LeBron James' seventh greatest moment: Euphoria stripped

Last week, you voted for the best LeBron James performances of all time. Here is No. 7 moment as voted by you, the FtS community. Read about the No. 8 moment here.

When looking back at this series, two things stand out most about the 2009 Eastern Conference Finals between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Orlando Magic. First is the small-ball dominant lineups that Orlando would employ to take out the top-ranked Cavs and eventually change the way the game is played today. Second, of course, is the game-winner from LeBron in Game 2.

What people don't talk about when reminiscing of this series is the level of play that LeBron was at over the course of these six games. Buzzer beater aside, LeBron was a one-man wrecking crew in this series, doing all that he could do possibly do to win, yet coming up short. Comparisons to this past year's Finals would seem valid, except the fact that the Cavs were the favorite and that LeBron was super-duper efficient this series.

That last part is crucial, mainly because efficiency is a very important part in the value of a player, but also because his Game 1 performance was out-of-this-world good. As in, "he took 30 shots and made 66.7 percent of those shots" good. Since 1985, only four other players have taken 30 shots and have made 66.7 percent of them in a playoff game, all of whom are currently in the Hall of Fame.

Look at it this way: in this year's Finals, LeBron took at least 30 shots five times in this year's Finals, and exactly zero of those times did he shoot above 50 percent from the field. Yes, the talent around LeBron was better in the 2009 ECF than in the 2015 Finals. Yes, 2015 Golden State was a better team than 2009 Orlando. But the lack of talent was still there in 2009 and the both Golden State and Orlando were the top-tanked defense in their respective years.

Not only is putting up an insane field goal percentage against the best defense in the league extremely impressive, but also is the 49 points, six rebounds, eight assists, three blocks and two steals that went along with that. Since 1985, no one else has achieved that statline in a playoff game.

The fact this game is rarely brought up when speaking about LeBron is not surprising. The Cavs were heavy favorites and lost the series, and little does history reward the losers. However, this was no ordinary performance. This was a performance that few have ever seen. This was LeBron at the peak of his talents doing things only he can do.

LeBron's not the only player to play well in losses. In fact, the player he is most compared to has one of the greatest performances in a playoff loss of all-time, if not the greatest. The circumstances were vastly different between Jordan's and LeBron's game, but they were each great in there own rights. And to be fair, LeBron's game is right behind Jordan's in terms of game score.

Even though there are more memorable outcomes from this series, the level that LeBron performed at in Game 1 should not be washed away over the years.

LeBron James puts the NBA on notice: A look at his career debut in Sacramento

What is LeBron James? Why is LeBron James? For twelve years the man that has put his stamp on the NBA like few others has been steadily building a legacy. He's been to the NBA Finals six times. He's won two championships. He's put together historic performances that often have felt inevitable. This Fear the Sword series covers them.

But there have been trials and tribulations and some hiccups. We've learned a lot about James, though at times it seems like we don't know very much about him at all. In terms of the player, though, it's easy to forget what kind of enigma he was coming out of high school. He played Ohio Division III ball at Akron St. Vincent St. Mary, and while his team of course scheduled some of the toughest teams in the country, the state tournaments felt like coronations his freshman and sophomore years. His junior year they were bumped to Division II and actually lost in the title game before James won a third title in four years as a senior.

Dominating? Absolutely. He was bigger and stronger than everyone else, and the incredible vision was already there. He passed almost to a fault. His handle was a bit suspect, and he wasn't much of a shooter. What might happen when he got to the NBA and couldn't impose his will on the game from sheer force? What position did he play? His coach thought he might be a point guard. His size indicated that he was a small forward that could play some at the four if he bulked up.

I was lucky enough to see him play in high school. He came to Toledo as part of the state tournament. He was already nationally famous, and people locally were curious. It was clear he was an exceptional force. It wasn't clear what kind of scorer he could be.

By the time LeBron's career kicked off in Sacramento, he had already signed a $90 million deal with Nike. He had been the number one pick of the draft of a team that openly tanked to put themselves in the position to take the hometown kid. He was selected above Carmelo Anthony, who had led Syracuse to a title in his only collegiate season, and Darko Milicic, who was a mystery but appeared to be an athletic 7 foot monster. There was a lot at stake for just about everyone, and it was on the shoulders of one 18 year old.

To belabor the point: James was hyped on a level rarely seen, but he wasn't a slam dunk all-time great. Brian Windhorst reminding us about his first preseason:

Then there was his less-than-inspiring first preseason. During two scrutinized exhibition games two weeks earlier in Los Angeles, including one on national TV, James shot a combined 8-of-31. He barely cracked 30 percent shooting during the preseason and teams were already backing off him and daring him to shoot.

After noticing a light pregame shooting workout before an ensuing preseason game in Bakersfield, Calif., one national writer asked if the hype surrounding James was an acronym for "Hey, You Practice Enough?"

So what happened? James managed to give a glimpse of just about everything that would make him special in the first quarter of his first game of his first professional season? He made jumpers, he threw no look passes, he tossed lobs, he broke away in transition, and he dunked. When it was all over, the Cavs had lost the battle (Sacramento won going away) but it was clear they would win the war. For a franchise stuck in a rut, that called Ricky Davis its best player (or atleast, he would), they had struck gold.

He finished 25 points, nine assists, four steals, six rebounds, just two turnovers. James would bulk up, he'd rise to levels of efficiency and usage rarely seen from wing players. He'd become a juggernaut in the post in Miami. He'd add a three point shot and become a capable ball handler. There were many things that he was not that night in Sacramento that he would ultimately become. He wasn't a four time MVP, he wasn't an NBA champion.

But nearly everyone who walked out of ARCO arena that night was a believer. Twelve years later, all that's left is the promised land.

LeBron James: Championship not a requirement of a great team

LeBron James played for a 66-win team. Didn’t win a title.

LeBron and his teammates proved it wasn’t a fluke the next season, winning 61 games. Didn’t win a title.

LeBron joined Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh to form a team many feared would destroy the NBA’s competitive balance. Didn’t win a title.

LeBron formed yet another super team with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love. Didn’t win a title.

But – at least in LeBron’s eyes – that doesn’t mean those teams necessarily fell short of greatness.

LeBron, via Bleacher Report:

If you don’t know the history of the game, man, you’ll forget how many great teams didn’t win championships. And that doesn’t mean they wasn’t great, though.

LeBron was referring to the 2000 Western Conference finals. The eventual-NBA-champion Lakers beat the Trail Blazers in seven games. Portland – with a starting lineup of Damon Stoudamire, Steve Smith, Scottie Pippen, Rasheed Wallace and Arvydas Sabonis – won 59 games and crushed the Jazz and Timberwolves before running into the Lakers.

I agree with LeBron’s premise. A team can be great without winning a title. Sometimes, a team just catches the wrong breaks, like playing in a season where there are multiple great teams.

Those Trail Blazers were borderline great, with both past and future success to support their consistency. They just ran into Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. Nothing Portland could do about that.

But a title is an important consideration – the most important – when determining a team’s greatness. Personally, I think the 1999-00 Trail Blazers fall just short, but either argument is reasonable.

And for what it’s worth, I think all of LeBron’s title-less teams fall short of greatness for similar reasons, though last year’s Cavaliers played great between their midseason trades for Timofey Mozgov, Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith and the postseason injuries to Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love.

By this measure, Michael Jordan can't touch LeBron James

IN THE FIRST 239 days of 2015, 185 black men were murdered in the city of Baltimore. In post-Katrina New Orleans, FiveThirtyEight concluded, black residents are more likely to live in poverty than before the hurricane 10 years ago. The Washington Post recently released data indicating that every nine days, on average, American police kill an unarmed black man. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a 9.1 percent black unemployment rate for July, nearly twice the rate of whites.

White America grows exasperated by the insistence that race still matters, but these facts are a neon sign pointing not at post-racialism but to an entrenched underclass. In Akron, Ohio, hometown of LeBron James, the black poverty rate is 28 percent, 12 points higher than the state average. To James, the numbers are not just a topic, ammunition for winning an argument, but statistical recognition of his life before fame. Days after the anniversary protests marking Michael Brown's death in Ferguson, Missouri, James partnered with the University of Akron and countered the numbers with other numbers, pledging $41 million to send as many as 2,000 at-risk Akron kids to college.

It was a massive initiative, a reminder that, in addition to protest and pressure, the rhetoric of pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps means nothing without boots. It was also something else: proof that James is the signature socially conscious athlete of his time. By this measure he need not aspire to be Michael Jordan. He's already run right past him.

James and Dwyane Wade organized the first athlete protest of the killing of Trayvon Martin. James used his power to rally players and challenge the NBA to be decisive on Donald Sterling. James wore an i can't breathe shirt in warm-ups to show solidarity with young black men disposable to society because they lack his talent. Instead of blaming hip-hop or admonishing the less fortunate, he confronted the "dead or in jail" narrative that permeates black male life with a real program backed by real money. He wrote an enormous check as part of staring down a bitter truth: If "dead or in jail" is as good as it gets for black boys who don't have a blinding 40-yard dash time or a bull's-eye jumper, then at this late date in the American story, integration has been a colossal failure.

James does not live independent of his environment, and neither did Jordan. James is in the prime of his youth and earning power amid national protest and Black Lives Matter. His generation is not a new target of police brutality; it is the latest edition of the same old target. He grew up witnessing the collision between the progress of some and the dead ends for most of the kids who look like him, at a time when the term "post-racial" sounds not only ridiculous but naive. America could not be more racial than it is right now.

Jordan, meanwhile, came of age during the most comprehensive wave of conservatism in the 20th century, a political retrenchment that followed the sweeping social ambition of Lyndon Johnson. Jordan was 15 when the Supreme Court struck down minority set-asides in the landmark Bakke case, limiting affirmative action, and 18 when President Ronald Reagan fired 11,000 striking air traffic controllers. Jordan's 1980s were a market correction of the 1960s, not a time of protest or challenge but one of accumulating individual wealth while Great Society, labor union and New Deal gains and attitudes were being scaled back. Jordan's time was when money was celebrated as the only measure. Greed is good.

The similarities between James and Jordan end when their shared No. 23 jersey rests on a hanger, for Jordan has never been known for a single courageous social act. While James attempts to bridge the powerless to a future, Jordan sued a defunct supermarket chain and won $8.9 million over an advertisement that reportedly yielded all of $4. (Jordan said he planned to donate the money to charity.)

James has accepted a challenge of his times so foreign to the 1980s, making him an heir not to Jordan but to the civil rights movement, to Jim Brown and Bill Russell, to the idea of the athlete as activist. Every day of his career has existed under the shadow of Jordan, but as citizen, LeBron does not look up to Michael. It should be the other way around.