During All-Star Saturday Night last season, LeBron sparked a mini-media hurricane by announcing that he would participate in the 2010 Slam Dunk contest. TNT’s broadcast team — particularly Kenny Smith — rejoiced in the news and what it meant for the event. After years of seeing Bron’s in-game highlight reel dunks, thousands of NBA fans began chattering about what the King would uncork at the contest. A return to the glory of Dr. J’s show time, Dominique Wilkins’s aerial acrobatics, and MJ’s iconic foul line jam was at hand.
Except that earlier this week, Bron announced that he was now only “50/50” on participating in the event.
So what happened? How about LeBron being LeBron.
Like many self-aware Cavs fans in Cleveland, my feelings about the L Train are a little more complex than I wish they were. It goes without saying that the man is an absolutely incredible basketball player, and it’s staggering to consider that every time I’ve watched my hometown team play for the past 6+ years, I’ve been watching a guy who may end up being the greatest to ever play the game.
But then again, I would be lying to you if I didn’t say that part of me doesn’t resent LeBron some times for not just committing to the team for more than 3 years at a stretch. From a business standpoint, I completely understand his decision. It keeps pressure on the organization to try to constantly upgrade the team. It gives him an out if he doesn’t like the way things start to go. Essentially, it gives him all the power.
But there’s also something else it gives him: the chance to please every basketball fan in the country, regardless of which team they cheer for.
In my cynical moments, I’ve called him an attention whore. In my more empathetic ones, I’ve labeled him as someone searching for love and admiration, which is something that I think most human beings can identify with.
However you want to define it, this characteristic seems to be the key to Lebron’s personality, or at the very least his public persona. It took him 2+ years of his current contract extension to cut off the media from all discussions of his pending free agency. In fact, as we all know, Lebron not only welcomed those questions in the past but often times brought them up to the media himself. Remember, this is a guy who proclaimed just before this embargo on free agency talk that at one time or another he’d envisioned himself playing for each of the 30 teams in the NBA. Literally.
Catch Lebron during college football season, and he’ll profess his love of Ohio State. Just ignore the parts where he shows during a Cavs game that he has no idea how to make the letters with his arms during “Hang on Sloopy,” or that he admitted to falling asleep for most of the middle of this year’s OSU-Michigan tilt.
But ask him hypotheticals about where he would’ve ended up going to college had he not bypassed the fraudulent NCAA for the NBA, and his answer will depend on which arena he’s at that day. I’ve heard him say Carolina, Duke, OSU, and Syracuse. I’m sure there are many more beyond that. He showed up to Steph Curry’s March Madness game in full Davidson warm-ups.
Again, this is a guy who will put the kibosh on free agency talk one day, then go out in special “Yankees Championship Edition” custom kicks for his next game at Madison Square Garden. Hell, he even reached out to NFL fans by suggesting that he’d be able to help a pro squad as a tight end.
In short, Lebron is a guy who wants the spotlight — not just on the biggest stage, but everywhere he goes. And not to be arrogant, but because he’s seeking approval.
So what does all this have to do with the dunk contest, you ask?
Interestingly, Lebron chose to make his announcement about participating in the 2010 version literally in between rounds of the 2009 dunk contest. In that moment, he effectively neutered the 2009 contest and claimed all the attention for himself until Nate Robinson’s Krypto-Nate dunk closed the show.
At the time, Kenny Smith also took full credit for peer-pressuring Lebron into accepting. He pleaded with him to restore the glory of the event to the days when the game’s best and most dynamic stars competed for the crown. He got other former players — guys that Bron spent his early life looking up to — to join the charge. He emphasized that the contest would be taking place in the brand new home of his favorite NFL team, the Dallas Cowboys. And he put Lebron on the spot in front of tens of thousands of fans in the arena by putting the mic to his face right there.
Considering the circumstances, how could the Lebron we know have refused?
Fast forward to 8 months later, when Lebron admits that he got caught up in the moment and reduces the odds of participating to 50/50. As Brian Windhorst points out (in the article I linked to at the beginning of this post), Lebron is savvy enough to recognize that the contest is a no-win for him. If he comes out of the competition victorious, everyone will have expected it of him. If, on the other hand, he loses, it becomes a story. And if you think Lebron isn’t sensitive to the idea of getting outdone on a dunk, go back to the incident at his Nike camp this past summer.
I sympathize with Lebron in this circumstance. Everyone gets caught up in the moment some times and makes decisions that they regret. Ask anyone who’s ever drunk a beer. (Actually, if you have to ask someone else about that, you probably shouldn’t be reading this blog, but you know what I mean. Unless you’re under 21. Stay in school, kids.)
The real question, though, is whether Lebron will ultimately end up participating.
It’s a fascinating conundrum for him from a personality standpoint. On the one hand, you have his rational business mind realizing that the best case scenario for this whole dunk contest thing is that his profile simply maintains; the worst case scenario is that if he loses, it takes a major hit, AND he has to hear questions about it from reporters for the rest of the season. Plus, there’s the possibility that he could end up injuring himself somehow and losing the rest of the season, or at least enough of it that the Cavs could end up in an unfavorable playoff seeding. All that considered, from an economic and public relations standpoint, there’s just no way it’s worth the risk.
On the other hand, Lebron has seen the level of excitement and love generated by his announcement to jam — not just from the fans, but from his peers and his elders. The event’s venue has been getting hyped as the world’s greatest achievement in sports architecture for months. There’s the potential that he could go down in NBA history as the superstar who restored the Slam Dunk Contest to a premier event after years of amateurism. And on top of it all, it’s one of only a few nights in his career where he can know that every basketball fan in the world will be rooting for him to do something they’ve never seen before.
Plus, if he’s going to try to sell me the fantasy that he’s dreamed of playing for every team in the NBA at one time or another, he’s also got to have dreamed about winning the Slam Dunk trophy.
My take? I think he’s going to do it. I’d feel differently if he hadn’t already committed. But in addition to the need for attention, we also have to keep in mind that Bron is a competitor. If he backtracks now, it’s a sign of weakness. And signs of weakness are not something you can show when you’re trying to be either the best player of all time or a “global icon.”
I include both of those options because I think they speak to a different aspect of Bron’s personality — the Jekyll and Hyde of his ambitions.
We’ll see which side wins out in February.
-T
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