Sometimes an athlete is so singularly great for so long his deeds become common, if not soporific.
This NBA season morphed into the Russell Westbrook show, the
pyrotechnic point guard stuffing the stat sheet like no one since Oscar
Robertson. Somewhat lost in the personal greatness was the professional
failure. If winning is the main metric of the greats, then Oklahoma
City’s season didn’t match the hype, with 47 wins and a rather
disappointing, first-round boot from the playoffs.
Meanwhile, LeBron James is suffering from Michael Jordan syndrome.
Anyone with a faint interest in basketball knows Jordan was the best
player in the world every season he played. But it became rote to vote
for him, and therefore folks looked elsewhere, as if they were clever or
even avant garde by picking Charles Barkley or Karl Malone or Gary
Payton or any of the fine but still lesser players for NBA MVP.
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