They’re the new you, and it’s damn near inevitable they’ll experience déjà vu too. Fight, and you’ll never survive; run, and you’ll never escape. So just fall from grace.
Jay-Z, “Fallin’”
Anyone’s who’s ever felt that terrifying, inevitable twinge that accompanies one’s own replacement intimately knows the fury that can quickly replace the deep, excruciating pain of being deemed yesterday’s news or, even colder, obsolete. “What does he or she have that I don’t?” “Why am I not good enough for them anymore?” Most of the reproach thrown in the general direction of a successor seems petty, as much a product of the past’s sudden confrontation of its own mortality as genuine disdain for the new, but then there’s the very real, exposed vitriol: “I’m getting replaced by this lame?”
That hatred can run deep, quite reasonably so, especially if the former party’s greatness in whatever field or situation is inarguable, such as that of the living gods of our chosen religion of basketball, Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Magic Johnson. These men’s own legacies immediately evoke the kinds of superlatives generally saved for, well, gods, as they well should. Who among us has ever possessed the hoops genius that these men possess, and therefore (or so the argument goes), who should know more than these guys about what defines basketball greatness? And what have these roundball royals deigned information important enough to come into accord to decree to the public? Um, LeBron James is not all that great.
The most recent of these attacks, or perhaps gentle chides from James’ elders, came from Johnson, who was speaking to a crowd at the University of Albany when he, essentially unprompted, went after the self-proclaimed King by claiming he wouldn’t win a championship and had issues performing in the 4th quarters of games. Anyone who’s ever had a conversation with any casual fan has had heard far worse, more humiliating takes on James’ situation and character, but when those words escape the mouth of one of this game’s best regarded titans, even if he’s not so well regarded for the use of his words, we will pay attention, especially those of us for whom that better establishes an existing agenda. LeBron sucks, even Magic said it. Even Michael said it.
No matter the specifics, older men will invariably criticize the young men doing the same things they did when youths themselves, so there’s nothing inherently malevolent about what Jordan, Barkley and Johnson have said about LeBron. I mean, Oscar Robertson’s pretty much spent the last 20 years telling all of us why everyone we enjoy to watch sucks and how much better he could have done those things, and no one in his or her right mind would dare question the dignity or virtue of the Big O. It’s not just that LeBron’s being criticized by these giants of his game; it’s that the answers are so vigilant, the condescension of a veteran evaporating and quickly being replaced with bile, that there can be no question as to how these guys feel about LeBron.
What part of the game is this? Magic’s unsolicited (and highly applauded, at least by the crowd present) shots fired at James this week proved a much dirtier, more obvious fact about these old men: they’re just a tad bit shook. I can remember just six or seven years ago, when Michael Jordan wouldn’t dare publicly allude to the greatness of a certain Kobe Bean Bryant, as the general public was still of the (admittedly misguided) belief that Bean had a chance to eventually topple His Airness from his throne, even going so far as to call the likely outcome of a one-on-one game between the two in their respective primes “not a contest“. This year, Jordan and Johnson both can’t help themselves from gushing over the greatness of Bryant, at least in comparison to his parallel, LeBron James. Like a declawed, defanged zoo animal, Bryant’s age has made him more likable to these old men, most likely because he won’t be surpassing them on any lists of “best ____” anytime soon.
LeBron James, on the other hand, still has a legacy waiting to be written, and by dismissing James’ playoff woes of the last couple of years as proof that the kid just isn’t up to snuff, Johnson and Jordan make the point that there was ever a discussion in the first place as to where Bron’s legacy stands, an absurd conversation based around a player entering his eighth season of NBA basketball and just his 27th year of life (although he’s still 26, he’ll turn 27 on the 30th of December). Why does his legacy matter so much to these two? The answer in regard to Jordan is abundantly clear, at least on first glance: Jordan’s the G.O.A.T., and James still has the chance to be considered such by the time his jersey hangs in the rafters wherever the hell it is people decide they don’t hate him by the end of his career. As for Johnson, his game has so consistently been compared to James’, and almost always as a clever nod, a way to remember the greatness of Magic without actually having to remember any of it. For Magic’s ego, this has to be a devastating blow; before retiring in 1991 for the first time, he seemed on the fast track to being considered the greatest player ever. And then it all happened, the HIV, the backlash to his return, the reign of Jordan. This he could (or rather had to) accept, always able to console himself with the notion that maybe, had he not been forced out of the game by powers greater than he, he would have captured that throne from Mike. Regardless, he was an all-timer, in the pantheon with his rivals Bird and Jordan and the greats of yesteryear like Russell and Chamberlain. So who the hell is this two-bit raging buck of a kid, and why is his bullish, smothering game being compared to his, so stylish that he could only be identified by a form of legerdemain?
And that’s where this animosity really sits; that replacement, the guy or gal taking that spot who you were going to hate without fail for the simple fact that he or she is there, cannot be a repellant, unbecoming person as well. The consequences of this person being, oh, let’s say an arrogant prat seemingly hellbent on saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong people? Probably somewhere along the lines of answering questions at your University of Albany speech that had nothing to do with said prat by completely and utterly crushing the guy, just to hear the crowds cheer for you again, and not that miserable so-and-so.
Earlier this year, the closest thing basketball nerds have to a cult hero, Scottie Pippen, had the audacity to compare his own teammate, the unquestioned greatest ever, to James, even claiming that James might just have the talent to be better than the best. His words were criticized roundly and resoundingly by essentially anyone associated with traditional sports media; what the hell had Scottie been smoking to even consider the notion that anyone, much less this annoying prima donna, could be better than Mike? The crowds’ rants and tomatoes thrown were all vindicated by LeBron’s performance in the Finals, almost tempting all of us who have seen the talent, the ability to make it all happen so easily, to distance ourselves, surrounded by the doubt that never fazes those who unwaveringly choose sides, prepared to call Michael Jordan the greatest basketball player ever until six feet under the Earth. But then we hear the shouts of these worried, weary old basketball gods, and we know: that irreverent punk can still do this.
