The NBA Finals is over...Now What?

By Tyler Wilson

Annually from mid-June until late August (when college football starts), there is a lull in Sports. The NBA Finals is over and baseball will rule Sportscenter for the upcoming two months. And in my opinion, this sucks. I really don't like watching baseball during the regular season - for me it's boring. Now I may not be the ultimate baseball enthusiast, but I just can't get myself to watch the MLB in the summer. I would rather go to a San Antonio Missions game than have to watch two-and-a-half hours of walking around and 30 minutes of baseball on TV. I would rather watch golf, which to me is actually exciting.

But now that I got that off my chest, congratulations to the 2011 NBA champion Dallas Mavericks. They truly deserved it. They actually showed some heart for once. This victory also intensifies the I-35 rivalry between the Mavs and Spurs, which will be great for both teams. But what surprised me the most about how the Mavericks won and celebrated was Mark Cuban.

Mark Cuban was surprisingly classy, which shows me that ANYBODY can change

Cuban, the notoriously obnoxious Mavs' owner, was unexpectedly cool, calm and collected throughout this year's NBA playoffs. And unexpectedly classy as well. Classy and Cuban in the same sentence? Say it aint' so? Sorry Cuban haters, but he did everything right during this year's playoffs. He basically matured on the biggest stage an NBA owner can be on. He did this in a series where he could have talked so much shit about the Heat and their superstar Lebron James. But he didn't. He kept his composure, and instead of holding the trophy for himself for the first time, he let the very first Mavs' owner Donald Carter hold up the trophy. That is about the classiest move I can think of. He went from this............

........to a wife and three kids and an NBA champion owner. He matured. So did Dirk, and the rest of the Mavs. If Cuban can change for the better (Note: he probably hasn't changed, but has manipulated the media to think he really has changed. Nonetheless, he didn't bask in the glory as expected he would have). The picture that sticks in my head the most about Cuban is when they interviewed him before Game 1 of the 2006 Finals, when he was running on a treadmill, cocky as can be. But in this year's Finals, that Cuban was nowhere to be found.

My point is that if Cuban can change, anybody can. Including Lebron. I really don't care about what Lebron does in his career, and honestly, I don't care how important he is to the NBA (I know, my mentioning of him shows he is important, so therefore I am contradicting myself). Nonetheless, even though I don't care how important he is to the league, I am forced to care because the media wants it that way. The NBA would not be the NBA today without "the King," and I am well aware of this, but Lebron is certainly not.

Lebron is not aware of the impact he has on people. He is not really aware of anything but fame. But sports is more than fame, and more than pure entertainment. Yes, sports is a form of entertainment, but it is ultimately a way of expressing our human instinct for competition in a more sophisticated society. The basketball court is essentially an exemplification of Thomas Hobbes' state of nature, and the best players and teams normally win if they impose their will on the competition. Maybe we should tell Lebron that the only way to survive on earth would be to win an NBA championship. Then he might just win one.

But for now, like I mentioned in my first blog post, he is content with enjoying the fame that comes with being the greatest talent there is. If he was a musical artist, this would be just fine. He would be top 10 on the Billboard charts and everybody would like him and that would be that. His career would not be tainted for not reaching the zenith and he would be enjoying life to the fullest. People would like his songs and praise him for making such great music. And the people who dislike his songs would just blow him off and listen to country music. No criticism, no regret, just a different career choice.

In sports, however, competition is the engine that drives all the cogs in the machine. Yes there is competition in the music business, but not to the point to where it defines one's career. In sports, if one is not the ultimate competitor and has the talent to be, he will be criticized. It's inevitable, because sports is competition, not just a concert. Lebron James does not quite understand this. He has displayed to us that when the competition becomes serious, he shies away from it, almost cowardly. And this is not what sports is about. He may go out and compete night for night, but behind his competition is a will for fame.

"The man upstairs knows when it's my time," Lebron tweeted. "Right now isn't the time." This tweet by Lebron tells me that he expects his talents to take him to the top, that he did everything he could have to help the Heat win. Bull shit. If the court were really in the state of nature, Lebron would be dead already. This tweet just tells me that he is all about fame, fortune, hanging with his friends and enjoying the ride.

Good Will Hunting, one of my favorite movies of all time, shows the life of Will Hunting (Matt Damon), a twenty year-old genius who has not faced the world because of insecurities stemming from a rough foster upbringing. He is smarter than MIT professors. But he doesn't realize that there is more to life than just knowledge. Sean Maguire (Robin Williams), his eventual psychologist, helps him realize these insecurities, therefore giving him the confidence to venture into the real world and to experience it with no regrets, chasing love along the way.

Right now, Lebron James needs a Sean Magurie. He needs someone from his same upbringing to help him experience competition for what it really is. This mentor needs to tell him to get back to the days of when he scored 29 of the Cavs' last 30 points against the Pistons in the 2007 Eastern Conference Finals to eventually take home the series. He needs to experience it again, and not shy away from his talents like Will Hunting did. He knows what it takes to be a competitor, so for anyone and everyone it will always remain a mystery to why he closed up like a rollie pollie does when you touch it in the this year's NBA Finals. For now, he is a Will Hunting with no Sean Maguire.

Without this guy, Will Hunting would have never chosen to take life head on. Lebron needs a Sean Maguire in his life.