Today, LeBron James will play in his eighth straight NBA Finals.
King James and his Cleveland Cavaliers will face the Golden State Warriors for the fourth year in a row.
LeBron and the Cavs are the clear underdogs.
In fact, the Warriors are historic favorites in the 2018 NBA Finals. The reigning NBA champs are favored by 10 to 1 odds to win their third title. The Warriors are favored by 12.5-points in tonight’s Game One: the largest point spread in recent Finals history.
So, despite the odds — why do I believe LeBron James has a legitimate shot to win his fourth NBA title?
I have three simple reasons:
He’s LeBron James.
He’s having an historic year.
And I hate Kevin Durant and the Golden State Warriors.
Full disclosure: I’m a Cleveland boy, born and raised. I’ve been a Cavaliers fan since the franchise was launched in 1970 — and Austin Carr led them to the ‘76 Eastern Conference Finals against the Boston Celtics, losing valiantly in 6 games.
The Cavs had their moments after that — making 10 playoff appearances from 1985 to 1998. But they rarely made it past the first round.
In 1989, for instance, Michael Jordan famously dashed their hopes by draining a first-round series-winning buzzer-beater over Cleveland’s Craig Ehlo. It was Game 5 of a 5-game series. (Remember those?) And Cleveland was playing at home.
Man, that was painful.
Then came LeBron James.
James played high school basketball in Akron Ohio – just 40 miles from Cleveland.
Already a national sensation as a teenage high school player, his hometown Cavaliers made LeBron the first overall pick in the 2003 NBA draft .
As a 20-year-old kid – in just his second year in the NBA — LeBron poured in 56 points against the Toronto Raptors, setting Cleveland’s single-game scoring record and was named to his first All-NBA Team. (This year, in his fifteenth season in the league, he earned that honor again.)
In his third season in 2006, LeBron was named the NBA All-Star Game Most Valuable Player and finished second in the NBA MVP voting to Steve Nash. He led The Cavs into the playoffs for the first time since 1998, losing to the Detroit Pistons in the second round.
LeBron’s fourth year in the league marked him as a true superstar. He led the Cavs to 50 wins for the second year in a row and took his team all the way to the 2007 NBA Finals against one of the NBA’s greatest teams: the San Antonio Spurs. LeBron and his overmatched Cavs were swept in four games – setting the stage for his infamous “Decision” to jump to the Miami Heat.
LeBron’s years with the Heat are well documented.
At the time, I went on the record that I didn’t blame LeBron for leaving the Cavs. Far from burning his jersey like some bitter fellow Clevelanders, I cheered him as he won two NBA championships in his four years in Miami – then welcomed his Northeast Ohio homecoming.
It didn’t take long for LeBron to return the Cavaliers to the NBA Finals. He did it in his first year back. And if Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving had been able to play in the 2015 Finals against the Golden State Warriors they might have won.
Anyway, LeBron led the Cavs to victory the following year – my hometown’s first major sports championship since Jim Brown, Frank Ryan and Gary Collins led the Browns over the Colts in 1964!
Then LeBron and the Cavs lost to Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry and the Warriors in last year’s Finals. It was The King’s seventh straight NBA Finals appearance.
And tonight’s tip-off marks Lebron’s eighth straight Finals.
Okay, I know that Bill Russell and his 1960’s-era Celtics made a shitload of NBA Finals. In fact, Russell made 10 straight Finals. Bill Russell is certainly one of the all-time greats — but let’s look at a typical NBA playoff bracket from Russell’s playing days.
Do you notice something?
For most of those ten dominant years, Russell and his Celtics played just 2 or 3 rounds in the playoffs. And they usually played only two. LeBron James – like all of his modern NBA contemporaries — has faced four grueling playoff rounds every single year. Just sayin’.
And then there’s this business about Kevin Durant vs. LeBron. Don’t compare Durant’s playoff success with LeBron’s. (How far did The Slim Reaper ever take the Thunder?) And please don’t equate Durant’s jump to the Warriors with LeBron’s move to the Heat.
When LeBron went to The Heat, it had been 5 years since they were in the Finals and won an NBA championship. Durant joined Golden State the year after they had made two consecutive Finals appearances and won their first NBA title.
Kevin Durant is a front-runner. LeBron James is something else altogether.
As both teams prepare for tip-off tonight, I am confident that LeBron James will burnish his legacy in these NBA Finals.
And if Kevin Love is healthy enough to make his usual All-Star contribution on the boards and from the 3-point line – and Kyle Korver or J.R. Smith or Jeff Green or George Hill step up and hit some shots – then I like my team’s chances, despite the long odds against them.
One thing is certain.
I’m not betting against LeBron James.
I’m not betting against The King.
Go Cavs!
Let’s be clear. Trey Gowdy is no friend of Democrats and progressives. And he looks kinda like the infamous “Bat Boy” of tabloid fame.
A deeply conservative House member from South Carolina, it was Gowdy who chaired the committee that spent over two and a half years and $7.8 million investigating Hillary Clinton’s role in the 2012 Benghazi embassy attack. And he barely put up any honest, objective resistance while House Intelligence Committee Chairman (and traitorous weasel) Devin Nunes turned that formerly bipartisan body’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election into a Republican whitewash of Donald Trump’s role in that affair.
But in recent days, Gowdy, who served as a federal prosecutor before he became a politician, is taking positions that few Republicans have dared to take. Of course, Gowdy is not seeking re-election to Congress, so like GOP Senator Jeff Flake and a precious few others, he no longer has to sacrifice every ounce of his integrity to satisfy the prejudices of the rabid Trump/GOP base.
Trump has been using his bully pulpit – with an accent on the word “bully” – to make wild claims that President Obama ordered the FBI to spy on his campaign. But in the days after that May 24 meeting, Congressman Gowdy has been busy throwing cold water on Trump’s spurious “Spygate” claims.
Gowdy’s refutation of Trump’s “Spygate” bullshit hasn’t stopped the Mango Mussolini from continuing his Goebbels-like assault on the truth. He and his bug-eyed TV lawyer Rudy Giuliani have doubled down on their “Spygate” lies – and aren’t likely to stop.
USA FINALLY SAYS, “YOU’RE FIRED!”
Unlike “Roseanne” — which drew 18.2 million viewers for its debut in March 2018 and established itself as ABC’s highest-rated and most watched new series of the 2017-18 season – “Trump” had suffered from historically poor ratings from the outset.
Savaged by the critics, “Trump” relied on relatively strong numbers among its core demographics: poorly educated whites (ages 50-105), white evangelicals (ages 45-Rapture) and racists and xenophobes of all ages.
Trump became famous for whittling down the contestants by firing one of them at the end of every episode. “You’re fired” became its host’s trademark line.
Though Trump still fired one or more employees at the end of every episode, the “Trump” series format was confused and convoluted — made even more so by a drawn-out subplot in which Trump was investigated for various sinister activities ranging from money laundering and paying hush-money to porn stars and Playboy bunnies to conspiring with Russian agents to steal the 2016 election. Though these plot twists made headlines, they failed to lift his sagging ratings beyond his core demo of greedy sociopaths, hypocritical self-styled Evangelicals and angry, aggrieved white people.
In a statement announcing the cancellation, USA noted that “’Trump’ was never a ratings winner, but we hoped that it would improve over time and widen its appeal to a larger, more inclusive audience. It failed to do so.” Left unspoken but resoundingly clear in USA’s statement was the fact that “Trump” attracted a negligible audience among blacks, Latinos, and other minorities – nor was it a hit with large majorities of women, educated whites and religious people with a moral conscience.
USA’s statement went on to say that, “Over its less than two-year run, “Trump” presented an increasingly skeptical public with a revolving cast of ever more bizarre characters and outrageous plot lines that defied credulity and provoked confusion and disgust among the wider audience we had hoped the series might someday attract.”
USA insiders say that the final nail in the “Trump” coffin may have been driven in by its titular star’s recent Tweet wishing Americans a “Happy Memorial Day!”
Trump’s sudden cancellation of his proposed June 12 nuclear summit with North Korea’s despotic leader Kim Jong-Un caught just about everyone — including our South Korean allies — by surprise. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of Trump’s about-face on the summit was the tone of his letter informing Kim of his decision.
My intrepid and indomitable wife Victoria and I traveled to Yellowstone National Park in August of 2017 (just before the total eclipse) and hit the many wonderful trails with gusto.
We enjoyed our walks through the various geyser basins – making sure to get up at the crack of dawn and arrive at each of these phenomenal landscapes early in the morning.
Paul's Voyage of Discovery & Etc. 
An Exclusive Interview with Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller III.
Until now.
Mr. Mueller explained that he enjoyed my recent blog post on a hike my wife and I made in Yellowstone National Park – and that he needed to let off some steam without winding up on the front page of The New York Times. I wasn’t entirely sure it was a compliment when he told me that he was certain nothing I wrote on my blog was going to make headlines anywhere.
He said I could ask him anything I wanted.
What follows is a transcript of our phone call.
ME: You’re getting a lot of pressure to wrap up your investigation…
MUELLER: Hold on, what do you mean by pressure?
ME: You know. Giuliani and the President are waging a campaign to discredit you…
MUELLER: (Laughs) Oh, that? You call that pressure? I’ll tell you what pressure is – and Donny Bone Spurs has no clue – but pressure is trying to keep a squad of young soldiers alive when you’re waist deep in a muddy rice paddy taking incoming fire from an enemy you can’t see. That’s pressure. This is no deadly jungle firefight. I can see Trump and his impotent bullies coming a mile away. Nothing they say affects me.
MUELLER: That’s not my concern. I’m not hosting a popularity contest – I’m running a criminal investigation. Facts matter to me. I don’t give a rat’s ass for anyone’s opinion. And certainly not a flack like Sean Hannity or a soulless, Mephistophelean mouthpiece like Kellyanne Conway. Funny. Her husband actually sounds like an intelligent guy. That’s a real odd couple there.
ME: But what do you say to those who complain that your investigation has gone on too long and has spent too many taxpayer dollars?
ME: Oh, that’s right, you are a Republican.
MUELLER: Have been all my life. So are Rod Rosenstein and Chris Wray. We’re rock-ribbed members of the Grand Old Party. Accent on “Old”.
ME: So, are your fellow Republicans correct? Is it time to wrap this thing up?
MUELLER: First of all, not every Republican wants to end this investigation. There are still quite a few in Congress who want to see it play out and justice be done.
And between you and me — many of my fellow Republicans won’t say it publically, but they’d love to have me indict Trump and his whole White House mafia so I’ll rid them of the disaster they helped to create.
ME: I see, but…
ME: But Trump and Giuliani are certain you haven’t found any evidence of collusion.
MUELLER: Collusion? I don’t give a fig about collusion. I’m running down a conspiracy: a criminal conspiracy. And it’s a big case.
It’s like a vast all-you-can-eat buffet. There’s so much perjury, malfeasance, chicanery, money laundering, petty grifting, influence peddling, and conspiracy to defraud the American electorate that you simply can’t pile it all on your plate. You can’t digest it all in one meal. If I tried to ingest this immense, illegal feast all at once – I’d explode like Mr. Creosote in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life.
ME: What about Trump and his allies calling for an investigation of the origin of your investigation?
ME: Putin?
MUELLER: Trump’s mysterious man crush.
ME: Okay. Trump’s relationship to Putin is notably homoerotic – but let’s stay on point…
MUELLER: And your point is…?
ME: Are you going to indict President Trump for conspiracy with the Russians to manipulate the vote in the 2016 elections?
ME: Well, when?
MUELLER: Look. Here’s the thing. Because of what Comey did during the last Presidential election, I have to be careful. I can’t make any kind of public statement that might affect the mid-term elections.
ME: You can’t?
MUELLER: No. Think about it. If before this year’s critical midterms, I laid out the litany of crimes that I intended to charge Trump and his mendacious mob with — there wouldn’t be a Republican elected dogcatcher outside of Wyoming and the Dakotas.
ME: Would that be so bad?
ME: Is there any way you can tell us more about what you already know? Must we rely on Michael Avenatti to keep us informed?
MUELLER: I love Avenatti! I wish I could be like Mike!
ME: Really?
MUELLER: Of course! Mike’s a bull in the china shop. I can’t behave that way. But without giving away the whole game, I’m sure he and I will end up in the same place.
ME: Are you saying that President Trump and his minions are guilty?
MUELLER: Guilty of what?
ME: Of criminal conspiracy and everything else!
ME: Wow!
MUELLER: And to make money and effect policy during – and after — the campaign.
ME: That should be revolutionary!
MUELLER: It should be. But it may not be.
ME: Why not?
Donald Trump is a cheap criminal. And I’ve got the goods on him — in spades. I can’t wait to bring the hammer down on this un-Presidential prick.
ME: You don’t sound very objective…
MUELLER: I’m completely objective.
ME: So, do we American lovers of democracy have anything to fear in the near future?
MUELLER: A low turnout in the midterms.
ME: Why so?
MUELLER: Because, you liberal morons, if you don’t elect a Democratic majority in the House, they’ll never impeach Trump — let alone convict him in the Senate.
ME: Oh….
MUELLER: Sorry, I’ve gotta go. Jeff wants to push our breakfast meeting by a half hour (he’s texting Trump) – and move it from Denny’s Diner to the nearest Waffle House.
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