The NBA finals is over. The draft now complete. Yet chatter about the Miami Heat’s failure to come through in the clutch remains strong – far louder than talk of the Dallas Mavericks surprising victory and first championship. New jokes about James 4th quarter struggles have come out daily. My favorite? If Lebron wanted to get a ring, he should have stayed in Cleveland and bought one from Terrell Pryor.
And of course, we can’t stop dissecting all the comments that lead to portraying Heat players in a negative light. One thread was negative reaction to King James’ post finals news conference. If you’re one of the four sports fans who hasn’t heard, below is what Lebron said in response to how he has been impacted by others rooting against him:
All the people that were rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems they had today. I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that. So they can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal. But they got to get back to the real world at some point.
Now let me be clear. Lebron James is no psychologist, no philosopher. Don’t look for James to author any existential approaches to life, psychotherapy, or even basketball. Phil Jackson perhaps, but not Lebron. But with that in mind, I’ll argue there is a lot of truth and lessons to be learned from those comments and our reaction.
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For one, in psychology, we talk about being defensive or guarded. And I’m not talking about guarding the pick and roll. Lebron’s comments were a perfect example of what psychological defenses are and when and why they manifest. In this situation, Lebron felt attacked and he fought back. It’s what people do. At some level all of the hatred and negative energy since “The Decision” has taken a toll. The guy is human. It doesn’t matter how big his paycheck is, he has a heart. He has feelings. Of course it hurts to be slaughtered in his hometown, jerseys burned, billboards taken down.
Being heavily critiqued after looking so shaky in the finals doesn’t help self-esteem either. There were times when you could see James hesitant with the ball, seemingly wondering what he should do. “Should I shoot, pass it to Wade or maybe a 38 year-old Juwan Howard?” These are not the decisions a bona fide superstar should be asking. He certainly made the earlier Scottie Pippen comparisons of LJ to MJ look ridiculous.
The lesson? When we feel cornered or hurt, we lash out on others, looking to hurt or regain our core sense of who we are beneath the pain. Lebron looked to hurt and anger others instead of giving an honest response to how it’s been this year. Only Lebron knows of course. But my guess? Despite the regular season victories and pre-Mavericks playoff success, life has been rough. And like most of us, he is likely his biggest critic. So adding into the mix the constant critiques is just too much—time to defend.
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The second psychological lesson is even easier to grasp. Lebron said this one to us directly, our tendency to project (often unfairly) on to athletes. There are many reasons why we love sports. But one of the more unconscious draws is our longing to connect with the winner, the hero, as well as distancing ourselves from those who fail. By most measures of “badness” Lebron does not qualify—and he’s certainly not a consistent failure. But he has given us reasons to root against him.
Projecting our issues onto struggling athletes does something for us. It somehow makes us feel less villainess or bad. Having sports figures available makes it easier to accept or avoid our own problems, unmet goals, or failed fourth quarters. In part, Lebron’s comments were not well received because they are accurate. This time they got us on the defensive. I don’t think he meant that he felt he was superior to the average guy (and he later tried to clarify this point).
But he is right. We do have to get back to our own problems. Sports and figures like Lebron just allow us to forget about them for a while.
The whole scene and reaction reminded me of a line from one of my all time favorite movies, Scarface. The Scene? Tony Montana drunk in a restaurant. The quote:
What you lookin’ at? You all a bunch of (insert Scarface-like expletive here). You know why? You don’t have the guts to be what you wanna be? You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your @@#$! fingers and say, “That’s the bad guy.” So… what that make you? Good? You’re not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don’t have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie. So say good night to the bad guy! The last time you gonna see a bad guy like this again, let me tell you.
Lebron and Tony Montana? Different scenes, different villains, different era. Oh yeah, and one guy is a living human being, the other completely fictitious. But what Lebron said makes sense in lieu of Tony’s famous infamous restaurant antics. His comments suggest he knows he is the “bad guy,” an easy outlet for us to project our own inner disappointments or failed goals. Like Tony, he’s reminding us to remember that his failings or problems do not resolve our own issues we have to confront.
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The last psychological lesson reverts back to the original decision for why King James wanted to take his talents back to South Beach. Yes, there was “The Decision,” which was ridiculous (although it did raise $2.5 million for charity). And then there was the absurd, narcissistic celebration with Bosh, Wade, and James declaring how many rings they were going to wear before their first practice. But I believe there was a deeper psychological reason why people hated the move to Miami. And it had more to do with what a superstar should do with his “talents.”
If you are “The Man,” the baddest player on the planet, why ask for help? Why would you want to join two of the other baddest players around and make a super team? There were many, including Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, who said they would have never done what James did. Many believed that true superstars do it by themselves. They get guys who are “good enough” to help make it happen where they are. In doing so, they retain their title of “The Man.”
My opinion? James essentially asked for some help and said “I don’t want to do it alone.” That’s what fueled a lot of anger and disappointment. And while gender roles are slowly becoming more flexible, less rigid, that’s a major shift against arguably the number-one Man Rule: Do it yourself and don’t ask for help. And while he chose to play for Miami, this move resulted with more Heat than he could have ever imagined.
By the time it’s all said and done, Lebron will get his championship. And sorry Dan Gilbert, I’m afraid it will be before Cleveland. But I’d also bet that along with the rings, he will learn a lot about himself as a person. With the current situation, we can stand to learn something ourselves.
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Aaron B. Rochlen (http://www.edb.utexas.edu/faculty/rochlen/ar.html ) is a Licensed Psychologist and an Associate Professor in Counseling Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Past President of Division 51 (The Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity) of the American Psychological Association.