It’s easy to hate these guys when you watch this lame video. It’s almost as bad as the party they threw when the Big Three signed their contracts with the Heat last season. After choking last year against the Mavericks, you would think that a somewhat different tone would be in order.

But LeBron wants to have fun this year. He didn’t do so well as the villain, so the dopey kid is back and his teammates are joining in on the fun.

That aside, however, after two games it does look like LeBron is taking the game seriously this year. He and Wade and shying away from three-pointers and they’re focusing on transition baskets and post-up moves. It’s a shame it’s taken LeBron this long to figure it out, but I guess a humiliating meltdown in front of the world in the Finals will do that do you.

Now we shouldn’t get carried away after two games, as the Heat ran past two older teams. The Mavs have new players and haven’t had any time to work together. They have to win as a team like they did last year. Also, LeBron always looks good in the regular season. Sure, he’s working on developing better habits, but we’ve seen him lose focus during crunch time before.

This team is talented, and they’ll battle for the best record. But none of it matters. They have to win it all. Anything else is a failure.

SI recently published a fascinating profile of Walter Iooss Jr., who has spent over 50 years photographing athletes and swimsuit models. The man has led an incredible life, and he also happens to be a great storyteller.

In this article, Iooss recounts stories of his favorite athletes and models, like Micheal Jordan, Reggie Jackson, Paulina Porizkova and Christie Brinkley. Sports fans should read the whole article and you’ll get a real sense of the bravado and charisma of people like Reggie Jackson in his prime.

Iooss loves to tell stories of how he had to charm people like Tiger Woods. With Tiger, the swimsuit pictures got his attention right away, and Iooss could then get Tiger to do what was necessary to get the shot.

And then there were the difficult ones like Barry Bonds and the prima donnas like LeBron James. His story about LeBron is very telling:

I first photographed LeBron James in 2003, when he was a rookie in Cleveland. He was pretty raw as a teenager; he didn’t have any of the smoothed edges he has now. When I shot him six years later, in 2009, the difference was amazing. He walked in like a king that day, and he took over that room. And not only physically, although he was massive then. I’ve never seen an athlete look like that. He was muscular, charming, articulate, the prince of hoops. He couldn’t have been more of an ambassador for the game.

Times change, and sadly, LeBron became a villain to many after The Decision. I’ve seen a lot of entourages, but none like his. In July 2010 I got an assignment from Nike to shoot LeBron right after his TV special announcing his move to the Heat. We rented the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, where the Lakers and the Clippers used to play, and there were 53 people on my crew—including hair and makeup artists, production people, a stylist. I had $10,000 in Hollywood lighting. It was huge. When LeBron arrived, it was as if Nelson Mandela had come in. Six or seven blacked-out Escalades pulled up, a convoy. LeBron had bodyguards and his masseuse. His deejay was already there, blasting. This for a photo shoot that was going to last an hour, tops.

This is how crazy it was: I wasn’t even allowed to talk directly to LeBron. There was a liaison, someone from Amar’e Stoudemire’s family. I would say to him, “O.K., have LeBron drive right,” and then he’d turn to LeBron and say, “LeBron, go right.”

LeBron had guards in the portals on the mezzanine level, talking into their hands. Really, what was going to happen? And then at the end of the shoot they all got in the Escalades. My God, I’ve been around Michael Jordan, but with him nothing even came close to this. Unimaginable.

It was obvious that this clown had a problem when he and those around him started referring to him as King James, but this episode demonstrates just how out of control LeBron’s ego had become.

One year later, LeBron is now a punch line after his embarrassing performance in the NBA Finals. He’s gone onto ESPN to discuss how he should have done things differently when he left Cleveland last year and how he made the mistake of embracing the role of the villain. He’s going back to having fun. We’ll see about that. But more than anything he needs to get rid of the obscene entourage, and I don’t see that happening.

Following his meltdown in last year’s Finals, LeBron James is going to take a lot of heat from critics, and Magic Johnson is happy to pile on.

It was Goodman League vs. Melo League in Baltimore, MD, and there were lots of dunks and not much defense. It looked like an NBA All-Star Game, only missing a few All-Stars. Enjoy:

And he made Maverick Carter go first…

In fairness, the platform is 33 feet high, so that is quite the jump if you aren’t used to it.

In an interview with HoopsHype, LeBron discussed the 2010-11 Miami Heat, working with Hakeem Olajuwon on his post game, the fans in Cleveland and more.

Here’s what he had to say about the 2012 Olympics:

What about the Olympics next year? You don’t want to commit yet?

LJ: I’m committed. I can’t wait for it – to have an opportunity to go to London and defend our gold medal from Beijing. It’s going to be great. I’ve always loved the Olympics just to be around the athletes from all over the world. Not only in my country but to see all of the athletes, it’s so fun… I have a great deal respect for all other athletes that are competing as well.

Later, he was asked about the MVP award.

Did you think you have a real shot at winning the MVP last season?

LJ: No.

Why?

LJ: Just the thing I did. The change from Cleveland to Miami wasn’t going to allow me to win the MVP.

No matter what.

LJ: No matter. It didn’t matter.

What about next season?

LJ: I got a chance. But they made me take a year off.

It’s interesting that he blames The Decision for not winning the MVP award.

Tough sequence there for LeBron. Loses the ball, gets dunked on, turns the ball over again and then lets his guy hit a three. Looks like he’s still recovering from his Finals hangover.

No word on whether or not this sequence was in the fourth quarter.

In an interview with ESPN, Kobe was asked about LeBorn and the Heat and here is what he had to say:

George Smith: There was a lot of venom towards the Heat and, in particular, towards LeBron James What did you make of that?

Kobe Bryant: I think people need to lay off that kid. That’s what I think. I’ve gotten to know him pretty well playing with the Olympic team. I think people need to just back-off off him. Just let him play. Let him live his life. Let him make his decisions. Let him mature as a player. It’s tough to be under the microscope like that all the time. So, I would like everybody to just kind of back-off off him and let him play.

It would be a lot easier to “lay off” LeBron if he didn’t make such a spectacle of himself last summer with “The Decision” and then the ensuing championship celebration with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami.

It’s not like everyone started randomly hating LeBron and the Heat. You reap what you sow.

After Game 6, LeBron had this to say about the people that were rooting against the Heat:

“All the people that was rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today,” James said Sunday.

“They have the same personal problems they had today. I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that. They can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal, but they have to get back to the real world at some point.”

To many, that sounded like LeBron was playing the “I’m richer/better than you” card, so at the end of the day, if you found any joy in the Heat’s struggles, you still have to go on with your day-to-day life while LeBron goes back to being a multi-millionaire. It was a clear shot at the “haters,” and it’s somewhat understandable that LeBron would want to lash out after all the criticism he has taken over the past couple of weeks.

On Tuesday, LeBron clarified his statements.

“Basically I was saying at the end of the day this season is over and — with all hatred — everyone else has to move on with their lives, good or bad. I do too,” James said.

“It wasn’t saying I’m superior or better than anyone else, any man or woman on this planet, I’m not. I would never ever look at myself bigger than anyone who watched our game. It may have come off wrong but that wasn’t my intent.”

Of course he thinks he’s better than the average American, but I’d suspect that, deep down, most professional athletes feel that way.

What LeBron needs to understand is that he brought most of this criticism on himself. Had he announced his decision to sign with the Heat in the same way Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh did, he wouldn’t have been under nearly as much scrutiny as he was this summer. We still hold “The Decision” against him because it was an ego trip that tore the heart out of the city of Cleveland on national television. He may have had good intentions, but those intentions don’t matter.

LeBron isn’t going to be able to move on until he accepts some responsibility for the hatred that is aimed his way. If he had come out and said that “The Decision” was a well-intentioned mistake and apologized to the city of Cleveland for the way he handled his announcement, it would go a long way in repairing his image.

I had to laugh when LeBron said that he works hard on his game in the offseason because I sure can’t see the results on the court. Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant are notorious for going away in the offseason and coming back with a new killer move in their offensive arsenal — what move has LeBron developed over the last eight years? How is his game significantly different than when he entered the league at age 18? To me, this is his biggest issue as a player.

Anyway, the relationship between these Wade and LeBron has been one of the more interesting stories this season. Bill Simmons went so far as to suggest that the duo’s interaction towards the end of Game 3 may have sent LeBron into a tailspin.

Remember when Wade tore into LeBron with three-plus minutes remaining in Game 3? When he yelled at him for eight solid seconds? When there was genuine anger in his eyes? When he did it right on the court, right in front of the other players, right in front of 20,000 fans and 10 million TV viewers?

LeBron was never the same after that.

When was the last time anyone ever really yelled at LeBron James? You’d have to go back to high school, right? He just spent the past 10 years being coddled by everyone (teammates, coaches, agents, entourage members, yes-men, general managers, owners, media members, etc.). Imagine he was a little kid (which really, he might be to some degree), and imagine you were his father and didn’t believe in yelling at your kids. Now, imagine your kid screwed up in his second-grade play and, for whatever reason, you broke character, snapped, and berated him for eight seconds in front of everyone. How would he handle that? Poorly, right? He’d pretend it didn’t affect him, but the more he thought about it, it would gnaw away at him (especially once his buddies said, “I can’t believe your dad yelled at you like that”).

Could that have been what happened to LeBron? Did those eight seconds shake his confidence beyond repair? Did he resent Wade for embarrassing him? Did he think to himself, “Fine, you want to act like this is your team, then YOU win this title?”

Wade was angry that LeBron threw the ball to Chalmers in the corner and after Chalmers eventually turned the ball over, Wade let LeBron hear about it. This is not how most of us would react if a friend lit into us, but LeBron’s expression was telling. He was frustrated with the situation and didn’t seem like he appreciated getting chewed out by Wade in the middle of the game.

Only he knows how much that exchange affected his game.