LeBron Should Shake Hands, Consider New Team

Editor's Note: The following is an updated version of Saturday's Game 6 column.

Isiah Thomas was the original poor loser and superstar mope. His image never recovered after he and his Pistons teammates, unable to accept the collapse of their mini-dynasty, snubbed Michael Jordan and the Bulls by refusing to shake hands. It's one of the last practices of good sportsmanship we have left in the athletic arena, a ritual that should be preserved.

LeBron James, arguably the best team-sports athlete in the world these days, dumped all over that playoff tradition Saturday night. The least he can do, while thrusting his commercial ambitions in America's face every other TV timeout, is be a man and congratulate Dwight Howard and the Orlando Magic instead of blowing out of Amway Arena without even a nod to the Eastern Conference champions. Yes, I understand James is 24, feeling the weight of his eventual place in history and surely wondering if Cleveland is feasible as his long-term base in a career that demands multiple titles.

But much as Jordan hated Detroit and the entire Bad Boys act, he always stuck around to shake hands with Isiah, Bill Laimbeer, Rick Mahorn and the jerks who tried to break his limbs. LeBron's quick escape against the dignified Magic was inexcusable and shows he's still learning about life, competition and doing the right thing. I don't care that he sent an e-mail to Howard after the game. Show your respects in public, so the victors can look you in the eye and the masses can see you have class. I wanted to wait and hear his explanation before commenting. I don't like it. It's crybaby stuff.



"It's hard for me to congratulate somebody after you just lose to them," James said Sunday, a day after the Cavaliers were flushed from a postseason they were supposed to rule. "I'm a winner. It's not about being a poor sport or anything like that. If somebody beats you up, you're not going to congratulate them. That doesn't make sense to me. I'm a competitor. That's what I do. It doesn't make sense for me to go over and shake somebody's hand."

I'll tell you what doesn't make sense: the idea of James staying with the Cavs beyond next season. This probably was his best chance to win a title in a city of good, passionate fans who no doubt are cursed by sports, a city that hasn't won a championship in a major league -- even the Indians lost in the ALCS in Major League -- in 45 years. He has attempted everything in his power to break through the psychological barriers and turn northeast Ohio fatalism into a positive civic energy. Nothing works. Next season in the East, the Celtics will have Kevin Garnett back while the Magic will be considered a force.

It took Jordan years to finally win an NBA title -- and he had Scottie Pippen. Will James ever be blessed with a legitimate sidekick and enough supporting players to win in Cleveland? If he fails next year, does he really want to be known as the young, frustrated icon who can't produce a gold trophy? If he wanted, he could sign a long-term extension with the Cavs on July 18. It was telling Sunday that he refused to commit when asked if he'll sign.

"I don't know," James said. "I haven't thought about it just yet. I'm just going to take time off from basketball and not think about contracts or the game, period. I'll relax with my family, and we'll figure it out once it comes from them."

He did say he is happy about the direction of the Cavs, though I have trouble believing it after the demise of his supporting cast in the conference finals. "I'm great. I feel great about this situation that's going on," James said. "You want to continue to get better, that's all you can ask. We got better and I feel this team will be better next season. You don't want to take a step backward. I think we went forward from the Boston series (a Game 7 loss in the East semis) last year. Hopefully, we can go forward next year."

There was an early moment in Game 6 when James hit a jump shot, took a wide turn toward a business colleague in the front row and shot him a grin. Sure, in life's grandest scope, it's good to be young, wealthy, famous, mass-marketed, able to have some fun with Nike comrade Tiger Woods in a courtside meeting of sport's eventual first two billionaire athletes. But like all the greats, including Woods, James' legacy largely will be defined by how many championships he collects.

And once again, though by no fault of his own, he has come up painfully short because the cast around him is spotty. Much as America and the NBA ached to experience LeBron vs. Kobe Bryant in the Finals, it will have to accept the Howard puppet instead, with an exhausted James departing two weeks before he anticipated after fruitlessly carrying one of the biggest postseason workloads in sports history.

Sizzle and TV ratings, but the better basketball team won. The Magic, led by an inspired performance from the gifted and somehow underappreciated Howard, advanced to their first Finals since the Shaquille O'Neal years. It's a shame James has to leave a compelling playoff party, his epic performance sadly to be recalled as a waste of greatness instead of a pathway to his first championship. If he truly is the next Jordan, assuming there can be such a thing, he is imitating MJ's early years of playoff futility.

The King looked lethargic in the final game, unable to muster otherworldly dominance as he did late in Game 5, when he scored or assisted on 32 consecutive points. Can we rescind that Coach of the Year trophy given to Mike Brown? James never should be reduced to exhaustion -- 8 of 20 shooting and 25 points in 45 minutes -- because he carries too much of a burden. The burden must be lightened with an offseason makeover -- Shaquille, anyone? -- or else James will reach the summer of 2010 in an 0-for-7 titles rut and wonder if it's time to bolt. Consider it a warning to Cleveland, which must brace for its next possible sporting calamity.

Afterward, LeBron refused to attend the news conference. He put on his headphones, left the locker room and walked straight to the team bus. I will interpret that not as a slight at the media -- who cares about us? -- but as his way of conveying disgust about an inferior supporting cast. James never will say as much, but Orlando's Rashard Lewis spelled out the problem.

"LeBron's a great player, but at the same time, you need more than one or two guys,'' he said. "You need five guys, guys off the bench, a good coach. It's a combination. We have that in Orlando.''

A major disappointment was Mo Williams, who wasn't the potent sidekick to James as advertised. Not only did he shoot poorly in too many games, he made the mistake of guaranteeing a series victory when the Cavs were trailing 1-2. Oops, nothing like a prediction gone awry.

"I don't want to turn this into what I said. Giev them credit,'' Williams said. "What I said shouldn't rain on their parade. This is their day. It's a terrible day for the Cleveland Cavaliers, but at the same time, everyone with a laptop or tape recorder never thought we'd win 66 games and make it to the Eastern Conference finals. So give this team a lot of credit, because we had a hell of a year.''

Uh, I don't think James would agree. For him, every season without a title is a season lost. "Obviously, he's gonna hurt inside because we knew we had the team to get it done,'' Williams said. "I can understand his disappointment because I'm feeling the same thing. But at the same time, he'll get over it. He's going to use this as motivation. It's like Christmas time, and you want that remote control car. You open up present after present, and you don't get that remote control car, and you're disappointed. But you'll get over it.''

He then addressed Cleveland fans, the poor folks who haven't experienced a championship in a major sport in 45 years, and told them to keep the faith. Yeah, right. Mo Williams, the clank artist and errant prognosticator, soothing the wounds of a godforsaken sports town. "We'll come back and get this thing next year,'' he said.

They'd better. Or you may see LeBron attending a press conference with buddy Jay-Z in Brooklyn, home of his next team, the Nets.

It's time to salute the Magic, whose coach, Stan Van Gundy, has been ridiculed as a buffoon and whose superstar, Howard, has been ripped as one-dimensional and immature. A country's apologies are extended to both. Howard is only the best big man in the game, a defensive force and progressing offensive weapon who, remember, is only 23 himself. Yet he has had to endure taunts from O'Neal and shots from the national media as recently as two weeks ago, when he whined publicly about not getting enough shots and was aiming at Van Gundy when he said, "You've got a dominant player, let him be dominant." To Stan Van's credit, he didn't allow the uprising to be a distraction, and since the flareup, the Magic have won six of eight games against the defending NBA champion Boston Celtics and Team LeBron, which had the league's best regular-season record.

The Magic won't be favored against the Lakers, who played in this Finals dance last year and have the experience and killer finisher, Bryant, to end the Finals in six games. But whatever happens, don't let it obscure the development of Howard, a physical specimen who eliminated the Cavs with a 40-point, 14-rebound masterpiece. In the final minutes, as every fan stood in the cozy old arena downtown, chants of "MVP! MVP! MVP!'' rang through the night. When Howard rammed home a dunk to push his team over the 100-point mark, he looked into the courtside seats at an observer, then pointed at him and screamed.

It was Woods, who usually has his Sunday golf face on at Magic games. This time, he applauded. For one night, and maybe more in the future, Dwight Howard was bigger than Tiger and LeBron. So much for the critics who wonder why he smiles on the court, as if it's a sign of nonchalance. Maybe he's just having a good time as he destroys the competition.

"I've always been called someone who isn't serious and is just playing around. I always take the game very seriously,'' Howard said. "I may have a smile on my face, but my main goal is to fight for my team. We understand that if we do what we do best, we can beat anybody. It's tough not to listen to the things people say about me and us, but it only fuels us and pushes us to be a better team. We became closer because of the things said about us.''

Said Van Gundy: "He was incredible. This was a huge game for him, man, to get us to the Finals. I don't know what else he could have done. Unbelievable. And he was smiling, by the way, yet was able to play well. Imagine that.''

Friday morning, after the Game 5 loss, Howard woke up and texted his teammates. He told them to think "domination.'' He led by example Saturday. "I've been dreaming of this day for a while,'' he said. "We've put some Magic back into Orlando. When I got here, I heard we were the laughingstocks of the league, that when everybody played us they think of Disney World. We wanted to earn the respect of the NBA and wanted our fans to believe in us.

"Our work isn't done. We think we can win a championship. I believe in my team.'' Said Lewis, referring to the difference in the trophies at stake: "We like the silver basketball. But I think we'd like the gold ball better.''

Howard has been outspoken about the national passion for a Kobe vs. LeBron series. As a child of the social-media generation, he has a Twitter account and personal Web site and used both to tell followers that he was motivated by all the talk. "I told y'all that we find it really disrespectful that everybody seems to be pulling for LeBron and Kobe to get to the Finals," Howard wrote. "Every time I look at TV, it seems like that's all anybody is talking about."

Not now. Get used to the dunk montages of Howard and the three-point barrages of Lewis, Hedo Turkoglu and Rafer Alston. Get used to a town where a guy in a goofy blue suit leads cheers. And get used to Van Gundy, the lifer who was run out of Miami three years ago when Pat Riley, realizing he had a championship team on his hands, pulled a front-office coup and took the head coaching reigns. It was O'Neal who shredded him recently, calling him a "master of panic'' and claiming the Magic players didn't like Van Gundy. Guess what, Shaq? While you take sportscasting courses at Syracuse, the master of panic is four victories from an NBA championship.

"Everybody thought we were dead in the Philadelphia series and the Boston series,'' Van Gundy said. "Then we went into the Cleveland series, and other than (TNT's) Charles Barkley, not a lot of people thought we could win. This team fights back. This team has fought very hard. And our reward after preparing for LeBron is to prepare for Kobe. I'm not going to do that tonight.''

A likeable guy, as America is about to discover, Van Gundy made sure to praise the general manager, Otis Smith, about a dozen times. "He wouldn't even come out there and participate in the (celebration),'' he said. "Otis put this team together.'' He then praised his relationship with Howard, and Howard returned the favor. Indeed, there was nothing but love in Orlando, where every mention of "God'' by Howard was cheered by fans during the post-game party. They love their religion. They love their Magic. They love their Dwight and Hedo and Stan Van and Otis.

As for Cleveland, they'd really like someone to put a team together around the greatest player since Jordan. The petty boycott by LeBron James, near midnight, was all anyone needs to know. New York is beckoning.