Maybe LeBron James Read My Unknown Blog

One night after commenting on Kobe Bryant's latest scoring barrage, the Cleveland Cavaliers and LeBron James had blown out the vistiting Toronto Raptors led by James' 31 points. Closing my post, I said James would probably try to one-up Bryant for the sake of doing so just because both of them were playing in the popular arena in the same week. However, I did say he would have to settle for less than 61 points because he was playing on back to back nights and even if you are LeBron James it is still a physical and mental battle. Personally, I am not a fan of back to back games with travel but I understand not every regular season game cannot be separated by one day at a time, but that is a subject for my next post so I will digress. 

In my prior post I did say LeBron James is the best player in the NBA now and his future of being the undisputed king may only be challenged by guys like Dwyane Wade, Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, Dwight Howard or even a guy like O.J. Mayo in the several years to follow. Mind you I tried to make up a list of players in their early to mid 20s because the current crop of stars in the league will still remain for multiple seasons. On back to back nights LeBron James went out and posted a triple double against the Knicks, who thanks to the allure of their old arena and their coach's cockiness, are quickly becoming victims of stars wanting to single handedly embarrass them (Wade, Bryant and James). James exited with an even more impressive all around performance than Bryant's with 52 points 11 assists and 10 rebounds. He too shot over 50% from the floor and missed only 3 of his 19 free throw attempts while connecting on 2 from 7 from beyond the arc. Maybe back to backs aren't so bad after all.

 I caught a video from NBA.com of behind the scenes cameras showing footage and sound clips from various people during Bryant's 61 point game. How NBA figured he was going to have a big game and therefore had interviews ranging from Knicks general manager Don Walsh to random Laker fans in front of the arena was beyond me. As cameras followed Bryant off the court and through the tunnel, people of course were wanting to high five him and yell out his name. One man tried patting him on the head and in a confused stupor uttered the words, "You're better than Mike." Interesting to note the fan referred to Jordan by the name Mike as if he knew Jordan himself. Jordan needs no defenders, but in fact the reality is the fan was off base. His comment should have been saved for the Wednesday night game with LeBron in town. LeBron has already put up two 50 point games at the age of 24 at Madison Square joining Mr. Jordan in that category. James is the only man in the league with the potential to make such a statement true and he put it on display by making Bryant's Monday performance old news very quickly. Ever heard of forcing the ball out of a hot player's hands D'Antoni? Guess not.