2012 NBA Finals: An Appreciation For LeBron James.

“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.” – Theodore Roosevelt.

It finally happened. LeBron James went from being the goat to the discussion for being the G.O.A.T or the greatest of all-time for you folks unfamiliar.

It’s hard to imagine that winning a championship would mean so much to a guy who’s done so many awesome things on a basketball court, but it has. They always say that the first championship is the toughest. If that’s actually true, then the rest of the NBA may be in trouble for the foreseeable future.

The long, strange journey of LeBron James that took him from his home state of Ohio to Florida to play basketball with two of his best friends has just seen the end of it’s second season, a season that ended with LeBron’s first NBA World Championship.

Was anyone really surprised? Can you honestly sit there and say that you can’t believe that a team that had LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh on it won a title? The best team doesn’t always win, but a team with three studs like that is always going to be in the hunt.

In fact, as we’ve discussed in this very space before, nobody gives you a better chance to win an NBA title than LeBron James. Not for the past six years, anyway.

Despite that fact, James’ teams always seemed to come up short somehow. Nobody ever wanted to talk about his superhuman efforts against Detroit in 2007, Boston in 2008 and Orlando in 2009. They’d rather focus on the shortcomings against Boston in 2010, Dallas in 2011 and even The Decision, a bad idea that has gotten worse and worse over time.

I tweeted yesterday that LeBron is like the Yankees in that everyone hates him, but nobody really knows why. A lot of people thought him leaving Cleveland was in bad taste and he should have stayed there forever. When I asked if they’d want LeBron on their team they’d usually answer with a swift “of course!” Irony knows no bounds.

The most jarring fact to me was that most everyone loved LeBron before he left Cleveland for Miami. He didn’t have a 100% approval rating but in this day and age, who does? Still, most people liked watching him play, pulled for the Cavs and was sufficiently engaged when he was on TV. A lot of people in 2008 viewed him as the anti-Kobe. A home-grown guy that had his head in the right place, was more play-maker than scorer and just seemed like a generally good dude. People loved his goofy antics with his last two Cleveland teams, but eventually James lost his way. Or we did as fans.

So maybe you hated The Decision, and I certainly can’t blame you for that. Still, after all this time, I believe that his heart was in the right place. At least for the most part. It was an agonizingly stupid idea to do it on national TV, but he raised a lot of money for the Boys and Girls Club of America. Besides, would The Decision have really been any better if he had announced he was returning to Cleveland? Wouldn’t that have been just as self-centered and short-sighted?

LeBron’s infamous Decision came to fruition Thursday night as James posted a triple-double and lead the Heat to the franchise’s second World Championship. With it came an open door and a seat at the table with the all-time greats. He’s not Michael Jordan, but he’s not Charles Barkley or Karl Malone either. James finally proved that he is capable of rising to the occasion and making everyone else better. He also proved he can get it done in the “clutch,” which in basketball is a hard thing to define. It’s often a sliding scale that depends on situations and a million other variables. Most stats are black-and-white, but the “clutch” stats are what you make of them.

The 2012 NBA Finals must have been tough for traditional basketball purists. That brand of people that thought everyone should have their own team and stick it out through thick and thin. To the purist, the Thunder were the best model to play and win with. One superstar, an awesome second banana and two other crucial guys is the make-up of most World Champs really. The Celtics had Bill Russell (superstar), Bob Cousy (awesome second banana) and John Havlicek and K.C. Jones (crucial guys.)

If you found yourself pulling for the Thunder in this series because they built their team the “right” way, that’s fine. You’re not wrong. Everyone loves narratives and story-lines. If you wanted the Thunder to win because you prefer the way Kevin Durant handles his business off of the court to the way LeBron does, that’s fair. If you hate the way the Heat came together in the summer of 2010 and felt like there was definitely some tampering going on, I don’t blame you.

But if you chose to root for Oklahoma City because of some misguided idea that the Heat model would ruin the NBA and somehow damage the overall product? Nonsense. Not even close. The Decision was the best thing that ever happened to the NBA. How do I know? Check the ratings. These past two Finals (and three if you count the Celtics-Lakers epic seven game clash in 2010) have been some of the most watched Finals ever.

That’s amazing when you consider that the NBA was coming off of a lock-out this past season, one that many feared would lose the casual NBA fans once and for all.

James and the Heat won the title in convincing fashion as well. They knocked off the Knicks, who feature a great big three of their own. Included in the Knicks’ three is center Tyson Chandler, who played a large role in dispatching the Heat with the Mavericks in the 2011 Finals. The Heat rolled in five games. The Heat rolled the Indiana Pacers in six games in round 2, after trailing the series 2-1 at one point. Then the Heat knocked off the Boston Celtics in seven games. The Celtics series had to have been especially sweet for James as the Celtics beat his Cavaliers in the 2008 and 2010 playoffs, the latter series ending his Cleveland career.

The most impressive series for Miami had to have been knocking off the Thunder in five games and ending on a four game winning streak. The Heat completely fell apart in game one and finished with three tight wins and one glorious final victory at home. All against a team that many considered superior. That’s right, the Heat were considered an underdog by a majority of talking heads and media members. Even this guy, who usually is smart and makes a lot of good points (and is handsome to boot) missed the boat with the Heat.

James has his ring and his haters face a long off-season. How many can the Heat win now? Can they win three or four? Will they ever win again? Nobody can answer that for sure. What we do know is that when James is focused, he’s tough to beat. When he was a half-decent supporting cast, it’s almost impossible.

The first championship is always the toughest and while some people had started to wonder if LeBron James would ever win a championship, most people realized it was going to happen. That’s just how things work. The only people that felt truly foolish on Thursday night were the people that said he’d win seven or eight titles or the people that said he’d win none. Great players win big games and in the 2012 NBA Finals, LeBron James went from being an awesome player to being an all-time great.

It wasn’t easy, but nothing worth having ever is.