SAN ANTONIO — LeBron James knows what is being said. He knows he’s being tweeted about, knows he is being poked at, knows he is the subject of one-liners on talk radio. He knows he was dinged by Gatorade with a tweet that said, “The person cramping wasn’t our client. Our athletes can take the heat.” He knows there is such a thing as Cramp-gate now, because anything remotely controversial can be summed up by adding a dash and a “gate” to it.
Here’s the thing, and this is what makes the James of 2014 entirely different from the James of 2011, the year of his first Finals appearance with Miami, against the Mavericks: He really doesn’t care.
“I’m not on social media right now, but obviously I hear about it, because I know you guys are going to ask me, so I need to be ready for it,” James said on Friday. “What everybody has to say, you guys should know me by now. I don’t care, I really don’t. I really don’t care what people say about me, I don’t care about that sports drink group that — I’m not even going to say their name. I’m not going to give them a light in the Finals. This is about the Spurs and the Heat, and it’s not about everybody else, man, I don’t care.”
The particulars, in case you managed not to be inundated with images of James cramping in the last day or so: The air conditioning was knocked out because of a power outage at the AT&T Center for the opening game of The Finals, causing the temperature in the building to be above 90 degrees for much of the game. James was struggling with cramps in the second half, and with just under four minutes to play, seemed to seize up. He had to be carried off the floor . What had been just a two-point deficit for the Heat turned into a 15-point Game 1 loss.
James described it as “the whole left leg, damn near the whole left side” shutting down. He also said that his muscles spasmed “10 out of 10,” and that the best thing for him was to simply not move. He did try to re-enter the game, but coach Erik Spoelstra would not allow it.
In the aftermath, in some corners, James has been portrayed as a guy who was unwilling to gut out the last few minutes of a Finals game, who did not have the physical stamina to carry on.
“Last night was so extreme,” Spoelstra said. “That’s the toughest part for people to understand. Look, he was burning through his fluids and calories at an extraordinary rate, so about halfway through the first quarter we understood that this was a different environment. … You know, the biggest issue that I think is lost out there is how competitive LeBron James is when you get to this level. Most athletes pace themselves, it’s not a coincidence and a secret and why we have had the success we have had with the best player in the world — when he pushes his body past the point of regular limits for a competitive advantage, I think it’s an extremely admirable trait.”
Fortunately for Miami, this is a different James than the guy we saw stumbling through the 2011 Finals, the one who had been cast as a villain in the wake of his fateful Summer of 2010 made-for-TV decision special. That version of James was trying hard to figure out just how he was supposed to act — should he just embrace the villain angle, even though that’s not really his personality? Should he be nice in the face of a constant anti-James backlash?
Remember, it was that series which saw James and Dwyane Wade poking fun at Dirk Nowitzki following Dallas’ Game 4 victory, after which Nowitzki appeared at the interview podium ashen and sniffling, saying he had been battling a cold throughout the game.
That series also ended with James telling those who were so ardently rooting against him to essentially shove it. “All the people that were 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,” he said back then. “They have the same personal problems they had today.”
The James of 2011 was sensitive, personally hurt by the negative reaction to his choice to leave Cleveland for Miami. It showed in the way he behaved. Now, after taking the Heat to their fourth Finals in as many years, James is much more assured in who he is and what he should care about. And if you’ve got a problem with the whole cramping issue, he shrugs it off. He’s not going to tell you to go back to the same life you had before today.
Rather, he is strictly focused on Game 2.
“I got all day Sunday to get ready for Sunday night,” James said. “Don’t worry, you guys can talk about me as much as you want. I’ll be there on Sunday as well. I’m not hiding.”