LeBron James: Underrated?

Calm and collected, in a leather jacket, and a hat he borrowed from Pharrell, LeBron, sitting at the podium just minutes after a convincing Game 6 victory that sent the Chicago Bulls packing, scoffed at the idea that his Cavaliers would be underdogs heading into the Eastern Conference Finals.

“Huh? Underdog? Me?” A confident grin spread across his face as he answered.

This is not the same LeBron that left Cleveland four years ago after numerous postseason failures. When he took his talents to South Beach he was still searching for validation, for the championships that had, to that point, evaded him. Now, after four straight trips to the Finals and two titles claimed, LeBron is back home without the need to prove he can perform in the Playoffs. That fact is plainly obvious to anyone who has even casually followed the NBA over the past few years.

While he has been the best player in the league for most of his whole career, LeBron spent a large part of that time looking up at the mountaintop, striving for years to reach its glorious peak. Now that he has achieved what for so long managed to elude him, it is as if LeBron has achieved enlightenment. He has always seen the game on another level than his teammates, but his experiences over the last four years have elevated him to an even higher plane. With his immeasurable talent, and his titles backing it up like gold backs the economy, there is no reason for LeBron to ever believe himself to be the underdog. Even if that might be the case on occasion, LeBron, especially now, instills such a confidence in everyone watching him that the idea of him being an underdog becomes impossible to fathom.

Yet while we have established the foolishness in ever including LeBron and underdog in the same sentence, is it possible that The King, the four-time MVP, two-time champion, and two-time Finals MVP with other accolades too numerous to list here, is underrated? Well, not in the traditional understanding of an underrated player like his counterpart in this series, DeMarre Carroll, but yes, LeBron James is underrated. Or at least underappreciated.

Tonight, when LeBron leads the Cavs against the Hawks in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, he’ll be starting the final leg of his quest for a fifth straight trip to the NBA Finals. To put that in perspective, only one team in the history of the league, has ever played in more than four straight Finals. And that was the Boston Celtics from 1957-1966, who only had to win one series to get to the Finals for most of that run. Which isn’t to take away from their accomplishment–it’s incredible and they had other challenges in their day–but LeBron running through three seven game series, after playing 82 game regular seasons, is a little bit more demanding.

This is a guy that throughout his career, including the postseason, has averaged 90 games a season while playing an average of 40 minutes a night. Those are absurd numbers that only a few players in the history of the league have come close to matching. Yet despite putting in unbelievable amount of work, LeBron has career averages of 27 points, 7 rebounds, and 7 assists on 50 percent shooting. Oh, and he’s roughly the size of Karl Malone. No one should be able to do that, yet somehow LeBron has managed to do it year after year for the past decade.

He’s so consistent in his greatness that it’s become expected, and when we expect something, it loses it’s luster, it’s uniqueness. It’s just another thing that happens. The sun rises in the morning, the leaves change color in the fall, and LeBron puts up 27 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists a night. That’s just how the world works. All of these facts are quite astounding, almost unbelievable if you stop to think about them long enough. There are so many incredible things  happening in the universe, however, that you can’t spend your time pondering all of them and marveling at how they keep happening. Sometimes you have to just accept them even if they don’t make complete sense. Otherwise you’ll never be able to get on with your life.

In the NBA world, that’s what we’ve had to do with LeBron. He really doesn’t make sense; what he does shouldn’t be possible. You just have to accept that it’s going to happen, and keep happening, and keep happening. When you do that, though, his chasedown blocks which he times to perfection, his sledgehammer dunks, and his one-handed passes zipped across the court at startling speed start to lose their shine. A numbness settles over us when we watch him play. Why should we get so excited about that block when he’s just going to do it tomorrow, or the next day?

Tonight, when Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals tips at Philips Arena, LeBron James will be out there ready to lead the Cavs, because that’s where he belongs. That’s where we expect him to be, because that’s just what happens. And he’s going to do some amazing things, because LeBron is inevitable.

But he is not forever. Even if it may seem this way at times. So while it is much easier for us to just accept LeBron’s greatness, we should, while we still have the chance to watch him at his peak, try to understand it, no matter how hard it may be to fathom. Because for as phenomenal a player as he is, he’s even better than we give him credit for. LeBron is too great, has reached a level too impressive for us to understand properly while he’s still in the league. Maybe one day, when he no longer explodes into the air for a windmill, or reaches high above the rim to pin a shot on the backboard, when we don’t get to experience his ability on a nightly basis, maybe then we will understand.

But for now, LeBron is both the best player in the world, and underrated at the same time.