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About 15 minutes into Andy Billman’s 30 For 30 film Believeland, the first piece of visual torture hit the screen as Cleveland Browns quarterback Brian Sipe threw an errant pass in the back of the end zone resulting in an interception, killing the “Kardiac Kids” chances at a Super Bowl title.

That was against the Oakland Raiders. Thirty-five years and countless traumatic episodes later, Cleveland has finally gotten its revenge on The Bay thanks to LeBron James.

Leading the Cavaliers (in every way possible), James followed up his back-to-back 41 point performances with a 27 point, 11 rebound, 11 assist effort on the road in Game 7 against “the best team in NBA history”. The three straight wins (two on the road) saw LeBron combine for 109 points, 35 rebounds, 29 assists, 9 steals and 9 blocks.

Best way to describe this performance? In a word: deliverance.

Gone are the trolls and their shallow “2-5 in the Finals” baseless barbershop arguments. Gone are the demons of Cleveland playoff disasters from years past. The “mistake by the lake” jokes are null and void. The drama that swirled around this team is now a distant memory, and the choice of Cleveland over Miami is unequivocally justified, with James at the epicenter of it all.

Though one can only truly appreciate this accomplishment through a historical prism. On the résumé side, LeBron now possesses three championships, three NBA Finals MVPs and four regular season MVPs. The only other player in the history of the NBA to accomplish this is Michael Jordan (Bill Russell most certainty would have, but the Finals MVP didn’t come into existence until 1969, which is probably why they renamed the trophy after him). From the optics side, winning three straight and two on the road against a team that had lost only nine times all season, including just three L’s at home in the regular season and playoffs combined is a feat few would’ve thought possible (well, except us). The Golden State Warriors hadn’t lost three straight all year, and after Game 2 of the Finals, had beaten the Cavaliers seven consecutive times. In spite of this impossible hand he was dealt, LeBron was dominant. Like, über-dominant, even by his Hall of Fame standards. To witness the way he controlled tempo, kept his teammates in engaged and imparted his will on the game in the paint and on the perimeter on both ends of the court is the stuff kids two generations removed will learn about from their grandfathers.

James also executed this textbook comeback under the backdrop of an unofficial power-struggle between himself and Stephen Curry for “world’s best basketball player”, even if a smart minority never fully bought into the Curry hype.

However the most sobering realization for any hoops fan, particularly of those who love Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant is that Jordan and Kobe never pulled off a feat like this. Ever.

They’ll never admit this though. The Jordan stans are a special breed of basketball fan that believes the game only existed in the brief period between 1991 and 1998. And that anyone who came along in any other period of time outside of that window could not possibly be relevant, and therefore cannot compare to Mike on any level, even if they have a better résumé (Kareem), scored more points (Kareem again), impacted the game in more ways (Magic), won more titles (Russell), was more skilled (Kobe) or was a more physically dominant wing player (LeBron).

Similarly to Kobe striving to be “Jordan 2.0”, the Kobe stans are like Jordan stans on PEDs. As we’ve previously discussed, the career of Kobe Bryant is a difficult one to quantify when compared to the other greats of the greats, which makes him extremely polarizing. What makes him even more polarizing is that A) his stans are incredibly vocal and B) the Jordan stans are threatened by Kobe. Why? Because Kobe was a more skilled version of His Airness (he just lacked MJ’s leadership and intangibles). But since Kobe’s prime years didn’t occur during that magical ’91-’98 Jordan matrix, the Jordan stans are forced to cut down Kobe whenever possible. Now history has repeated itself during the last five years, this time with scared Bryant supporters pouncing on James with every missed jumper.

LeBron James is better than Kobe Bryant. He has been for quite some time. Even when Kobe was still an annual MVP candidate and making Finals runs with Lamar Odom and Ron Artest (yikes), James was still putting up superior numbers across the board and doing far more with less, especially in the coaching department. But Kobe fans ain’t trying to hear that. They’re too hung up on “clutch gene” and “killer instinct“. Man, do they love that killer instinct. The fallacy here is believing that Kobe has more “clutch” or “killer” in him than LBJ, or that those arbitrary terms that have been gassed up talking head TV over the last decade really mean anything.

Kobe is perceived as clutch, LeBron historically has not been. For years though, the numbers told a different tale (see the “killer instinct” link). And if being a “killer” means you’ll consistently take horrendous double-teamed 20 footers that wouldn’t even fly in Bel-Air Academy’s “just pass it to Will” offense, then I don’t want it.

The question is: where does LeBron James’ 2016 Finals performance rank on killer-clutch scale? It was definitely clutch and required a fair amount of killer. But was it enough to shake this silly narrative because LeBron only scored 27 on 24 shots in Game 7? If that doesn’t satiate you, James did have that 37-point, five three-pointer Game 7 in the 2013 Finals. Both were wins.

Conversely, exactly what did Bryant ever do on this stage to even serve as a measuring stick for LeBron? His 6-24 Game 7 in the 2010 Finals? The 7-22, 22-point Game 6 against Boston in the ’08 Finals where his Lakers lost by 39? The .381 field goal percentage in the five game loss to Detroit in ’04? Don’t get me wrong, Kobe definitely had some great games and a couple of memorable moments in his Finals career — most notably the overtime game in Indianapolis in 2000 and the shot to tie Game 2 against the Pistons in ’04 — but nothing he did was nearly as transcendent (or clutch, or killer) as what LeBron did last night, or last year for that matter.

The same goes with Jordan (gasp!). This is in part because Jordan’s Bulls were never pushed to a Game 7 of the Finals; Mike should hardly be penalized for that. But as dynamic as he was in the do-everything younger days of his first “three-peat”, and as timely as he was in the mature days of his second “three-peat”, we never saw Jordan play under circumstances that were similar to what LeBron just dealt with. No one here is saying he couldn’t bring his team out of a 3-1 series hole. No one here is saying he couldn’t win an NBA Finals against a team that was considered by many to be the best team ever. We just haven’t seen it. But we’ve now witnessed LeBron James deliver on the game’s highest conceivable stage — Game 7 of the NBA Finals — twice, once at home and once on the road, for two different franchises. We’ve also never seen Mike make six consecutive Finals trips, or seven NBA Finals total. And we know the Cavs and Heat each failed to qualify for the playoffs the year after LeBron left them, whereas MJ’s Bulls nearly made the conference finals the year following his first retirement.

Beyond all that though, King James cannot be credited enough accomplishing what he has in the era in which he lives. Every move LeBron makes is scrutinized, criticized and scrutinized again by people far less qualified from a basketball standpoint to be passing judgement. Every shot he takes and decision he makes is dissected, and TV shows have been built solely on criticizing his actions. Jordan’s glory days were the polar opposite because they basically predate the internet, and thereby social media. So most NBA fans under 35 don’t remember the playoff beatings he took from the Pistons and Celtics, or getting bounced from the playoffs after Nick Anderson stripped him, or all of his missed game winners in the Finals.

This was the 90’s. Things were different. America loved Full House and Family Matters (the black Full House), and covering up for Michael Jordan was all the rage. Playoff failures, punching teammates, a gambling addiction, years of untraceable infidelity— the fishbowl wasn’t a fishbowl back then, it was more like a magic act. Sure, you see the pretty girl disappear, but only after the curtain is drawn.

Michael Jordan handled the pressure of the game like a surgeon, but we’ll never know how he would’ve handled the pressure of the game AND everything that surrounds it. The pressure from the latter magnifies that of the former, and LeBron James has dealt with more of both than anyone in history. He delivered yet again.

Being down 3-1 in a series to this Golden State team didn’t seem to phase LeBron. By all accounts he was as confident as ever, confident enough to rock an Undertaker t-shirt at the presser prior to Game 5. We didn’t make enough of this— it was his subtle way of saying his squad was prepared to rise from the dead.

Sidebar: When Cavs team plane landed back in Cleveland, James stepped off the plane rocking an “Ultimate Warrior” t-shirt. Yeah, this t-shirt thing is NOT a coincidence.

Four days later, James had erased the 3-1 deficit. His Cavs were down seven at the half on the road in Game 7 of the championship series, where teams were 3-15 all-time, and LeBron & Co. erased another deficit. Then with the game tied inside the final two minutes, Andre Iguodala went in for a go-ahead layup…and LeBron erased it, symbolically erasing all the sins of Cleveland’s sports history in the process.

Kobe and Jordan have more titles for now, but neither have this kind of performance in their career catalog. The Kobe and Jordan stans can no longer deny the greatness of LeBron James without exposing themselves as the irrational haters they are. Conceding greatness however is not an admission of error— they can all be great. But if Jordan is the GOAT and Kobe is top 10, the next seven years of LeBron James will be nothing more than gravy on the career of what is already a top six player in NBA history.

https://youtu.be/wsYcp8YaHLg?t=5m5s