Peon's Place

Have you seen the new LeBron commercial? It’s about as fantastic as “The Decision” he put us all through back in July. The commercial aired today produced by Nike called “Rise”, where LeBron basically tells everyone to shove off.

The ad featured plenty of pointed imagery, including: Cleveland’s giant “WE ARE ALL WITNESSES” banner falling to the ground, James speaking to an empty room at a mock Hall of Fame induction, the “CHOSEN 1″ tattoo being removed from his back and James at the wheel of a bulldozer tearing through a basketball arena.

At one point, the camera focuses close on James’ face as he declares, “I am not a role model.”

LeBron is out to settle a score with the general public and this commercial is just the most recent example of that. He takes shots at all of the doubters. He takes shots at some of his mentors. He tries to remind everyone that’s he’s been down this road before. What he really may be doing, though, is trying to cope with all of the support he has seemingly lost in the past few months. Simply put, it seems like LeBron is feeling betrayed. No matter what he’s done, he feels he can’t win. Once on top of the sports world, LeBron is now, as he points out in the commercial, a villain.

So now, he’s produced something to more or less tell you, me and everyone else that he doesn’t really care what you think. He poses the sarcastic question about what you and I think he should do throughout. The answer, LeBron, is anything from sarcastic — just shut it and play basketball. If he wanted to do a commercial so badly, do one reminding everyone of what you really are, first and foremost — a helluva basketball player, maybe the best.

Michael Jordan and Pippen truly were one of sports most dynamic duos, but were they the best duo of all-time? It’s tough to quantify that claim across various team sports, but they’re definitely on the leaderboard with Montana-Rice, Shaq-Kobe, Ruth-Gehrig among others.

What are the criteria for great sports duos? Longevity, championships and records are a good start. But more than the numbers, they should be two players whom opponents dreaded playing against. Two players who would drive opposing coaches crazy—if you stopped one, the other would beat you. Two players whom if you weren’t a fan of their team, you despised. So, let’s try to make a case for Jordan and Pippen by starting in their own sport and then comparing them to great duos in other sports:

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Dan Gilbert, the majority owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, had a little to say after the  laugh-riot that LeBron James put the city of Cleveland into for the past week. Not only did “King” James decide to make a one-hour ESPN special out of this whole ordeal of which team he would abandon his hometown for, but also posted on his website that he would be answering questions on his new Twitter account.

The owner had this to say:

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As much as I am disappointed in LeBron’s decision, I am also sad that we will have nothing else to chat about in the office until the NFL begins warming up again.

The news that LeBron James is going to Miami to join Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh will surely have some anointing the Heat as next season’s favorites. Don’t expect many basketball people to be among them. “It’s not over with,” New York coach Mike D’Antoni said. “Nothing’s over.”

Miami has three of the best players in the NBA, but it takes 12 to fill a roster. And even if the trio keeps its word and takes less money than allowed, there still won’t be much cash left for the Heat to have many good choices. Certainly not enough to go sign their versions of Ron Artest and Lamar Odom, who helped Los Angeles pull out Game 7 of the NBA finals while Kobe Bryant was struggling. “I think whatever happens, I don’t think anyone is going to beat the Lakers anyway,” Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said. “When you look at what the Lakers have, it’s really hard to beat them. That team is so good, but if they continue to get better and can stay healthy, it’s not going to matter who you put together.”

Still, the Heat now have a chance to do it, all because they took a chance in free agency and it paid off. The best players almost never leave as free agents in the NBA, where the league’s collective bargaining agreement allows them to receive longer contracts with bigger raises from their own clubs. Yet the Heat persuaded both James and Bosh to come to South Florida, even though it could mean leaving about $30 million on the table.

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No, but that’s Tiger Woods’ pipedream. He may just be throwing this out there to distract us from other stuff, but Tiger Woods, for some reason, believes that LeBron James should end up with the Los Angeles Lakers. According to some reports, James is currently talking with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh about possibly going to the Miami Heat, as you know if you get your up-to-the-minute Verizon LeBron James rumors text messages like I do. But then, a voice came from the clouds. And Tiger said:

Yeah, actually I would love to see him go to the Lakers,” the world’s top golfer said. “I’m an L.A. guy, can’t help it. That would be interesting, wouldn’t it?

Erhm. No, it wouldn’t be interesting. At all. Either way, LeBron makes his decision tomorrow, as July 1st is the NBA’s cutoff time.

Los Angeles Lakers have won their 16th NBA championship, rallying from a fourth-quarter deficit to beat the Boston Celtics 83-79. It was a game-seven classic and this time it went the Lakers’ way. Beating Boston for the first time in a seventh game, the Lakers came up champions again after trailing in the last quarter of the last game of the season.

Kobe Bryant had a horrible 6-of-24 shooting night but still scored 23 points and was named finals MVP, earning his fifth championship. ”This one is by far the sweetest, because it’s them,” Bryant said. ”This was the hardest one by far. I wanted it so bad, and sometimes when you want it so bad, it slips away from you. My guys picked me up.”

Ron Artest added 20 points for the Lakers, who shot terribly while trailing for most of the first three-and-a-half quarters, yet they reclaimed the lead midway through the fourth quarter and hung on with big shots from Pau Gasol and Artest. ”Well, first of all I want to thank everybody in my hood,” Artest said right after the game. ”I definitely want to thank my doctors … my psychiatrist, she really helped me relax a lot.”

With their fifth title in 11 seasons, the Lakers moved one championship behind Boston’s 17 banners for the overall NBA lead. Amid the purple and gold confetti and streamers after the final buzzer, Magic Johnson rushed the court to congratulate Bryant, who now has the same number of titles as the greatest-ever Laker.

Paul Pierce had 18 points and 10 rebounds for the Celtics, who just couldn’t finish the final quarter of a remarkable play-off run after a fourth-place finish in the eastern conference. Kevin Garnett added 17 points, but Boston flopped in two chances to clinch the series in Los Angeles after winning game five back home. ”Listen, give the Lakers credit,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. ”They were terrific.” Rivers knows changes are coming, saying afterward that the 2010-11 Celtics will be different than the 2009-10 team. The Celtics had a 50 per cent record for the final two-thirds of the season, prompting many to wonder if the 2008 champions could turn it back on for the play-offs. That question was answered long ago. Yes, they could – and with one or two more stops on Thursday, they’d have won an 18th title. ”There’s a lot of crying in that locker room,” Rivers said. ”I don’t think there was a dry eye. A lot of hugs, a lot of people feeling awful. That’s a good thing. Showed a lot of people cared.”

After three quarters of mostly terrible offence, the Lakers tied it 61-61 on Artest’s three-point play with seven minutes 29 seconds left. Bryant’s free throws 90 seconds later gave the Lakers their first lead of the second half.

In 2008, the Celtics blew out the Lakers in Boston in game six for their 17th championship. That loss drove Bryant all last season. He was not at his best in game seven and acknowledged as much. But he still captured the finals MVP award, averaging 28.6 points in the series. ”Let’s go for it again,” Bryant said, moments before hoisting the finals MVP trophy. The Lakers will relish this title. The teams have met in 12 NBA finals, but the Lakers won for just the third time.

Kobe Bryant is the best player in professional basketball today, better than LeBron James, better than any and everybody, even if his determined one-on-three efforts in Game 7 Thursday night were misguided and helped the Celtics build a 13-point lead at one point. The Lakers won an entirely dramatic if not very well played winner-take-all Game 7 because Pau Gasol controlled the action from the low block for an important spell, because Ron Artest justified the Lakers’ faith in him by, of all things, hitting a couple of huge shots and carrying the offensive load early when Kobe wasn’t up to it, and because Kobe closed it all out by finding his game in the final few minutes.

And then it was on … the discussion about Kobe’s place in Lakers history, basketball history, sports history, because we obsess over perspective now, as much the fault of sports columnists and TV talkers as anything. The newest entirely lazy thing in sports is simply counting championships and ranking a player accordingly. And because Kobe has surpassed Shaq and Tim Duncan’s four NBA Championships won, has now tied Magic Johnson’s five, and has crept within one of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Michael Jordan’s six, there is this need in some quarters to ask the question as to whether Kobe has pulled even with the likes of Magic and Jordan.

I’m honestly not sure how I feel about the new Golden State Warriors logo. Definitely not fearsome, although the blue & yellow over in Oakland leaves much to be desired anyhow.

The Golden State Warriors unveiled a new logo, color scheme and branding elements today, all of which bring together the past and future of one of the National Basketball Association’s longest tenured franchises. The new look was officially unveiled earlier today with the launching of the team’s redesigned website – www.warriors.com.

The Warriors’ new primary logo salutes the team’s Bay Area past and links to the exciting prospects of the organization’s future. A silhouette of the yet-to-be-completed Eastern Span of the Bay Bridge is the focal point of the design and a direct spin-off of “The City” logo, one of the most popular emblems in the history of professional sports. Depth was added to the circular band portion of the logo – taken directly from the original model – to provide a modern customization of the graphic design. The simple, yet sleek, design of the Warriors new logo is the result of an 18-month creative and marketing collaboration between the Warriors, the National Basketball Association and adidas – the official outfitter of the NBA.

“This new logo pays homage to our organization’s rich history and unique standing in the Bay Area sports community,” said Warriors’ President Robert Rowell. “The throwback uniforms we’ve worn as part of the NBA’s Hardwood Classics initiative in recent years have been extremely popular with our fans, and we set out to design a new look that was clean and traditional in that same spirit. We are grateful to the NBA and adidas for providing us with a magnitude of creative freedom, along with invaluable expertise, during this process.”

The depiction of the Bay Bridge in the primary logo serves as the link between the Warriors’ original Bay Area home in San Francisco, where the team arrived from Philadelphia 48 years ago, and its current home in Oakland, where the team is headquartered downtown and has played home games at Oracle Arena (formerly the Oakland Coliseum Arena) for the last 39 seasons.

The colors of the new logos and branding elements are Warriors Royal Blue and California Golden Yellow. These two colors have been the most prevalent in the team’s Bay Area uniform history, appearing as the dominant scheme in four of the last five decades since the team’s arrival on the West Coast in 1962.

Michael Jordan owns six NBA championship rings and his statue stands outside the United Center. Magic Johnson could carry his five rings past his statue outside the Staples Center if he chose to do so.

Kobe Bryant doesn’t have a statue, which is why Thursday night’s Game 7 of the NBA Finals between his Lakers and archenemy Celtics is a prime opportunity for him to enhance his legacy further. Four NBA championships and a multitude of other team and individual honors has Bryant ticketed for eventual enshrinement in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, alongside greats such as Michael Jordan and Earvin “Magic” Johnson Jr.

But with a victory Thursday, Bryant would tie Johnson and sit one behind Jordan in the championship tally, begging the question of whether Bryant is reaching their heights as he chases their accomplishments. ”It’s not at the front of his mind,” Lakers coach Phil Jackson said Wednesday in Los Angeles. “That’s not what the big issue is. It’s about his personality. It’s about winning. And I think, in retrospect, he’s going to see that at some point.”

Bryant’s personality — his reputation for driving teammates and stepping on opponents’ throats — is what several league observers agree most likens him to Jordan. ”There’s only one Michael,” former Bulls assistant Johnny Bach said. “But Kobe is the closest we’ll see because of his attack mentality.”

Jackson says this attack mentality has extended to quiet moments for Bryant, who has shown awareness of his place among basketball immortals. ”At one point (after) I got to the Lakers, I got a call from Jerry West, who was vice president and player personnel director,” Jackson said. “And he said, ‘I’d like to tell you I had a long conversation with Kobe and he wanted to know how both Elgin (Baylor) and I were capable of scoring close to 30 points or more a game at that level of basketball at that time.’ ”And it was going to be so difficult for Kobe to score 20 points with ( Shaquille O’Neal) scoring the kind of points he was scoring at the time, which was probably scoring 29 or so a game. So at that point in his career — Kobe was 21 at that time — he was very concerned about his mortality and how history was going to look at him as a basketball player. At this time, I don’t think it’s in the back of his mind that he has to catch Magic or he has to catch Michael or anything else. He wants to win. It’s what the effort is worth for him to do what he has to go through to play this game.”

Welcome back to the home of the Lakers, where LA is 10-1 in the post season. It was only the second quarter, but Game 6 was pretty much over. The Lakers were up by 10 points after the first quarter, and 22 points by the second. Los Angeles had responded to the threat of elimination from the NBA finals with the closest thing to a shutout anyone is likely to see in big-time basketball. Buckle up, Boston and L.A. This epic series between old rivals is going to Game 7.

Bryant scored 26 points, Pau Gasol added 17 points and 13 rebounds, and the Lakers emphatically earned a grand finale with a 89-67 victory over the Celtics on Tuesday night. Ron Artest added 15 points for the Lakers, who got their backs off the wall with a dazzling first half. Although the offense was sharp, the Lakers mostly did it with defense, limiting Boston to the second lowest-scoring performance in NBA finals history. Only Utah’s infamous 54-point performance against Chicago in 1998 was worse. “I was very happy,” Bryant said after the defending champions stretched the finals to the limit for the first time since 2005. “We did a great job defensively. We kept them out of the middle, kept them out of the paint, did a good job on the boards. It was a solid effort by us.”

A champion will be crowned Thursday night at Staples Center.

Mike Brown won everything in five years coaching the Cleveland Cavaliers. Everything, that is, except an NBA title. Brown, the most successful coach in franchise history, was fired Monday after failing to win a championship with superstar, and soon-to-be free agent, LeBron James.

Brown’s dismissal had been expected since the Cavs were eliminated by the Boston Celtics in the second round of the playoffs, a stunning exit for a team favored to win it all. In five seasons, Brown, who had one year left on his contract, went 314-177 and was the league’s coach of the year in 2009. He took Cleveland to the postseason every season and led the Cavaliers to their only finals appearance in 2007. But the Cavs, despite having the best regular-season record the past two years, fell short of winning their first title and now face an uncertain future with James, the league’s two-time defending MVP, eligible for free agency and expected to listen to offers from other teams.