history of the franchise.

For averaging 39.3 points, 7.3 rebounds and 6 assists last week, he was named Eastern Conference player of the week. "He has been very, very assertive," said the Nets' coach, Lawrence Frank. "It's what all good players do, especially the special ones - take ownership of the team."

Carter has come a long way from his devalued days in Toronto. In New Jersey, with he and Kidd raising the bar for wireless communication, Carter has rediscovered the joy of dunking while grasping the essential superstar tenet that flying solo is a drag on so many levels.

Kobe Bryant should know this by now, even as the N.B.A. continues to promote him, if only to pull in those Los Angeles ratings. Carter? In marketing years, he's as old as Jimmy Carter.

At a recent Nets' practice, a team official bemoaned their lack of national television exposure - four appearances combined this season on the N.B.A.'s partner networks, insulting for a two-time finalist, especially compared with the 23 appearances for James and the Cavaliers.

James is a wonderful player, probably better at his corresponding age, 21 this Friday, than Jordan. If Carter was Half Man, James at 18 was a Man in Full, and Carter said his Next Jordan days were "not even close" to the massive buildup for James.

"He got it before he played his first game," Carter said.

Watching James weave his magic, it is almost impossible to imagine him not being a smash hit for years to come, selling out arenas, as he did here last night. Yet no one foresaw the banana peels on which Carter slipped. Strange things happen, even day-to-day.

Good as Carter has been, his jump shots spun out last night. His finger rolls didn't fall. He committed too many fouls, though he had 21 points, 5 at the end as the Nets held off James - who was two assists short of a triple-double - and beat the 17-10 Cavaliers for the second time this season.

"We're getting better," James said afterward, making no predictions, knowing that the Cavaliers had slumped badly down the stretch his first two years. What he may not understand yet is that the process of becoming a playoff force, a springtime fixture, could take years, and could involve taking some individual hits.

"They'll say on ESPN, 'LeBron didn't do something right,' " Carter said, recognizing by now that clever commercials are more easily contrived than a contending cast.

James has time, though. He believes he was born to the role. On his upper back, in large dark print, is a prophecy: "Chosen 1."

Sounds like his way of accepting the pressure to justify himself as a true Jordan heir, as a marketing king, before another fresh face and tattooed body comes along, blemish free.

E-mail: [email protected]

* Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

[alamo50]

Just 21, but LeBron has aged to perfection

Young Cavs star carries maturity well beyond his years

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/051222/051222_lebron_james_hmed.hmedium.jpg
LeBron James has it all: personality, talent, vision, values, work ethic and a healthy dose of athletic arrogance unspoiled by attitude, writes columnist Mike Celizic.
Jeff Roberson / AP

COMMENTARY
By Mike Celizic
NBCSports.com contributor
Updated: 12:58 a.m. ET Dec. 28, 2005


LeBron James turns 21 Friday. For most people, that would be a milestone. But for him, the celebration will probably be quiet and scandal-free, because in many ways, LeBron James has been way older than 21 for a long, long time.

Three full years ago, he was in high school, living, as he had from when he was born, a semi-nomadic life with his mother, herself just 16 years older than he, and no father that he could ever remember. Home was the part of Akron where bad things happen to kids both innocent and otherwise, the part that is so hard every day to escape, the part where despair and hopelessness reign.

He had talent. We knew that. But we’ve seen plenty of others who have had worlds of talent at similar ages and never knew what to do with it. Or, if they did, they brought so much baggage with them to the arena, it was difficult for the paying customers to cozy up to them.

In any event, we expected that it was going to take time for him to grow into the NBA. That’s just the way it is. It’s a man’s game and he was just a kid with a lot of talent. Even Kobe Bryant took four years to really hit stride. It was unfair to expect anything different, even from a man saddled with the title of the next Michael Jordan.

So now it’s two years and a couple of months since he debuted with Cleveland, and the one thing we know is he’s not the next Michael Jordan. He’s already better than Jordan was at the same age. He’s not the next anything. He’s the first LeBron James.

And we’re the lucky ones who get to watch him, the generation that years from now will get to say we were there when LeBron James got his start.

James isn’t just a good player or a star. The youngest player to score 4,000 points in the history of the game, he’s already the game’s brightest star, a kid who can not only do things on the court that the rest of us can’t even dream of, but one who can step into a commercial and play multiple roles as if he were Eddie Murphy. He’s already hit the sky, and that’s not even close to his limit.

The NBA has been desperate for a star who could bring people to the game the way Magic and Michael and Bird did. LeBron James is that man.

Three years ago, I would have said it was possible, the same way it’s possible that Osama bin Laden will walk into an American Embassy and turn himself in, but I didn’t think it was likely. My reasoning was simple: No one had ever erupted fully developed in the game before. There was no reason to suspect he would be the first.

He was poor. He had no father. He grew up in the hood. And he was getting millions of dollars dumped into his lap by people who weren’t ever going to tell him anything but exactly what he wanted to hear.

All I had to do was put myself in his shoes to know that isn’t a scenario likely to produce a happy ending.

Think about what you would have done if, when you were 18 years old, someone had handed you millions of dollars and told you that you were a Master of the Universe.

I’ve run that scenario many times through the intellectual flea market that passes for my consciousness, and I never come out intact. I know what I was like at 18, and it wasn’t anything that could have handled money and fame without something bad happening.

I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in that. The law may say that we’re adults at 18, but that doesn’t make us grown up; it doesn’t confer maturity on us. It takes time for that.

That’s why I was more than a little worried for LeBron James when he was in his senior year of high school and heading for the NBA. He did some things that year that suggested he might not be ready for what was ahead.

There was the incident with the freebie throw-back jerseys that got him kicked out of the state tournament and his reaction to it, which was essentially to claim entitlement. He was taking advice from a friend of his mother, and the fear was that it was just a hustler who was going to take him for all he was worth. Then there was the Hummer his mother, who never had two nickels to rub together, magically was able to purchase for him.

Rules, it seemed back then, weren’t for LeBron James. And when you thought about him going into the very adult world of the NBA, you wondered how he was going to cope. Would it be all about him? Would he be one of those guys who thinks he doesn’t have to listen to the coach or do the work or show up on time? How long would it be before there was an incident with a woman or drugs, a wrecked car, a fight with a teammate who was getting too much spotlight for James’ liking?

None of it happened. From the first time James set foot on a professional court, his only goal has been to be the best team player he can be, to be a winner. He’s done nothing wrong. Nothing.

There have been no fights, no speeding tickets, no string of offended women, no hangers-on with rap sheets longer than War and Peace, no squabbles with teammates. It’s his third season in the league, and he still hasn’t even made Whiner of the Week.

He went to Athens and found a spot on Larry Brown’s bench during the Olympics. Carmelo Anthony had the same experience, and Anthony whined and complained during the entire Olympic tournament. James just took his seat, listened to his coach, and tried to be better.

Like so many kids who grew up as he did, he fathered a child not long after he signed his first contract. Unlike so many of those kids, he didn’t wander off to father a few more, but took up housekeeping with his son LeBron Jr.’s mother, Savannah, and applied himself to being the father he never had. Unless the Cavaliers are on the road, he comes home to his son and his son’s mother every night.

He fired his agent last year, and that seemed like a bad sign, especially when he put three of his high-school pals in charge of his businesses. But so far, there have been no stories of wild parties, huge posses, absurd spending on shiny objects and money thrown away. Instead, he talks about earning more as a businessman than he does as a basketball player, and he seems on his way to doing that, too.

James is incredibly independent and sure of himself. Unlike most 18 year olds, he never went out in search of himself. He was right there all along.

He credits his mother, Gloria, with all of that, with teaching him to be strong and not to fear anyone or anything. I’ve never met her, but she must be one incredible woman.

But a strong mother and strong values aren’t enough to account for what James is. A lot of people have been raised in a similar way and haven’t come out as good.

It’s like his talent. The New York playgrounds are full of stories of kids like James who had more talent than God but never got off the streets, never turned it into cash, never survived the demons that lie in wait for us all.

The only way to explain someone like James is as the one person who gets all cherries on a cosmic slot machine. Every baby that’s born is a pull on the lever of that machine, another roll of millions of genetic tumblers. This is natural selection at work, chromosomes combining, genes mixing, the tumblers coming up differently on every roll.

The goal is to have them all click into place, but when you look at all the possible combinations, you see how hard that is. Add in the influences of environment and parental example and the wonder isn’t that there aren’t more LeBrons in the world, but that there is even one.

So many things can go wrong. You look at the wreckage of promising careers through the history of sports and you see so many people who had all the talent in the world but didn’t make it to the very top. That’s because talent is just one of the factors involved. To be the very, very best, it also takes a work ethic, a sharp mind that can work in the three dimensions of space and even in the fourth of time.

Great basketball players, like great running backs and quarterbacks, simply see more of the field of play at a time than their lesser colleagues, and for them it moves more slowly than for the common press of humanity.

Vision and that special sense of space is separate from talent. There have been plenty of players who could create their own shots, but very few who could create shots for others as well.

And even that isn’t enough. We’ve seen no end of players who have the vision and the skills and the size and the speed and the quickness but lack a work ethic. Or they fall into the bottle or form too close a relationship with drugs.

Some great talents were so warped by traumatic childhoods that they can’t cope with success. Others assume an unwarranted sense of entitlement, as if the fact that they can do anything they want on a court or field means they can do anything they want anywhere.

Some are too timid to take a game by the throat, too frightened to take the shots that really matter. Others are so arrogant, they forget that they are a part of team and assume the game exists only for them.

LeBron James has the whole package — personality, talent, vision, values, work ethic and a healthy dose of athletic arrogance unspoiled by attitude.

He’s already done more for charity than most people do in a lifetime, and he takes public stands on real issues in a way that Jordan and Tiger Woods never did. He’s a great player, and, at least so far, a great human being.

And now he’s officially a man.

Happy birthday, LeBron.

Link (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10622231/)

[1Parker1]

he takes public stands on real issues in a way that Jordan and Tiger Woods never did

What "real issues" has Lebron James taken a "public stand" on? The NBA dress code?

[ducks]

you know what
james will be the next james

he will not even be close to mj because mj won titles james has not

[ducks]

what would the nba or the media do if james was accused of rape next summer

[E20]

I don't know any public issues that MJ took a stand one either, but no way should you mention LBJ and VC in the same breath. LBJ is far superior. How was Vince like at Lebrons' age? Nothing close to James.

[cecil collins]

you know what
james will be the next james

he will not even be close to mj because mj won titles james has not
Jordan did not win titles in his first few years. He is like neither of them. He is more complete, and steady than Carter. I don't think he can match Jordan's titles.

[Warlord23]

A bit of perspective on LeBron attracting comparisons to Jordan:

In their 1st year in the NBA, the high-schooler had a bit of catching up to do on the guy that stayed in college:
Jordan 28.2 PPG, 6.5 RPG, 5.9 APG, 51.5% FGP, 2.4 StlPG
James 20.9 PPG, 5.5 RPG, 5.9 APG, 41.7% FGP, 1.6 StlPG

Jordan missed 64 games in his second year with a broken foot and played far fewer minutes when he returned, so we shouldn't use his stats ... but still that was the year when dropped 63 on the Celtics in the playoffs

LeBron's second year: 27.2 PPG, 7.4 RPG, 7.2 APG, 47.2% FGP, 2.2 StlPG
LeBron had clearly made a quantum jump into a top-3 player at his position and top-10 overall.

So because Jordan didn't play his 2nd year, so far we can argue that James is making great strides and it is not inconceivable to theorize that he's keeping up with Jordan's performances.

But the key years to make a call will be the next 3: this was the time Jordan made his big push ...

Year 3: this was the year Jordan became a monstrous scoring threat, winning the 1st of 10 scoring titles..
Jordan 37.1 PPG, 5.2 RPG, 4.6 APG 48.2% FGP, 2.9 StlPG

So far, James in his 3rd year (through 27 games)
30.4 PPG, 6.2 RPG, 5.6 APG, 49.7% FGP, 1.67 StlPG
Again, it can be argued that while he's not quite the scorer or defender that MJ was, he has a slight edge in FG%, rebounding and assists.

Year 4 (87-88): This year MJ won MVP, DPOY, scoring title and All-Star MVP. He also got the Bulls into the 2nd round of the playoffs in that memorable series vs Cleveland. He also put up monstrous stats, and was more efficient than the year before.
35.0 PPG, 5.5 RPG, 5.9 APG, 53.5% FGP, 3.1 StlPG

And then comes Jordan's year 5 (88-89) that was possibly the best all-round season seen in NBA history since Oscar Robertson averaged a triple-double
32.5 PPG, 8.0 RPG, 8.0 APG, 53.8% FGP, 2.9 StlPG

Also, by this time Jordan had established himself as a top-5 defender in the league, by becoming the first and as yet only player in NBA history to compile a 200-steal, 100-block season, doing it in each of those two years.

Those two seasons will be a tough act to follow for James in 06-07 and 07-08... IMO those 2 years we will see a clear separation between Jordan and LeBron.

Do I think LeBron can match his rebound and assist numbers? Very possible.
Do I think Lebron can match his scoring output and efficiency? Maybe. If the other efficient and prolific scorers of the modern era like Shaq, DRob and Hakeem couldn't score 35 PPG at 53% shooting, I won't put my money on James.
Do I think LeBron can match Jordan's defensive intensity? A very faint possibility IMO. Because of his slow lateral movement, I don't think he's physically endowed to be the defensive hound that Jordan was.
Over and above these stats we have yet to see the kind of competitive fire and late-game clutch ability that made Jordan that much more dangerous.

It's a long way to go for James before he is proclaimed better than Jordan at any stage in his career.

[alamo50]

he will not even be close to mj because mj won titles james has not


:rolleyes

[2centsworth]

James reminds me more of Magic Johnson but eventually he could become the next Jordan. When I think of Jordan I think of someone who was unstoppable to the hole and would usually finish with a dunk. James has that type of potential. Vince Carter never had the potential just the jumping ability.

[1Parker1]

MJ said it best when he was on Oprah last month: "The problem with the young kids entering the NBA these days is that they are being handed endorsements and big money deals on their potential, before they've even proven anything."

Even though he was talking about endorsements and contracts, the same thing applies. Yes, Lebron James has talent that the league has not seen since maybe the days of the Kobe and the Lakers era. But all this hype and talk over him being the next MJ or whoever is a little premature, when they guy hasn't even made the playoffs yet!