Return to Trevor

More Than A Game

Q: What is the difference between a litter of puppies and a Cleveland sports fan? A: The puppies stop whining after 6 weeks.

Q: What do you call a Cleveland sports fan with a championship ring?

A: A thief.

Unlike football, whose players' faces are hidden under helmets and masks, and baseball, which has a long tradition of its superstars coming and going, professional basketball has marketed itself through its superstars, especially since Michael Jordan. Michael became the most famous athlete since Muhammad Ali. Children in remote African villages and on Siberian steeps dreamed that they could be like Mike. Nominal fans tuned into games and bought tickets to see what graceful, gravity defying move Jordan would make. Six NBA championships, five MVP awards, a fourteen time all-star, two Olympic gold medals, and the NBA's own website proclaims him the greatest player ever. To the NBA and advertisers, this meant money. Kids wanting to be like Mike, bought Jordan jerseys and Nikes, drank what Mike drunk, ate what Mike endorsed, spent their money so a little piece of his Airness could rub off on them. The products were capitalist talismans for a secular saint. His gambling and running around could be suppressed for the sake of the almighty dollar. Then Michael Jordan made a mistake. Turns out he was human, grew old, and had to retire. The NBA has been searching for a replacement star ever since but finding someone bigger than the sport is darn hard to find.

Enter LeBron James. Nicknamed "The King", only 24 years of age, he has already finished his sixth season and is as close to Michael Jordan as a person is going to get. One little problem, he plays in Cleveland, a city that has not won a sports championship in forty-five years and has been the butt of jokes for decades. Every city has an image. New Orleans is the Big Easy, jazz, gumbo, and Mardi Gras. Las Vegas is gambling, sin city, what happens there, stays there. San Francisco is hills cable cars, hippies and homosexuals. Cleveland is a rust belt city with beefy, blue collar fans without the success that similar cities like Green Bay, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia have enjoyed. A person might love L.A., find their kind of town in Chicago, and make it in New York, but Cleveland is, well, like their most famous former resident, Drew Carey. He has the looks of a meat cutter, and is likable enough, but hip and cool will never be found in a description of him. As actor Tom Hanks has stated, "The Cleveland Browns' name is perfect. Everything in Cleveland is brown. The grass is brown. The sky is brown. The snow is brown." The Browns, the Indians, the Cavaliers, a trilogy of awfulness and heartbreak.

If LeBron is going to be the face of the NBA he is going to have to play somewhere other than the city called "the mistake by the lake." He needs the eye of the media upon him. It is why anyone who cares about the NBA, except for Cav's fans, is looking forward to the end of 2010. It is why other teams are clearing as much salary cap room as possible. It is why commentators have been mentioning for years that LeBron is only marking time until he goes to the New York Knickerbockers, a franchise that has become a bit of a joke. Yet, of all the teams in position to sign James, Cleveland seems to have the most to offer. Not only has the franchise been extremely close to making the championship but can pay him roughly $31 million more a season than any other team. For a young man who grew up in nearby Akron, Cleveland is home. He has the name of his home town and the "330" area code tattooed on his body.

Michael Jordan might have been cut from his high school team as a sophomore, but LeBron James has always been a star. Since he was a freshman, he averaged 21 points a game and led his 23-1 St. Vincent-St. Mary High School Fighting Irish to the state title, people have been buzzing about him being the future of the game. A three time "Mr. Ohio" basketball, how many kids can say that they have been on the covers of SLAM Magazine, ESPN: The Magazine, and Sports Illustrated, had NBA superstars like Shaquille O'Neal attend his games just to watch him play and even had some of their games shown on regional pay-per-view, all while still in high school. Michael had Space Jam. Shaq tried with Blue Chips, Steel, and Kazaam. Now it is LeBron's turn to try to capture the multi-plex with the Lions Gate documentary More Than A Game, which looks at a young LeBron and his high school teammates.

Now there is something a little unseemly, disconcerting, about grown men falling all over themselves to capture the attention of a young boy, but that was James' life since he was in junior high. While most of us would like to forget the awkwardness of those years, LeBron has had a book written about them, "Shooting Star," and now a documentary. It is natural for a teenager to think the whole world revolves around them, but in the case of this future superstar it was true. Pretty heady stuff for a kid from a troubled home life, a kid who found a second family among his teammates and coaches. This is the first sophomore ever named to the USA Today All-USA First Team. It is hard enough being a kid, but when you are that good, you find not only people glad handing you, wanting to be your friend, but also people rooting against you. There were people in the Akron black community who wanted to see him fail because he chose to play for the mostly white Fighting Irish instead of attending Buchtel, the mostly African-American high school in town. There were other schools that saw St. Vincent as just another basketball factory, a flesh peddling institution that had an unfair advantage, cherry picking the best kids because they could recruit.

People forget that LeBron entered the national consciousness and promptly lost. A few weeks after appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated , his team was upended in the state finals by Cincinnati's Roger Bacon High School. "The King" admits that the loss was mostly due to bad habits and a lack of focus on the court. It was then that he shocked the basketball world by petitioning the NBA to change its draft rules so he could be eligible at seventeen to enter the league and not have to return to high school for his senior season. The NBA quickly rejected the request but it was too late, the circus had come to town. Because of his popularity and the avalanche of media coverage, the team had to move their practices from the school's gym to nearby University of Akron's James A. Rhodes Arena. It was then that a series of controversies broke. LeBron's mother, Gloria, bought her son an $80,000 H2 Hummer for his eighteenth birthday. To qualify for the loan the bank took into account her son's future earnings. Then, in exchange for posing for some pictures that the NEXT urban clothing store put on its walls, LeBron accepted two throwback jerseys, one of Gale Sayers and the other of Wes Unseld. Both these acts violated the Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA) rules that stated that no athlete could accept a gift valued at over $100 for their performance on the field. The OHSAA declared him ineligible. James appealed and a judge reduced his suspension to just two games. All the off the court problems did not affect LeBron's performance on it. He averaged 31.6 points a game, secured his third high school title, and earning the MVP award in numerous high school all-star games. Even though he had no plans for playing in college, playing in all these high school all-star games caused him to lose his NCAA eligibility. It was of little matter, LeBron James was the number one overall pick in the 2003 NBA draft. In four years of high school, James scored an amazing 2,657 points, had 892 rebounds and 523 assists.

Any documentary on high school basketball is always going to be compared to one of the greatest documentaries of all time, Hoop Dreams. It is no Hoop Dreams but it is a nice collection of memories from a group of young men who had to live through circumstances few of us can imagine. It was LeBron's world and they were caught up in it. So, is LeBron James the next Michael Jordan? It is still too early to tell. A lot of becoming an icon involves playing in the right city at the right time. Mickey Mantle played in New York. Joe Namath slung the football for the Jets. Reggie Jackson was meant to be a Bronx Bomber. Golden boy Joe Montana on the west coast. Roger Staubach in Big D. It also involves being injury free and winning the big game, things that in a group sport are often beyond one's control. It also takes having that one undefinable quality, charisma. Mike, Tiger, Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson, and Babe Ruth had it in spades. How about LeBron? Unlike Kobe Bryant, Barry Bonds, or Michael Vick, James has so far enjoyed a scandal free private life. He seems likable enough. He married his high school sweetheart. Even though he has huge contracts with Sprite, Upper Deck, Bubblicious, and Nike, unlike Mike and Tiger, he has been political, being a vocal supporter of Barack Obama in 2008. If this documentary is successful do not be surprised to find ABC airing a one-hour special on his life, which has already been green lit and is being co-produced by Ice Cube and James. Still, as much as the NBA and advertisers want this to be LeBron's world, time will tell, time will tell.

Verdict: A Decent Documentary