LeBron James is the best active basketball player. A sentence that is now pretty much a statement of fact has been one of the most divisive opinions in basketball history. The man's game and career moves have been under the microscope since high school and his detractors have had a laundry list of things to dismiss him from the realm of being the undisputed best player in the NBA. Whether his lack of a jumpshot compared to the likes of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, to his lack of a title to last summer, to his decision to team up with Dwayne Wade in Miami, a large percentage of the basketball community was not ready to anoint King James as the best guy doing it right now. "LeBron James is the best player in the NBA" would garner you a different response from every person you said it to.
That simple sentence has sparked wide scale debate since James made his first NBA Finals appearance all those years ago with Celevland, defeating the "Bad Boys 2.0" Pistons. That year was the beginning of the talking points in the media, on basketball courts, on twitter, on facebook, pretty much wherever people wanted to talk about basketball, someone had an opinion on LeBron James. Perhaps that moment came too soon when LeBron scored nearly every single one of his team's points down the stretch in an OT win over the Chauncey Billups/Prince/Hamilton/Rasheed/Ben Wallace Pistons. The bar was always set high for a man whose high school basketball games were nationally televised on ESPN. His face adorned the cover of Sports Illustrated when he was a high school junior. He was drafted first overall in the NBA Draft by his in state team in Cleveland, everything he touched was gold.
Being thrown in our face from Day One, the man was bound to get rejected and earn criticism. Playing on Cavs teams that didn't have the talent to deal with the Garnett/Pierce/Allen Celtics and a game that couldn't make up for the lack of a supporting cast LeBron experienced growing pains after his first finals berth, all while watching contemporaries like Pierce and Kobe Bryant go to the Finals and win rings during the rebirth of the Celtics/Lakers rivalry in the late 00's. Fans got to label him as "not clutch" and pair him with the likes of Karl Malone and Charles Barkley, great players who just couldn't carry their teams to rings during the Michael Jordan era. His lack of consistent three point shooting became evident the more he attempted to compensate for having a lesser team all while ignoring the countless cries for him to attempt to develop a post game that was so clearly needed. LeBron was being forced upon us all as King without being ready to take the throne from the era before him, and people knew it.
Fast forward to now, where after losing to the Dallas Mavericks in the Finals in his first year with the Heat, LeBron is defending his first NBA Championship and, at the time of writing, the Heat are on a 23 game winning streak, beating the Celtics on the road after being down 17 at one point. Things are different now, Pierce is old and so is Kobe, mileage from all of those playoff years casting them into lesser roles, Kevin Durant isn't ready yet like LeBron was in Cleveland and there is no real number two player to compete with LeBron. James' game is much different now as well. He is one of the game's best passers, with a post game that he has finally embraced both offensively and defensively, being able to play any role from point guard to power forward with ease. From the casual fan's point of view and from a fundamental sense LeBron has risen his game to a level that is rare to see in the modern game. In the era of the "position less player" as the vogue term, LeBron is the prototype, the player who can do almost everything at a high, if not elite level. His performance from last season's playoffs and during the regular season this year have left no doubt that he is above and beyond the best and most complete player in the NBA.
This does not mean that I like LeBron James, I can admit that the man is not my favorite basketball player, his move to the Miami Heat still goes against my sports morals and if I do pick a side in a playoff series of casual basketball game, it is usually hoping the Miami Heat lose. But you can't make an argument for anyone being better anymore, it is foolishness to contribute to the discussion anymore. LeBron James is the best basketball player in the NBA. Period.
This doesn't mean he is better than Michael Jordan or even equal to him, this doesn't even mean he will have Kobe Bryant's resume when he retires. It doesn't mean that there aren't great players currently in the NBA, it doesn't even mean that in two seasons someone won't be better than LeBron is or have better statistical numbers. It just means that currently as you are reading this, LeBron James is playing the best basketball in the world. If I can swallow my pride as a lifelong Raptors fan and admit that 'Bron is the best in the world after stealing Chris Bosh to Miami, the debate is over. King James time has come, give the man the throne.
