Sports Nut: LeBron James Is Not a Hero

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Sports Nut LeBron James Is Not a Hero Why the NBA's best player shouldn't try to repeat his amazing Game 6 performance. By Josh Levin Posted Friday, Jun 08, 2012, at 12:00 PM ET LeBron James' critics had a lot to criticize after the Miami Heat's four-point loss in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals. Yahoo's Adrian Wojnarowski raged at James' "absence of malice over losing," slamming the star for his contention that "we played good enough to give ourselves a chance to win." Over at ESPN.com, Brian Windhorst wrote that the Celtics had "completely outclassed the Heat" since Miami's Game 1 win. "James is playing well (averaging 32 points and 11 rebounds) but not great," the professional LeBron chronicler continued, that tossed-off parenthetical suggesting that Windhorst's bar for greatness hovers somewhere in outer space, orbiting the planet on which Michael Jordan defeated the Monstars in Space Jam. In Game 6, LeBron grabbed that bar and spiked it into the TD Garden parquet. On a night when the Heat had to win, in an arena where Miami had lost 15 of 16 games, against a Celtics team that had humiliated him in 2010, James made everyone else on the court irrelevant. After missing his first shot, James knocked down his next 12. When he took his talents to the bench with three minutes to go, James had 45 points—14 more than Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett, and Paul Pierce combined—and the Heat were warming up their charter plane to go back to South Beach for Saturday's Game 7. It shouldn't take a 45-point, 15-rebound, 5-assist game to confirm LeBron James' greatness. In fact, Thursday night ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Stop Laughing About the LinkedIn Security Breach. It's More Serious Than You Think. It's Time To Abolish the Triple Crown How To Fix the Tech Gender Gap: Make Your Daughter Play Video Games	Advertisement
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