LeBron't take the last shot

It was the waning minutes of the 2012 NBA All-Star Game. The West had been leading by about fifteen points the entire game, but the hyper-competitive LeBron James had led a furious comeback.

By leading the comeback in the fourth quarter, LeBron had done a lot to discredit the general impression that he isn’t “clutch.”

He checked into the game and immediately hit a ridiculous fade-away bank shot, followed by several three-pointers.

Then the West took the lead again. Instead of continuing to light them up, LeBron twice passed the ball off in the final East possession, turning the ball over the second time.

Despite this, the West’s lead was only two points with a second left when the East inbounded the ball the final time.

LeBron was the one who inbounded, guaranteeing he wouldn’t be the one taking the shot with the game on the line.

Kobe was jawing, deriding him for not taking the final shot. The media took Kobe’s lead, saying he was scared to shoot.

Fast forward a couple of days.

LeBron’s Miami Heat played the Utah Jazz on March 2. The Heat, the best team in  the league, was getting absolutely blown out until the fourth quarter.

Again, LeBron — the man who can’t perform in the fourth — scored 17 points in the final quarter alone to pull the Heat in the lead.

Dwyane Wade — the man whom LeBron’s detractors suggest should be the clutch one — threw away the lead.

Again, the ball was in LeBron’s hands in the final seconds. Again, he was double-teamed. Again, he passed the ball to an open teammate, who missed the shot. The Heat lost.

As Brian Windhorst of ESPN noted, the not-clutch narrative continues. LeBron remains unwilling to take the final shot when the game’s on the line.

This time, though, the criticism was tempered by fact that in the Jazz game LeBron made the right play, the smart basketball move.

As Magic Johnson said on ESPN, LeBron’s play was the correct basketball move. Even this endorsement, from one of basketball’s best-ever point guards, wasn’t enough to totally quiet the criticism.

“Kobe wouldn’t have passed it. Jordan wouldn’t have passed it.”

But this isn’t true. Kobe and Jordan have a long record of passing it to open teammates to take the game-winner.

Kobe gave it to Derek Fisher for the winning three-pointer earlier this year when he was double-teamed.

Jordan famously passed it to Steve Kerr in Game 6 of the 1997 Finals.

What makes LeBron one of the greatest players to ever play the game of basketball is the fact that he almost always makes the smart play. Sometimes the smart play isn’t the sexiest play, but it’s always the play that a basketball computer would tell him to run.

It would’ve been cool to see him take the game-winner, but it’s even cooler that he doesn’t need to.

­— shlumorg@indiana.edu