I used to think I had this game figured out. But LeBron has gone and muddled my idea of what a basketball player is supposed to do. Even now, 19 hours later, I’m still not in a position to process fully the significance of last night’s performance. Honestly, at this point, any cogent articulation of LeBron’s signature game, at least on my end, could very well take years, even decades, to spit out. You would think Kobe’s 61 points would have prepared me, but the King’s immediate answer has left me at a complete loss. All I can say is, while Kobe’s offensive output brings to mind, as I replay it in my head, the cold, beautiful efficiency of the Baltimore Catechism, LeBron’s 52-point triple-double—the first in 25 years!—makes me think of the weighty grandeur of a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem.Or this scene from Vision Quest.
Either is appropriate. Really.
I guess what I’m fumbling at is the idea that Kobe’s game made me stand up and take notice-- even if his 61 points came at the expense of my Knickerbockers—but LeBron’s magnificent game against the Knicks, 48 hours later, made me rethink my prefabricated notion of what it means to believe in the King and the National Basketball Association.
