King Pleasure Promised Me One

What remains of the bruising grace can make grown men cry. Women, too, in their toughness are not immune. Mary Murphy of So You Think You Can Dance turned stormy eyed during the show's season premiere Thursday after Brandon Bryant's magnetic interpretation of Carl Orff's "O Fortuna."

"I have to say that I have the greatest job in the whole world to be able to sit here some days and be able to witness something like that -- something I wouldn't be able to do in a million years, to dance like you," Murphy said, then she wiped her eyes. "You're the kind of person, the kind of dancer that touches millions of people in a few short moves."

The championship starved city of Cleveland -- the 1964 Browns brought Clevelanders their last professional sports title -- is looking to be touched come June. They have witnessed with nearly as much pleasure as the pleasing -- clouds of pre-game powder and shirtless post-season circus shots -- Cavaliers appeared to have as they tore through the year's opposition.

Coach Mike Brown and his Cavaliers opened and closed their regular season with losses: falling first to last year's champion Celtics and ending with a defeat to Philadelphia at home. But in between they crafted the League's best record by one (66-16 to the Lakers' 65-17), which led, one would think, to LeBron James' coronation as the NBA's Most Valuable Player. It also led to Cleveland's -- the city, not the team -- cavalier attitude to the alignment of the stars in their favor this year. Many Clevelanders were vocal that not only would LeBron lead them to a championship, but that the title would also signal the beginning of an era.

"We're tired of all the talk that LeBron might go to New York," a friend raised just outside Cleveland told me as we stood in Times Square. "Just because we win this year, that doesn't mean LeBron is going to leave."

Not to get too ahead of myself, I asked my fourth graders to handicap the Conference Finals for me.

"It's going to be the Lakers and Cleveland," one nine-year-old said. "But it's going to be exciting first: Kobe (Bryant), Lamar Odom, Derek Fisher; versus (Denver's) Carmelo (Anthony), Chauncey (Billups), and J.R. Smith."

"His streetball nickname is 'The Prodigy,'" another student said.

"Right. And then the Cavs should take the Magic," the first student continued.

"You like their line-up better?" I asked.

"You've got LeBron James, Mo Williams -- he's LeBron's right hand man -- (Daniel) Gibson, (Wally) Szczerbiak -- he can shoot threes -- and Ilgauskas."

"How do you spell that?" I asked.

"I-l-g-a-u-s-k-a-s," he said.

"Do you think if the Cavaliers win, LeBron will come to New York?" I asked.

"I don't think he's coming," another student said.

"Do you want him to come to New York?"

"He's not coming, so what's the point?" he said. "The Knicks should get Amar'e Stoudemire and Joe Johnson."

"What about Chris Bosh?" a student asked.

"He's not as good as Amar'e and Joe," he said. "And they should get Yao Ming?"

"Yao Ming?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said. "He only plays forty, fifty games, but he's still good. And he's Chinese, and New York has a lot of Chinese people. They'll love him."

"Let's say the Knicks haven't thrown in the towel on LeBron, okay? Do you think they're going to trade more of their players to get him into a Knicks jersey?"

"I don't know," he said.

"Do you think they'll trade Nate Robinson?" I asked.

"No," many of my students said together.

"He's like their best player," one said.

"He's like my father," another said.

"So what about the Magic? You all counting them out already?" I asked.

"They're good, but this just ain't their year."

The men of many talents who make up the Orlando Magic apparently don't count astrology among their gifts. As Charles Barkley pointed out, the Magic handed the Cavaliers two double-digit defeats this year, including a 116-87 rout at Orlando's Amway Arena in April. But despite having the best defensive player in the world -- Dwight Howard -- the Magic were given little chance to break LeBron's march to his first title this year except on the streets.

"You can't defend everyone," a man shouted to his cadre during a game of dice in Harlem. "Plus, the Magic play defense. They got a big 'big man' in Dwight and deadly long range shooters. (Hedo) Türkoğlu, Rashard (Lewis), Dwight -- they're hungry this year. And, besides, LeBron can't do it all."

History seems to agree. LeBron followed up his stunning Game Two closer with a last minute drought -- both from the field and at the line -- in Game Three. And LeBron led his team in scoring (26), rebounds (9), and assists (5) during the Magic's 29 point pummeling of the Cavaliers back in April.

But the conversation of the League's best players still rises and sets with the King. Most observers that I have asked say that even if the Cavaliers fall to the Magic, LeBron will still be regarded as the world's best basketball player, particularly because many will say that even a king can't carry a team to a title on his shoulders alone. Only a head-to-head match-up of Kobe versus LeBron has any hope of settling the question of who is his generation's undisputed Hardwood Colossus. The best center to ever touch a basketball -- Bill Russell -- has a slightly different view, as he told Tom Ashbrook on public radio's On Point this past week.

"The guy whose team wins, that'll be the best one for me," Mr. Russell said.

But he was talking about LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and Carmelo Anthony.

"If the Magic win it all, that will prove that defense wins championships," my aunt said. "But it won't say that Dwight is the best player, only the best defensive player. But we already know that.

"And no one is talking about Dwyane Wade," she continued. "But for my money, D-Wade should have been the MVP. He carried the Heat to the playoffs by himself. If it wasn't Dwyane, it should have been Kobe. If the game is on the line, I want the ball in Kobe's hands. Really, they should have had three MVPs."

Forty-five years is a long time for a drought. One can wonder who is more hungry -- the city of Cleveland or their future sports savior LeBron. Sometimes I imagine that LeBron James, who entered the League in 2003, once played Radiohead's "Paranoid Android," with its famous line When I am king, you will be first against the wall -- thinking of Kobe Bryant. For surely James will have to vanquish last year's MVP, the three-time champion Bryant who has been spellbinding crowds and closing games since 1996, if he is to have no claimants to his throne. But I also imagine championship starved Clevelanders waiting on the precipice, hoping that their cusp doesn't become a brink, with a single peremptory plea in their throats: "King Pleasure promised me one."