Kevin Durant and the Myth of Michael Jordan’s America

Kevin Durant and the Myth of Michael Jordan’s America

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

With game #3 in the NBA finals set for tonight, and the series in question, one thing not in question is that the league has finally found its Michael Jordan for the twenty-first century.  While others have fallen short for a number of reasons, it seems that Kevin Durant is on the precipice of following in Air Jordan’s footsteps.

Although the NBA lockout marked the end of this search, given the league’s focus on team rivalries over superstars, it now clear that Kevin Durant has taken the mantle.   Irrespective of who ultimately wins the series, Kevin Durant has already been declared the winner of America’s next best commodifiable baller.  His reign is not so much about basketball but the narrative, the embedded racial meaning, his appeal in “red state America,” and the representational possibilities available with Durant.  Clearly LeBron James’ basketball resume is on the same level; in fact, with multiple MVP awards, endless skill, and an ability to dominate each and every game at both ends of the floor, LB6 has game that is once in generation.  The same cannot be said for KD35, whose skills are unimpeachable yet his power and resonance rests with the story and ideological confirmation he provides the league and countless fans.

Since MJ’s retirement, the league, its marketing partners, and fans alike have pinned for someone to fill his AIR Jordans.  Each anointed as the next Michael Jordan, Penny Hardaway, Grant Hill, Vince Carter, and Harold Miner (“Baby Jordan”) all failed to deliver because of injuries, limited production, or a combination of both.  Each in their own right was imagined as a player who could fill the shoes, whose talents, charisma, and athleticism would propel the NBA during its post-Jordan era.  None of them met these expectations resulting in an NBA in continued search for a twenty-first century basketball God.    

Kobe Bryant and LeBron James each took the mantle of the next Jordan to places none of the other NMJ (next Michael Jordan) had reached.  Kobe, because of his talents, the ways in which he patterned his game and demeanor after Jordan, his quest for rings, and most importantly his competitiveness, all elevated the comparisons, leading many to argue that he was the NMJ.  Yet because of Eagle County, Colorado, because of his conflicts with Shaquille O’Neal and the ultimate demise of the Lakers Dynasty, and because he is said to have demanded to get out of Los Angeles, Kobe has fallen short in other’s quest to find the next Michael Jordan.  Like Kobe, LeBron James has delivered on the court, dazzling fans with his passing skills, his athleticism, and his ability to make his teammates better.  Worse than struggling to secure a title, LeBron James fell short in the MJ sweepstakes when he decided to take his talents to South Beach.  Simply exercising his rights of free agency meant that James was no longer eligible for Jordan status within the national imagination.

While possessing the skills, charisma, and baller potential, the two most promising players to lead the NBA, to build upon the global popularity established by Jordan, have fallen short not because of any basketball deficiency, but their inability (or our inability) to fill some mythical shoes.  The quest to find the Next Michael Jordan, thus, has nothing to do with basketball but rather is part of an effort to find a player who reinforces popular narratives about the American Dream, the protestant work ethnic, and post-racialness. 

Jordan, only seen in public in his basketball uniform or a $3,000-dollar suit, Jordan embodied the politics of racial respectability on and off the court.  He “allow[ed] us to believe what we wish to believe: that in this country, have-nots can still become haves; that the American dream is still working” (Ken Naughton quoted in Andrews 2000, p. 175).  David Falk, Jordan’s agent, celebrated the dialectics between his dominance in the marketplace, his worldwide popularity, and racial identity in illustrative ways:

When players of color become stars they are no longer perceived as being of color.  The color sort of vanishes.  I don’t think people look at Michael Jordan anymore and say he’s a black superstar.  They say he’s a superstar.  They totally accepted him into the mainstream.  Before he got there he might have been African American, but once he arrived, he had such a high level of acceptance that I think that description goes away (Quoted in Rhoden, 2006, p. 204). 

Amid the 1980s and 1990s, amid Reagan’s dismantling of America’s safety net and his elevation of the War on Drugs, Jordan provided more than a wicked jump shot, playing a lead role in the Republican Revolution.  He was “cast as a spectacular talent, midsized, well-spoken, attractive, accessible, old-time values, wholesome, clean, natural, not too goody-two shoes, without a bit of deviltry in him” (Falk quoted in Andrews 2001, p. 125).  

Imagined as emblematic of the power and importance of  “personal drive, responsibility, integrity, and success,” as opposed to “the stereotypical representations of deviant, promiscuous, and irresponsible black males,” Jordan’s racially transcendent, colorblind-driven, raceless image was always tied to racial language.  He represented the possibility of acceptance by whites (racial transcendence), which meant he was able to “transcend his own race” (Rhoden 2006, p. 204), or better said, constraints of the “facts of blackness.” 

The longstanding struggle for the next Jordan has been a journey in search of the next the  “Africanized Horatio Alger” (Patton quoted in McDonald, 2001, p. 157) to lead the NBA.  The search has failed in part because of the inability of the next generation of players to fulfill the imagined narrative and qualities associated with Jordan.  Michael Jordan was the leader of an “army of athletes who possess the (new) right stuff with modest beginnings, skill, and personal determination” (McDonald 2001, p.157).  In the dominant imagination, several players have had the game and even the success on the court yet failed to deliver the story and image.  Kevin Durant, with his decision to stay in OKC, his “nerd chic” clothing, his globetrotting from flag football games to the Rucker during the NBA lockout, and his overall image, possesses the right stuff.  

 

The anointing of Kevin Durant illustrates how the search for America’s next Michael Jordan has less to do with basketball and is all about the narrative, the ideology, and the overall mythical representation embodied by Jordan.  David Heeb, in “NBA Lockout 2011: Searching for the Next Michael Jordan,” encapsulates the narrative and ideological elements central to the proverbial MJ Search:

So after all these years, we are still looking for "The Next Jordan."  Will we ever see another player that great?  Maybe not, but the first thing we have to understand is, when looking for "The Next Jordan," we have to stop looking for guys that look like Jordan.  Instead, we have to look at what made Jordan tick.  What made him burn to be great?  We all know the story of how he was cut from his high school basketball team, and how he couldn't beat his older brother Larry in the backyard one-one games they would play.  We all heard the Hall of Fame speech, where Jordan recalled how he remembered even the slightest challenges to his greatness.  Michael Jordan was the kind of guy that got out of bed every morning looking for a challenge.  He looked for hurdles to jump over.  He searched for mountains to climb.  If there were no worthy opponents, he just invented insults, so he could say he had to prove himself all over again . . . . That doesn't change the fact that Kevin Durant might be "Next." Jordan had a "love of the game" clause in his contract, permitting him to play pickup basketball whenever he wanted to.  Durant, like Jordan, loves the game.  He will play anytime, anyplace, and against anybody.  We have seen him this summer playing pickup basketball all across the country.

Durant’s rise as the NMJ was almost derailed over when fans and the media wondered if he was more AI than MJ. Over the summer, controversy erupted when Kevin Durant revealed that his back and stomach were covered in tats.  The sight of Durant, often celebrated as “one of the good ones” (in this article he is noted to be “likable” and “humble”) covered in tats brought into question his acceptance into the “good black athlete” club.  Could the next MJ have tats?  Given the response then and his anointing, the answer appears to be yes, as long as they aren’t visible. Eric Freemen reflects on the meaning of his tattoos, their placement, and the changing level of acceptance of NBA tats.  Yet, he concludes by arguing that Durant’s tats should cause little to his marketing potential and fan popularity in part because he is different.

It's tempting to say that Durant is trying to hide his tattoos to appeal to a larger market of fans, but it's possible that he just prefers to put tattoos on his torso and not his extremities. Plus, we've reached a point as basketball fans where tattoos are not an automatic sign of a thug. They're perfectly normal and a common feature of the league's most popular players. LeBron James is covered in tattoos, but any marketing issues he has are tied to his lack of a championship, not the belief that he's a gang member. That point of view is thankfully a thing of the past.

Whatever the case, Durant's tattoos prove that he's not the squeaky clean figure many people make him out to be. As I've said before, he has an edgy streak. He has a lot more in common with the rest of the NBA than many people are willing to admit.

The constant references to his doing it the right way, his humility, his team orientation, and his lack of ego speaks to his power not only as a marketable commodity but as a vehicle of ideological meaning.  Basketball is almost secondary, a fact that has been quite clear throughout the finals with the constant juxtaposition of Durant and James as a battle between good and evil.  Berry Trammel describes the series as one straight out of Hollywood

But Good vs. Evil makes an appearance, too. Dwight Howard, back when he wore a white hat, and the starless Pistons, both against the Kobe Lakers. But in this Star Wars Finals that comes to Oklahoma City, it’s not just Good vs. Evil. It’s Lovable vs. Evil. It’s America’s sweethearts against the Galactic Empire.  It’s the Thunder skywalkers — these barely grown guys who let out war whoops after big buckets and grow funky beards and wear shirts straight out of Urkel’s garage sale – against the Darth Vaders. Miami Heat? Miami Hate is more like it. The Thunder is the team America loves to love. The Heat is the team America loves to see lose.

Likewise, Nicholas Schwartz, with “The Heat-Thunder Series Reveals One Troubling Truth About How We Think About Sports,” notes how the media has gone to great lengths to narrate the 2012 finals as a competition between two different ways of life: “The 2012 NBA Finals have been cast as a battle between good and evil. The Oklahoma City Thunder represent the hard-working team that evolves organically and ‘does things the right way,’ And the Miami Heat represent all that is wrong with the NBA.” 

While pundits have constructed the matchup as one between the lovable Thunder and the hateable Heat, the true meaning comes from the attached narratives assigned to Durant and James.  According to CBS sports, “Durant has never been about glitz and glamour. His winning combination has been humility and hard work, and it may soon pay off. The Thunder need four more wins to win a championship in only their fourth season in Oklahoma City and fulfill Durant's ultimate goal.“  Melissa Rohlin concurs, making clear that Durant’s appeal rests not just with his silky 3 or his timely buckets but the image and narrative surrounding him, all of which is wrapped up in the meanings of race within the dominant white imagination: “Despite Durant's ascension, he has remained humble. He is one of the few superstars in the league who speaks to reporters before games. Most of the league's other stars avoid the media until after the game.”  Humility appears to be as important as post moves for NBA commentators, making clear how race fits into this discussion; do we see the same demands of and celebration for humility in others sports, not too mention in Hollywood, on Wall Street, or in the halls of Congress?    

The inability of LeBron, Kobe and Carmelo to attract Jordan level fan support prompted systemic change with the 2011 lockout. The fears that Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, and Derrick Rose might follow in their footsteps not only contributed to the lockout but changed the ways in which the NBA and its partners sought after the next Jordan.  In the end, the presumed failures of the players to deliver off the court contributed to this shift.  The low q-ratings of these players, and claims about player betrayals of fans mandated a system change that has traded a league organized around superstars to one more focused on parity and competitiveness. 

Yet amid all of these changes, KD35 emerged as a superstar on the court (scoring championship + winning) and the media, league, and fans took from there, refashioning Durant as the next Jordan.  He has become the next Jordan not just in game but also as a free-floating racial signifier.  Just as the MJ emanated from dominant representations of blackness, Durant’s ascendance is wrapped up in the Palace Brawl, hip-hop, white racial framing, and the meaning of blackness in the twenty-first century.  Whereas Kobe or LeBron embody an aesthetic, a swagger, and a demeanor that is continually pathologized and demonized (yes, Skip Bayless I am talking to you), Kevin Durant and Blake Griffin function as points of comparison; depicted as humble, team oriented, and likable, they are able to become Jordan-esque.   

Yes, KD35 has game, but what is celebrated is neither the game nor the man but his perceived meaning within the dominant white imagination.  It ain’t about lovin the player, but loving their game.

***

David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academic mediums. His work explores the political economy of popular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, and popular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis.  Leonard’s latest book After Artest: Race and the Assault on Blackness was just published by SUNY Press.

No Heir Jordan: The NBA Lockout and the End of an Era

No Heir Jordan: The NBA Lockout and the End of an Era

by David Leonard | NewBlackMan

The NBA lockout is over.  With the players and the owners having reached an agreement, basketball will return beginning Christmas Day.   Ushering in substantial structural changes to the league, which will likely restrict player movement and constrain middle-class player salaries, the NBA lockout will also go down in history as an end to the search for the next Michael Jordan.  Since MJ’s retirement, the league, its marketing partners, and fans alike have pinned for someone to fill his AIR Jordans.  Each anointed as the next Michael Jordan, Penny Hardaway, Grant Hill, Vince Carter and Harold Miner (“Baby Jordan”) all failed to deliver because of injuries, limited production, or a combination of both.  Each in their own right was imagined as a player who could fill the shoes, whose talents, charisma, and athleticism would propel the NBA during its post-Jordan era.  None of them met these expectations resulting in an NBA in continued search for a twenty-first century basketball God.    

Kobe Bryant and LeBron James each took the mantle of the next Jordan to places none of the other NMJ (next Michael Jordan) had reached.  Kobe, because of his talents, the ways in which he patterned his game and demeanor after Jordan, his quest for rings, and most importantly his competitiveness, all elevated the comparisons, leading many to argue that he was the NMJ.  Yet because of Eagle County, Colorado, because of his conflicts with Shaquille O’Neal and the ultimate demise of the Lakers Dynasty, and because he is said to have demanded to get out of Los Angeles, Kobe has fallen short in other’s quest to find the next Michael Jordan.  Like Kobe, LeBron James has delivered on the court, dazzling fans with his passing skills, his athleticism, and his ability to make his teammates better.  Worse than struggling to secure a title, LeBron James fall short in the MJ sweepstakes when he decided to take his talents to South Beach.

While possessing the skills, charisma, and baller potential, the two most promising players to lead the NBA, to build upon the global popularity established by Jordan, have fallen short not because of their basketball talents but their inability (or our inability) to fill mythical shoes.  The quest to find the Next Michael Jordan, thus, has nothing to do with basketball but rather is part of an effort to find a player who reinforces popular narratives about the American Dream, the protestant work ethnic, and post-racialness. 

Jordan, only seen in public in his basketball uniform or a $3,000-dollar suit, Jordan embodied the politics of racial respectability on and off the court.  He “allow[ed] us to believe what we wish to believe: that in this country, have-nots can still become haves; that the American dream is still working” (Ken Naughton quoted in Andrews 2000, p. 175).  David Falk, Jordan’s agent, celebrated the dialectics between his dominance in the marketplace, his worldwide popularity, and racial identity in illustrative ways:

When players of color become stars they are no longer perceived as being of color.  The color sort of vanishes.  I don’t think people look at Michael Jordan anymore and say he’s a black superstar.  They say he’s a superstar.  They totally accepted him into the mainstream.  Before he got there he might have been African American, but once he arrived, he had such a high level of acceptance that I think that description goes away (Quoted in Rhoden, 2006, p. 204). 

Amid the 1980s and 1990s, amid Reagan’s dismantling of America’s safety net and his elevation of the War on Drugs, Jordan provided more than a wicked jump shot, playing a lead role in the Republican Revolution.  He was “cast as a spectacular talent, midsized, well-spoken, attractive, accessible, old-time values, wholesome, clean, natural, not too goody-two shoes, without a bit of deviltry in him” (Falk quoted in Andrews 2001, p. 125).   Imagined as emblematic of the power and importance of  “personal drive, responsibility, integrity, and success,” as opposed to “the stereotypical representations of deviant, promiscuous, and irresponsible black males,” Jordan’s racially transcendent, colorblind-driven, raceless image was always tied to racial language.  He represented the possibility of acceptance by whites (racial transcendence), which meant he was able to “transcend his own race” (Rhoden 2006, p. 204), or better said, constraints of the “facts of blackness.” 

The longstanding struggle for the next Jordan has been a journey in search of the next the  “Africanized Horatio Alger” (Patton quoted in McDonald, 2001, p. 157) to lead the NBA.  The search has failed in part because of the inability of the next generation of players to fulfill the imagined narrative and qualities associated with Jordan.  Michael Jordan was the leader of an “army of athletes who possess the (new) right stuff with modest beginnings, skill, and personal determination” (McDonald 2001, p.157).  In the dominant imagination, these recent players lack “the right stuff,” leading to a paradigm shift facilitated by the 2011 lockout. 

The recent celebration of Kevin Durant illustrates how the search for America’s next Michael Jordan has little to do with basketball and is all about the narrative, the ideology, and the overall mythical representation embodied by Jordan.  David Heeb, in “NBA Lockout 2011: Searching for the Next Michael Jordan,” encapsulates the narrative and ideological elements central to the proverbial MJ Search:

So after all these years, we are still looking for "The Next Jordan."  Will we ever see another player that great?  Maybe not, but the first thing we have to understand is, when looking for "The Next Jordan," we have to stop looking for guys that look like Jordan.  Instead, we have to look at what made Jordan tick.  What made him burn to be great?  We all know the story of how he was cut from his high school basketball team, and how he couldn't beat his older brother Larry in the backyard one-one games they would play.  We all heard the Hall of Fame speech, where Jordan recalled how he remembered even the slightest challenges to his greatness.  Michael Jordan was the kind of guy that got out of bed every morning looking for a challenge.  He looked for hurdles to jump over.  He searched for mountains to climb.  If there were no worthy opponents, he just invented insults, so he could say he had to prove himself all over again . . . . That doesn't change the fact that Kevin Durant might be "Next." Jordan had a "love of the game" clause in his contract, permitting him to play pickup basketball whenever he wanted to.  Durant, like Jordan, loves the game.  He will play anytime, anyplace, and against anybody.  We have seen him this summer playing pickup basketball all across the country.

Despite the purported potential of Durant to be the heir to Jordan, the NBA has transcended the struggle for the NMJ. 

The NBA lockout, with its efforts to systematically change the system, will end the quest for the next Michael Jordan.  In an attempt to remake the league in the fashion of the NFL (despite the significant differences between the leagues), the NBA has traded in the marketed superstar for greater parity and emphasis on team rivalries.  The greatness of Jordan (and Magic, Bird, Kobe, Tim Duncan, and even Dr. J) came not just from their individual greatness but because they were all part of dynasties.  At a basketball level, the ability of teams to bring together the level of talent that surrounded these great players will nullified by the future collective bargaining agreement. 

The systemic changes resulting from the 2011 lockout will not only curtail the ascendance of superstars who build their legacies through dynasties but reflects the league’s abandonment of a star driven league.  The inability of LeBron, Kobe and Carmelo to attract Jordan level fan support prompted such a change. The fears that Durant, Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, and Derrick Rose might follow in their footsteps guided the lockout.  In the end, the presumed failures of the players to deliver off the court contributed to this shift.  The low q-ratings of these players, and claims about player betrayals of fans mandated a system change that has traded a league organized around superstars to one more focused on parity and competitiveness. 

With these changes, the league no longer needs another MJ; better said, the league seems to have decided that it could no longer wait for a player who could dominate on the court and appeal to the masses of the court.    More importantly, given the ideological shifts that have led to increasingly visible racism and the complete destruction of the public safety net, society at large no longer needs a Michael Jordan to justify the abandonment of the 99% - that, like the search for the next MJ, is a wrap. 

***

David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academic mediums. His work explores the political economy of popular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, and popular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis. He is the author of Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema and the forthcoming After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop (SUNY Press). Leonard is a regular contributor to NewBlackMan and blogs @ No Tsuris.

The Rituals of Sports and Politics

The Unnecessary Ritual of Athletes’ Visits To The White House

by Mark Anthony Neal | Atlanta Post

In the coming days, the National Basketball Association will crown a new champion. Someone will be crowned “MVP,” somebody’s “legacy” will be assured and still others will thank God, their mothers and their therapists in nationally televised post-game interviews. And of course there will be the endless self-congratulations on Twitter. It is all seemingly choreographed and no more so than with the eventual visit to the White House and photo-op with President Obama, who we all know is a big sports fan. Seems a win-win for all involved.

The practice of bringing sports champions to the White House became particularly noticable during the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, also a big sports fan, during the 1980s. Reagan’s administration was as astute as any, in taking advantage of such publicity opportunities. In an era defined by the global expansion of America’s symbolic power, what better opportunity is there than the President of the so-called most powerful nation in the World, meeting with the “champions” of the world. It most cases visits to the White House illicit very little reaction except when it’s somebody’s favorite team.

Six years ago, though, traditionalists were up in arms when members of the Northwestern University Women’s lacrosse team, wore flip-flips—albeit designer ones—to their visit to the White House. The subsequent brouhaha, known at the time as “Flip-Flop-gate,” seemed perfectly pitched for one of the most timeless of political faux-pas, the political flip-flop. The Chicago Tribune, reported the story with the headline, “You Wore Flip-Flops to the White House?,” while pundit after pundit opined about the diminishing values of American Youth. By the summer of 2007, the White House had an official dress-code policy for visitors, specifically stating “no flip-flops.”

Read the Full Essay @ The Atlanta Post

LeBron James and the Redemptive Path to Nowhere

LeBron James and the Redemptive Path to Nowhere

by David Leonard and Bruce Lee Hazelwood | special to NewBlackMan

As Game 4 of the 2011 NBA Finals came to a close on another last second shot, Dwyane Wade and Dirk Nowitzki were praised for carrying their respective teams. The celebration of Nowitzki has been especially robust given his reported illness, a fact that has been used to celebrate his performance as heroic, as a sign of his toughness, and as evidence of his talents as a leader.

LeBron James, on the other hand, endured another bout of criticism from fans, media, and players alike. After Game 3, where LeBron had a stat line that included 17 points, 9 assists and 3 rebounds, Greg Doyle asked LeBron about his “shrinking” in the 4th quarter. Notwithstanding LeBron’s dismissal of the question,  Doyel maintained this line of criticism in his column the following day, writing:

When someone makes a movie of the fourth quarter, they can cast Rick Moranis as LeBron James and call it Honey, I Shrunk the Superstar.

That's what I'll remember about James from Game 3. His shrinkage, and how it continued a series of shrinkages. I asked him about that after Game 3. I asked him, pretty much word-for-word, how come he hasn't been playing like a superstar in the fourth quarter? What's going on with that? James played the defensive-stopper card. That's why he's out there, you know. For his defense. He's not a latter-day Michael Jordan. He's a latter-day Dudley Bradley.

Doyel proceeds to criticize James for “complaining” to referees, whining, and otherwise having a “bitter-beer face” when he doesn’t get his way on the court, only to conclude his article by highlighting an instance where James didn’t get a foul call not because there was a foul but because he isn’t a superstar: “Maybe the officials are onto something. Maybe LeBron James isn't a superstar. If the 2011 NBA Finals were the only games I had seen him play, that would be my conclusion. Doyel, especially after Game 4, is not alone in his criticism. Jordan Shultz, in “ LeBron James Shows True Colors In Game 4 Disappearance ” identifies his Game 4 struggles are not an aberration but evidence of his ineptitude and shortcomings as a player: “Wade is in essence, everything James is not. He has the will, the fire and the assassin's nature that LeBron lacks.”

This criticism is nothing new and demonstrates how LeBron James cannot win. In wins (Game 3) and losses (Game 4), he has been reduced to a failure, a punching bag for America’s sports punditry. Ever since the ill-fated “Decision,” praise for James seems to shrink every day while criticism of his game continues to overshadow his contributions to his team. In a season where perception is James is “on the road to redemption,” questions need to be asked. How can redemption be gained if he can do no right? Who is LeBron James really redeeming? And in the end, is LeBron James really trying for redemption?

Since joining the Heat, James has faced criticism at both ends of the spectrum: go for 35-12-10 and he’s hogging the ball, but go 15-9-8 and he isn’t doing enough. With Wade and Chris Bosh on the team, he either doesn’t involve the other two superstars enough or defers to them too much. He is the walking embodiment of the longstanding criticism that has always plagued black athletes living amid American racism: too selfish or unable to lead. This highlights the power of the white racial frame, one that renders black bodies as undesirable and suspect, with the impossibility of redemption. In that James will face criticism irrespective of his on-the-court performance – if he shoots the last shot and misses, he lacks the “killer instinct”/ he is selfish and should have passed the ball to Wade (this was a criticism after Game 2 where James was questioned for not deferring to Wade who had it going); if he passes the ball, he is depicted as mentally weak, scared, and otherwise unable to lead.

What is underlying much of this criticism is a false comparison to a reimagined Jordan. The nostalgia for Jordan as post-racial, as team player, as unselfish, and as God-like illustrate the impossibility of James meeting these expectations. Whereas Jordan in retirement has been reconstituted as a leader, as a fundamentally perfect player who was driven by team success and not individual accomplishment, James, as an embodiment of  Thabiti Lewis’ “baller of new school,” has no possibility of becoming the next Michael Jordan. Given the ways in which black players are scolded and demonized for ego, James, despite his unselfishness, despite his willingness to defer to Wade, pass to Chris Bosh, and set-up Mario Chalmers is unable to transcend the confined meaning of blackness. In actuality, in 2011, Michael Jordan likely couldn’t be the next Michael Jordan.

More than his “struggles” on the court, James cannot win because he cannot be Michael Jordan. And he cannot be Michael Jordan because LeBron does not fulfill a post-racial fantasy. LeBron does not embody what David Falk celebrated in Michael Jordan: “When players of color become stars they are no longer perceived as being of color. The color sort of vanishes. I don’t think people look at Michael Jordan anymore and say he’s a black superstar. They say he’s a superstar. They totally accepted him into the mainstream. Before he got there he might have been African American, but once he arrived, he had such a high level of acceptance that I think that description goes away.”

His tattoos, his decision to hire his longstanding friends to guide his career, “The Decision,”  his insertion of race into the post-Cavs discourse, his acceptance of the anti-hero role, his “What should I do?” Commercial for Nike, and even his response to Greg Doyel where he told him to “watch the film again” so he could “ask me a better question tomorrow” all contribute to a path not paved by Jordan toward racial redemption but one more travelled by many black athletes: one of derision, contempt, criticism, and scrutiny. “The irony of the connection between Willie Horton, O.J. Simpson, and Tookie Williams, and Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Allen Iverson, and Latrell Sprewell, along with most of the black NBA superstars of today is that, as easily as the first three, like so many countless criminalized black male bodies in the United States are denied social and moral redemption because of their race, their presumed inherent transgression, and the need of the American public to reify much of its racist (il)logic,” writes Lisa Guerrero from Leonard and King’s  Criminalized and Commodified. While LeBron as member of the Cavs, as a potential savior (of the NBA; of the Jordan legacy; of Cleveland) had the potential to “redeem us, to maintain our sense of ourselves as a nation that is righteous, equal, and free, and to allow us to continue dreaming the American Dream,” that potential is gone. The narrative of his “failure” redeems us; the hegemonic claims about the righteousness of others and the steps LeBron must take to be saved is a celebration of the system not him.

In terms of the second question – is this his “road to redemption”—we must be clear. LeBron James appears to be disinterested in redeeming himself – a central perquisite in the history of race in America. The parameters of his redemption have been set not by James but by the media and fans. With this in mind, it then becomes impossible for James to gain redemption in the public eye because he will never buy into the parameters set before him. LeBron James is in the continuous struggle of playing by his rules on a court/in a society where everyone but him is setting the rules of the game. Worse, yet, the rules change with each game. “If, as today’s writers lament, LeBron doesn’t want to take over the game, that should be praised, not derided,” writes  Dave Zirin . “Basketball at its best is a beautiful game: a team game. As long as LeBron keeps playing the game as it comes, he will be a champion. He doesn’t have to settle for being the next Jordan.” Irrespective of whether he takes over a game or not, James will be criticized because he can’t be “like Mike” – on the court, maybe, but in the national imagination, never!

For LeBron James, there is no need for redemption. In his eyes, he did what he wanted to do and there is no regret. He wanted to play with his friends and he ended up signing with a team allowing him to do this. While many black athletes strive to reach the summit of Jordan-like acceptance, they fail to see even what Jordan failed to see: no matter what they do or how much money or how many endorsement deals they sign or how they make their respective leagues profitable with immense cultural capital, they are still black bodies in America. James made clear last year that there is little he can do to redeem himself as Michael Jordan. In his “Rise” Nike Commercial, he asks,

What should I do?

Should I tell you I’m a championship chaser?

I did it for the money, rings?

Maybe I should just disappear

As evident in LeBron’s inability to outrun the leadership and selfish trope that defines America’s sports racial history and thus his inability to find solace on a path to redemption, there is nothing LeBron can do. His experiences demonstrate that so long as (white) fans and (white) commentators resent his talent, his choices, his attitude, his swagger, his motivations, his blackness, he is dammed. Not only cannot he not be Michael Jordan or as good as Michael Jordan (sorry Scottie Pippen) in the national imagination but he will continue to face a barrage of criticism for his every move. The black body is continuously subjected to mainstream notions of what it means to be black in a white society all while managing how and working to control those same bodies. Championships or not; 45 points or 8; 25 assists or 2, LeBron James will forever be remembered with the sentence, “Yeah, LeBron could ball, but…”

Post-script 

Despite securing a triple double in game 5, the criticisms directed at LeBron continue to mount. Described as hallow, disinterested, quiet, and otherwise ineffective, securing the 29th triple double in NBA final history did little to silence those critics who continued to focus on his leadership and play in “clutch minutes.” Treating the 4th quarter like a game of “Hot Shot,” where the points are worth double, these critics ignores LeBron’s success throughout the game in an effort to undercut his contributions all while advancing a narrative about his lack of leadership, mental toughness, and “the clutch gene.” Makes one wonder what the critics would say if he did not score, rebound or get his teammates for the first 42 minutes of the game only to amass 17-10-10 in the final 6 minutes. 

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David J. Leonard is Associate Professor of Comparative Ethnic Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academic mediums. His work explores the political economy of popular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, and popular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis. He is the author of Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema and the forthcoming After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop (SUNY Press).