Writer’s note: Welcome to the Curmudgeon’s Corner, where grumbling into one’s beard and beer is the expectation.
Extravagant expectation is the price of glory, but I really do despise sports journalists’ inane rhetorical headline, “Is [insert 14-year-old’s name] the next Michael Jordan/Tom Brady?”
No. No, the kid is not the next Michael Jordan — chances are he’s not the next Kevin McHale, either. The kid has been 6′10″ for five minutes, weighs 132 pounds, and can’t drive. More importantly, he’s never had money, been out from under his parents’ roof, or known the touch of a woman. For a pubescent baller to make it to the NBA, he has years of playing 1v7 against the Deadly Sins ahead of him — and the odds aren’t in his favor.
Take the example of Emoni Bates, once heralded as “the next LeBron.”
Billy Witz writes for the New York Times:
It was a little more than three years ago when [Bates’s] baby-faced portrait filled the cover of Sports Illustrated under the words “Magic, Michael, LeBron … and the 15-Year-Old Who’s Next in Line.” His height and lithe frame made comparisons to Kevin Durant inevitable. But now, the plan — which included his father’s creating a high school for him to play at; leaving for college a year early, at 17; and aiming to be the first pick in the N.B.A. draft — has taken a detour.
After a calamitous season at the University of Memphis, he returned home, sleeping in his own bed and playing far, far down market at Eastern Michigan. Even that wasn’t assured until mid-October, when, facing a felony gun charge, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor that included a sentence of 18 months of probation.
Failure is the norm. No boy needs the expectations only a precious few men can carry on their shoulders.
Zion Williamson made it farther than most along the Pilgrim’s Progress roadway paved by LeBron. Physically gifted, developed by involved parents from a young age, and never seeing jail or major scandal, Zion entered the league and immediately elevated the New Orleans Pelicans — who had been thought to be flightless birds until that point. But big fellas like big meals, and Zion has not been the player he was expected to be. Good? Sure. But not the man to carry a franchise to perennial championship shots. Weight and associated injuries have reduced him to the mortal role of a solid contributor — and that’s okay.
Maybe my quarrel is with ingratitude. LeBron, for whatever you think of his often dumb political stances, is damn good at what he does and ensuring he’s ready to ball — he’s the best player of the past 20 years because he’s mastered himself. There will never be another like LBJ. Dullards, louts, and the injured who were compared to him have all fallen away.
Only LeBron is LeBron — and he’s no Jordan.
Ach. Just let men be their own men.