Sports Illustrated Crowns “King James” Sportsman of the Year 2012
Congratulations to BronBron for making it rain on all them other ballin’ azz hoes. King James was just named Sportsman of the Year 2012 by Sports Illustrated. It should come as no surprise after the Heat captured the NBA Championship riiiiiight?
Here’s some excerpts from the Sports Illustrated story:
Pat Riley stood in the mouth of the tunnel at Boston’s TD Garden, between the court and the locker room, and waited for the Boat. That’s what he calls LeBron James — “You know,” Riley explains, “best of all time” — an acronym he conjured to remind the planet’s preeminent basketball player of frontiers still to be conquered. “Hey, Boat,” Riley will say. “How is the Boat doing today?” James will reflexively laugh and shake his head because he is not the Boat, at least not yet. But on that sweaty night at the Garden, in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals, facing yet another summer cast as the villain foiled, he delivered one of the Boat performances in NBA history. The image of James throughout the game, bent at the waist, staring skyward with pupils pushed to his eyelids, recalled predators of different breeds. “He was primal,” Riley says. “He was a cobra, a leopard, a tiger hunched over his kill.”
Do you agree with Bron being the Best Of All Time?
In Cleveland, James would crack jokes during meetings because he already knew what the coaches were trying to teach. “It was like the kid in school who can doodle and throw spitballs but still get A’s,” Jent says. Because James was the Cavaliers’ best player, others followed his example, though they did not grasp the material as easily. James couldn’t understand, when games began, why they kept blowing assignments. “I expect everyone to be on the same wavelength, and that’s a problem I’m still working on,” he says. “If I see something and it doesn’t happen the way I envision, I can get frustrated.”
On his performance in the Aug. 4th US Olympic game against Lithuania:
JAMES: I read what people wrote after that game, and they were saying I was in a class with sports figures who had historic single years: Michael Jordan, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Usain Bolt. I don’t think it can get any better than 2012.
Everyone told him he would feel unchained this season, the championship burden lifted, but he is still waiting for that sensation to take hold. “I know there is someone, somewhere, trying to take my spot,” James says. “And I know where he is too. He’s in Oklahoma. He’s my inspiration because I see the direction he’s headed, and it’s the same direction I’m headed. I know his mind-set, and he knows mine. It’s a collision course. We’re driving one another.” He is referring, of course, to Kevin Durant. They talk on the phone every week, friends and enemies, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird for a new era. “What’s important to LeBron is what happens when he is facing KD again, or whoever it is in the Finals,” Riley says. “[LeBron] needs that player to look back at him and think, This son of a beyotch is too big, too strong, and his will is too great.”
Do y’all want to see Bron take home another ring, or are you hoping Kevin Durant gets his this year?
story via bossip.com
