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.

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.

Why is he hated more than Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who was accused of sexual assault and is considered a stone-cold jerk by most players in the National Football League? Why is he hated more than recently resigned Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel, who under the cloak of being a good Christian did nothing about his players breaking rules as long as his team won? Why is he hated more than Chris Webber, who pleaded guilty to criminal contempt amid a payoff scandal at the University of Michigan and whose conduct was instrumental in the Wolverines forfeiting 112 basketball games in the 1990s? (Ironically Webber, doing commentary for NBA TV, joyfully nailed James during the finals.)

Yes, we all know that James left Cleveland without grace or class. Yes, we know that the Heat, in some ridiculous version of a Las Vegas floor show, had the big three of James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh greeting Miami fans in a raucous pep rally as if they had already won the championship before the season had even started.

Yes, millions of fans, including myself, were upset by the arrogance and self-centeredness with which James handled it all. On the other hand, James wanted to go to the place where he thought he had the best chance of winning. Where should he have gone? The Golden State Warriors? Why stay in Cleveland?

Read the rest of the piece at The Daily Beast.

In an attempt to put the final nail in the coffin that is the 2010-11 NBA season, it’s a good time to look back on the 2011 Playoffs and try to make sense of it all.

Let’s start with…

DIRK’S LEGACY

Easily the biggest winner of these Playoffs, Dirk has shrugged off charges that he was soft and/or a choker by leading the Mavs on one of the most epic postseason runs in recent history. Firing up the NBA StatsCube, we’ll find that Dirk averaged 47.5 points per 36 minutes in the clutch (game within five points with under five minutes to play). Not only did he score a ton, but he did it efficiently, shooting 54% from the field, 97% from the free throw line and 60% (!!) from long range. Even in Game 6, after a miserable 1-for-12 first half, Nowitzki had the mental toughness to go out and score 10 points on 5-of-6 shooting in the final 7:22. He’s never going to win as many championships as Larry Bird, but dynasties are a rarity these days (which favors Bird, historically speaking), so now the Bird/Nowtizki comparisons are legit.

CUBAN

Yes, he’s irritating. Most billionaires are. He made his fortune during the internet bubble and had enough sense to get out when the getting was good. He parlayed that into an NBA team, and is definitely a loudmouth outspoken, but in an age when team owners don’t always show a commitment to winning, Cuban has been more than willing to spend in his chase for a ring and in collecting all these aging All-Stars, he finally found a combination with enough grit, determination and defense to put his franchise player in a position to close the deal. Love him or hate him, he’s entertaining, and in a matchup with the Heat, he was most definitely the lesser of two evils. (And give him credit, when interviewed after the Game 6 win, he was quick to defer the spotlight. Classy move.)

KIDD, MARION

Jason Kidd didn’t do much stat-wise in the Finals, and seemed to turn the ball over a lot, but he hit a huge three towards the end of Game 5 and played tough defense on LeBron and Wade for the entire series. After leading the Nets to back-to-back Finals in the early ’00s, he finally got another chance at a ring, and played an important role, even at 38-years-old.

The Mavs got a similar contribution from Shawn Marion, who many left for dead after stints in Miami and Toronto. He helped score when Dirk was getting his rest and played inspired defense on LeBron and Wade at different points in the series. Dallas would not have won the title without The Matrix, especially once Caron Butler went down during the season.

THE JET

Other than Dirk, I can’t see a bigger winner (legacy-wise) in these Finals than Jason Terry. He jumped from also-ran status to clutch Finals performer — one who most definitely backed up his smack talk. He outplayed LeBron down the stretch and didn’t miss a free throw in the clutch in the entire Playoffs. When we look back on these Playoffs a decade from now, we’ll remember Dirk, the Jet, and the Heat’s disappointing performance.

THE BIG THREE

There’s plenty of time for LeBron to redefine his legacy, but this was not a good start. He was mediocre to bad in the fourth quarter for most of the series, and it sure doesn’t seem like this leopard is going to change his spots after tweeting that God decided that it just wasn’t his time to win a title. Um, okay. That doesn’t sound like a guy who is going to hone his post game (like MJ or Kobe) or spend all summer with a shooting coach to make his jumper more consistent.

As for Wade, he doesn’t get off scot-free after fumbling away a chance to tie Game 5 and dribbling the ball off his foot late in Game 6, but he already has a ring, so his legacy has a higher floor than LeBron. And it’s not like the guy didn’t produce — he averaged 27-7-5 and shot 55% from the field in the Finals.

Lastly, let the record show that Chris Bosh played his best ball of the Finals when the chips were down. In the last three games, he averaged 21-8 on 55% shooting, and even hit the winning jumper in Game 3 after a rough shooting night. Bosh was something of a punchline during the season, but he came up big against the Bulls (23-8, 60% shooting) and did some damage in the Finals.

Where does Miami go from here? While some are arguing that Pat Riley should trade LeBron for Dwight Howard, this is certainly not the last we’ve seen of this trio. They made it to the Finals in their first try, and did it with a substandard supporting cast. I expect changes to be made, but I’d be shocked if any of the stars are moved.

Basketball fans will be talking about this series for years, as we’ve never seen anything like it. Superstars have had bad performances in the past, but have we ever seen anything like the LeBron James vanishing act? Those of us who watched him in Cleveland came to understand over the years that he lacked judgement, and after Game 5 last year against Boston, we learned that he could quit under pressure. Yet none of us were prepared for what we saw against the Mavs.

There are plenty of reactions to the debacle, but it’s really not a controversial subject. Everyone saw the same thing – an elite athlete who wilted under the pressure.

Naturally, Bill Simmons had quite a bit to say about it all. He points out that LeBron wasn’t the same after Wade bitched him out late in Game 3 for not being aggressive enough. In his blow by blow summary of the second half, this moment sticks out:

6:42: Just wanted to commemorate this moment: Miami down three, gets a rebound and gets the ball to LeBron on the right side of the key, with J.J. Barea defending him one-on-one … and LeBron turns and throws a pass 20 feet backwards to Wade at midcourt. A few seconds later, Miami gives it back to LeBron, who reluctantly backs Barea down to the low post … and bowls him over. Offensive foul. All hail the King!

(Note that’s too important to be a footnote: If that sequence alone isn’t enough to inspire LeBron to lock himself in a gym all summer until he emerges with a spin move, a jump hook, and a Jordan-eseque fallaway, then he’s the biggest waste of talent in NBA history. You know at the car wash when they offer the “everything” package? That’s what God gave LeBron. He’s threatening to waste it. In a nutshell, this is what makes us so angry about him. It’s not The Decision, or his lack of self-awareness, or the fact that he’s a front-runner … it’s that he’s blowing the “everything” car-wash package. You see an athlete get handed the “everything” package maybe only five times in your life.)

This might go down as his most embarrassing moment. If LeBron James can’t punish J.J. Barea in the post, then he’s become a joke.

Brian Windhorst looks back to last season as well.

Just like last season in Cleveland where James’ performance in the clutch was the polar opposite of what his talent and history called for. Just like when the top-seeded Cavs got behind the Celtics, as soon as the Mavs turned the tables on the Heat midway through this series James’ swagger and game left him. When the Heat were beating the Boston Celtics and Chicago Bulls, series they took control of early, James was a brilliant frontrunner. At his best, really, finishing those teams off.

It was now when he was expected to rediscover that dominance with anger and motivation from the Mavs and the masses. Everyone around him thought so, too. They talked to him about it, they encouraged him, they expected it. Even his biggest detractors and critics knew it could happen. They qualified and tempered their lashings over the past two weeks expecting James to answer at some point.

But as he went through another puzzling game Sunday — dishing repeatedly to Juwan Howard at the rim instead of taking the ball to the basket himself, passing up wide-open shots when the ball came his way, standing and watching on defense like it was a summer camp drill at times — it got more and more clear.

James couldn’t do it.

Back in Cleveland, Bill Livingston focused on LeBron’s lack of commitment:

He just doesn’t get it, not even in the game of basketball, at which he is supposed to be such an intuitive genius. He does not really know the body angles needed to post up. Worse, he does not want to because then he might get fouled and have to go to the line, alone, just him and a free throw stroke that gets shaky under pressure.

No less than the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant, after winning an NBA championship in 2009, asked former Houston center Hakeem Olajuwon to tutor him in inside play. If he wasn’t adding to his game, reasoned Bryant, he was stagnating and others were gaining on him.

Does James possess that intense drive, that surprising humility, that deep capacity for self-examination? It’s doubtful, although James said after it was over, that no one knows how hard he works in the off-season.

Magic Johnson also focused on this last night, recalling how hard he worked after the nightmare of the 1984 Finals when some started calling him “Tragic Magic.”

SI’s Joe Posnanski is also a Clevelander, so he was rooting hard against Lebron, but he had this interesting take at the end of his column.

The way it ended made me feel like this Miami Heat team, with LeBron James playing the lead, wasn’t really good enough to be worth my disdain.

I’m not sure what to think of this. As a team, Miami still had Wade and Bosh. They were a flawed team, but they were the best team, and Wade played like a beast while Bosh showed me something during the playoffs. He’s a competitor and a true professional. The team wasn’t the problem – LeBron was the problem. Had he played just 80% of his ability, Miami would have won the series handily. The problems started in Game 2 when Miami gave away a huge lead. In that game LeBron took two lazy threes late in the game that helped the Mavs get back in it. This was before LeBron check out in Game 4. He killed the Heat and he let down Wade and his teammates, and Miami fans won’t let him forget it. Nobody will let him forget it . . .

Over the last few days, much has been written about LeBron James and his late-game performances in Game 3 and in Game 4. People say he has been too passive, disinterested, or that he doesn’t have the mental makeup to succeed in big moments.

I think the issue is with his involvement in the offense. In Game 2, LeBron controlled the ball late and wasn’t able to generate good shots. The Mavs won. In Game 3, Miami gave the ball to Dwyane Wade and let him do his thing. The Heat won. So in Game 4, they did the same thing, only Dallas was ready for it and Wade wasn’t nearly as productive down the stretch. The Heat lost. Criticism rained down on LeBron for his 3-of-11 shooting and his eight points.

But think about it — LeBron has been used to handling the ball on every possession for the last seven years. Suddenly, he’s spotting up on the wing watching Wade run a pick-and-roll with Chris Bosh and waiting for a pass that’s probably never going to come.

He’s not involved, and when he is involved, he’s running a version of Mike Brown’s drain-the-clock-and-force-a-bad-shot offense from his days in Cleveland. Or maybe Mike Brown is an offensive genius and LeBron refused to run his brilliant plays, who knows.

Regardless of the cause, here’s the solution: Go post, young man.

For years, I have been harping on LeBron for his lack of a post game. He’s a 6-8, strong-as-an-ox 250 lb small forward with terrific vision and passing skills and he refuses to go down to the block. Granted, he has posted up a little bit since arriving in Miami, but I haven’t seen it much (if at all) against the Mavs when he’s being guarded by the likes of Jason Kidd (6-4, 210 lbs) and Jason Terry (6-2, 180 lbs). LeBron’s unwillingness to post (or Spoelstra’s play-calling) is the reason the Mavs are able to get away with those matchups. So LeBron stands on the perimeter, covered by a guard who is used to covering people on the perimeter. How does this make sense?

As regular readers know, I played for (current Wisconsin coach) Bo Ryan while at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville and his #1 offensive priority was to get the ball in the post. He preached that throwing the ball inside led to better quality shots and more free throws, leading to more efficient offense. And he was right. As the years went on, he became more willing to let knockdown three-point shooters do their thing, but the Heat don’t have many of those, so it’s not really relevant. (Why am I mentioning it? Because I was a knockdown three-point shooter who wasn’t allowed to do his thing. Grrr.)

Anyway, Spoelstra and LeBron could take a page from Bo’s book and run the offense through LeBron in the post. If he has a smaller guy on him, the Mavs would be forced to double-team or LeBron would be able to score at will (assuming he has any post moves, which is a big assumption). If the put Marion on him, he could setup in the mid-post, catch the ball and go.

But this strategy is predicated on the notion that LeBron and Co. have actually practiced this type of offense and it’s pretty clear that they haven’t, not enough to utilize it in the Finals, anyway.

The Heat may very well go on to win the Finals doing what they’re doing. If they do, I wouldn’t expect LeBron to suddenly become a serious post player. If they lose, perhaps he’ll be motivated enough to improve his game in the same way that Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant did mid-career. Both players realized that they needed a way to punish teams for covering them with smaller defenders, and both players became excellent shooters/scorers in the post. LeBron would be able to add the extra dimension of passing out of the post as teams cheat or double.

A few years ago, LeBron said that playing on the block was “boring.” There’s still time for this leopard to change his spots, but perhaps it would take another Finals loss to finally convince LeBron to take his talents to the post.