23 Reasons LeBron Will Never Be MJ

A lot of talking heads have said that with his decision to join Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami, LeBron effectively destroyed his chance to ever reach Michael Jordan's level.  However if LeBron manages to average a triple double and the Heat win 70+ games, the comparisons will inevitably pop right back up.  While professional journalists and columnists much more talented than myself will no doubt analyze in depth whether LeBron has reached His Airness in the future, here are 23 quick reasons why LeBron won't ever be like mike. 

1) MJ: 6 Rings, 6 Finals MVPs
    LBJ: 0 Rings, 1 Finals appearance

2) Be Like Mike (No Way LeBron ever comes Close to Pulling this off)

 


3) Dwyane Wade's Miami Heat

4) 

No Matter How Many Titles LeBron wins in Miami, He'll never win one of these

5) Speaking of UNC, Video Evidence of Jordan's Superiority #1: NCAA Finals vs Georgetown


6) MJ: 10 Scoring Titles (NBA Record), 7 Consecutive Scoring Titles (NBA Record)
    LBJ: 1 Scoring title

7) Video Evidence of Jordan's Superiority #2: The Shrug


8) Jordan's most memorable media announcement was a two word press release: "I'm Back"
LeBron's most memorable media announcement was an overblown one-hour Sportscenter special.

9) Jordan wanted to beat the best players of his era, LeBron wants to play alongside them

10) 1992 "Dream Team" > 2008 "Redeem Team"
 
11)  This is how MJ puts a dagger in the heart of Cleveland


12) And this is how LeBron puts a dagger in the heart of Cleveland


13) SPACE JAM

One of the Greatest Movies Ever Made

14) "There's Michael Jordan and then there is the rest of us."
       -Magic Johnson (5 time NBA Champion)

15)  Video Evidence of Jordan's Superiority #3: The Cradle


16) The Air Jordans

17) MJ won the Slam Dunk Contest twice, beating out Dominique Williams who also was an amazing dunker.  LeBron has never competed in the Slam Dunk Contest.

18) "90 percent of what I’ve learned and what I’ve figured out comes from [Michael Jordan]"

      -Kobe Bryant (5 time NBA champion)

19) Jordan learned the game under Dean Smith, one of the top college coaches of all time and one of the highest character people in the history of college basketball.  LeBron skipped college.

20) Video Evidence of Jordan's Superiority #4: "The Flu Game"



21) These Three Commercials:







22) Video Evidence of Jordan's Superiority #5: Last Shot as a Chicago Bull


23)"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
-Michael Jordan

"I'm going to take my talents to South Beach"
-LeBron James

Aftermath of the Craziest Tennis Match Ever

In tennis from time to time we come across a 5-set marathon match.  These matches only occur in the Grand Slam events (excluding the US Open which plays a tiebreaker for the 5th Set).  Federer-Roddick was a marathon match last year.  It lasted 4 hours and 16 minutes and was decided at 16-14 in the third.  That was a marathon match.  What just happened over the past three days is something different entirely.

Here are some of the Records set by Isner-Mahut:

Longest Match: 11 hours, 5 minutes (Previous Record: 6 hours, 33 minutes)
Most Games in a Match:  183 (Previous Record: 112)
Most Aces By a Player In a Match: 112-Isner, Mahut-103 (Previous Record: 78)
Longest Set: 138 Games (Previous Record: 45)

And that is by no means all of them (Most serve games held, most points won, most winners, it just keeps going).  Take a good look at the above numbers.  It almost impossible that those numbers are ever going to be broken.  The odds of Wilt's record of 100 points in a game is more likely to fall than those numbers, because while it is possible yet highly unlikely LeBron or someone else drops 100 on a team playing no defense (Golden State Warriors I'm looking at you), another 70-68 5th set is never going to happen again.  In fact it never should have happened in the first place.

So why did it?  Well part of the reason it did (and why it will never again happen) is that Isner-Mahut was the perfect matchup.  Isner owns the best serve in tennis right now, but due to his size, he is not much of a threat returning serve.  Mahut is a very good server and had strong groundstrokes, enough to hold serve fairly easily against Isner (Mahut won more points in the match than Isner) but is not a strong enough returner to break Isner's serve.  Throw in the fact that Isner served amazing in the final set and that the grass courts favor big serves and make breaks more rare and you can see how there at least was a basis for the stalemate that occured for 137 games.  Still, the fact that it lasted as long as it did is a testament not only to how well the two were serving but moreso the focus and willpower that allowed them to engage in the world longest staring contest, with neither blinking for over 8 hours.

In the end Mahut opened up a window in the 138th game with an ill-advised drop shot, followed by two great shots by Isner to bring an end to the uber-marathon match.  The fact that Isner was part of this (and to a lesser degree the fact that he emerged victorious) was particularly cool to me since our paths crossed almost 8 years ago.  Our high schools met in the State semifinals even though neither of us were playing (Isner was ineligible due to being sponsored and I was not in the starting lineup).  Isner was sitting only a couple feet away as we both watched the matches going on.  I was aware of who he was (at that point he was a top-ranked player in the south and had a scholarship to play tennis for Georgia) but did not expect that he would one day be playing in the craziest match in tennis history.

 You'll notice I said "craziest match" and not "best match."  To be honest, for much of the final set, the match was quite boring.  That's not to say it was not well played, simply that the points were ending quickly and amazing rallies were few and far between.  It isn't close to Roddick-Federer last year, Nadal-Federer the year before, or Borg-McEnroe back in the 70's.  For one thing those matches were in the finals and pitted some of the best players to play the game.  This was a first round match that pitted two players who will probably never be ranked in the top 5, maybe not even the top 10.  For another, those matches featured brilliant shot making and a sense that serve could be broken if the server were to play only a couple of loose points.  This match was a classic, but more in the historical, record-setting sense than in the "great match" sense.  However that should not take anything away from Isner and Mahut.  In time we'll get another Nadal-Federer 2008 or Roddick-Federer 2009.  We'll never get another Isner-Mahut 2010.

"Getting" LOST

Well the finale of perhaps the most polarizing and unique show of the past decade is finally over and judging from Facebook, Twitter, and my brother's text that simply read "That was awful," opinions on the finale are divided.  I for one loved the finale and think it did a beautiful job of tying together the narrative of the show.  Given the discussion, speculation, and even argument surrounding the finale, I figure its time for my second ever non-sports related blog post.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.

Okay you've been warned.

So before I begin dissecting the finale and the show in general.  I want to make a couple points about LOST that are pretty much not up for debate in my opinion.

1) It has some of the best music in television.  Michael Giacchino did an amazing job with the soundtrack.  He just won an academy award for Up! and also conducted the music for Star Trek.  He was pretty unknown at the start of LOST and his great work has led him to most likely be a long time fixture in the movie soundtrack business.

2) The casting and acting were PHENOMENAL for a cable television show.  Every major role was cast perfectly.  Casting isn't easy.  The acting was equally amazing with Ben, Locke, Richard, and Sawyer particularly standing out. 

I could continue waxing poetic about particular episodes or great performances, but I want to keep this as brief as possible.  So now to the finale.

Opinions are understandably mixed about the finale.  Before I explain why I loved it or respond to any criticism of the show, let me first attempt to clear up any confusion about the plot/ending.

First of all the island was NOT purgatory and the characters did NOT die in the crash of Oceanic 815.  The events happening in the first 5 seasons AND the events on the island during the sixth season WERE really happening.  The "sideways" timeline was in fact not an alternate reality at all but instead a "waiting area" before the characters entered the afterlife where they had to remember their lives on the island and realize the significance of their interactions before moving on together (Matthew Fox pretty much confirmed this on Jimmy Kimmel after the finale).  As Christian said, the characters died at different times.  We saw Jack dying in the final minutes.  Boone and Shannon died in earlier seasons.  It can be assumed that Kate, Sawyer, and others died after leaving the island and living their lives.  Ben and Hurley lived out their lives as protectors/leaders of the island and died later.

If this seems somewhat vague that is because it is.  No one has ever accused LOST of being clear cut.  LOST is more like a book than a TV show in some senses in that you have to use your imagination and think, as opposed to shows like 24 (and I also very much enjoy 24) where you can just sit back and watch.

A few more points to clear up before I get into the debate.  The plane Jack saw over him was most likely Sawyer, Kate, and co. escaping (though as Kimmel points out it could be the plane from the "sideways" and that is when Jack moves from the real world to the "waiting" area).  The images of the wreckage during the credits don't suggest they all died in the crash but instead represents (remember the concept of "symbolism" from high school English) what tied all of these characters together.

With those few things hopefully cleared up, lets jump into the finale itself.  The reason I loved it so much is because I feel it did a wonderful job wrapping up the narrative of the characters.  The point of LOST is not the island and its mysteries, but instead the characters who landed on the island and their stories.  More specifically it focuses on a group of individuals who all were flawed and all seeking redemption.  While the question of why they were on the island was certainly a point of interest to fans (including myself) throughout the show, the true significance of the characters were their intertwined paths to redemption, that, without each other, would not have been possible.  So in that regard I felt the finale was hugely successful in emphasizing this point.

The moving on of the characters to the afterlife was also done in a way that did not come across preachy or seem to put emphasis on a particular faith. LOST is a show in which faith is a major theme and one that draws from many religions, however I do not believe it was the intent of the producers to preach any particular religion.

The major criticism of the finale seems to be coming from those who feel disappointed with the lack of answers to questions about the island and mythology of LOST.  While I understand this point of view, I think the lack of answers is for three main reasons:

1) The writers were making it up as the went along up until the end of the third season and have said as much (listen to Bill Simmons podcast with the producers from a couple weeks ago). They had vague ideas of where they wanted to go, but until they were given an end date they could not sit down and plan out an ending.  That actually leads into point two:

2) Raising questions that do not directly impact the main narrative is a good way to keep people interested without sacrificing the narrative of the characters

3) The writers wanted to leave some things open to speculation. Does it really impact the narrative if the island was built by ancient Egyptians? No. I think they want the nature of the island (as well as what exactly the flash sideways was) to be open to speculation. As I said earlier LOST wants you to use your imagination and to speculate about certain mysteries even after the show ends.  Consider what happens when you try to give too much explanation.  You get something like season six of 24 in which the mysterious conspirators behind the plot in season 5 end up being Jack Bauer's family.

Consequently, I liked the decision to spend the finale focusing on bringing closure to the narrative of the characters instead of distracting from this with a bunch of answers to the mythology.

Lastly, none of this is to say I wouldn't have wanted more answers. Where they really messed up was not the finale (which as I said I loved) but the Jacob flashback episode. That was their real chance to delve into island mythology and explain things and instead they wasted a lot of time with two kids running through the jungle and some strange mother character.  I thought the episode was one of the weakest of the series.  It, not the finale, was the best time to answer island mythology and it completely disappointed.  Either the writers did not have a good idea of what was going to appease the answer-hungry fans, or they thought it was best to leave the answers to some questions open to interpretation.

The finale, much like the show throughout its run is destined to create division among those who watch the show.  Some will express their disappointment.  Some will get frustrated and antagonize those who liked it.  Some will think it was the best finale ever.  However, I hope most can agree that LOST was something unique and special.  It became a pop culture phenomenon.  It may be the last really successful sci-fi show on network television.  It introduced  us to interesting characters and was filled with twists and turns (the first flash-forward in the season 3 finale springs to mind).  And, love it or hate it, it was able to go out on its own terms.

Goodbye LOST. And Namaste.