One of the finest installments of ESPN’s impressive “30 for 30 Series” is titled June 17, 1994. Following an unorthodox format of splicing a myriad of live television clips, it weaves together the strands of a memorable day in American sports and culture, highlighted by the pursuit and arrest of O.J. Simpson for the murder of his wife Nicole.

While not as dramatic, on the same date 25 years ago this week, June 17 marked the nexus at which multiple storylines collided and allowed the Cleveland Cavaliers to relaunch their wobbly franchise.

Though the term “relaunch” is a smidge of an understatement. What the Cavs did that day wasn’t so much revamp their team as create a new one.

June 17 was the date of the 1986 NBA Draft, and proved to be the only time in Cleveland sports history that draft day actually was what everyone hypes it up to be. In the span of a single day, the Cavaliers acquired a core of players that would personify the franchise well into the following decade while utilizing a new brand of leadership that had been missing for the previous decade.

While landing LeBron James in 2003 certainly altered the course of the franchise in a dramatic way and the upcoming draft certainly will leave its mark on team history, LeBron and whoever comes next are single players who were acquired with one stroke. Seventeen years earlier, the Cavs created a championship-caliber team with a myriad of interconnected motion not unlike the intricate inner workings of a pocket watch.

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In an effort to avoid adding my voice to the growing cacophony of psycho-analytical LeBronitorials coming out this week, I gave myself a tacky Father’s Day assignment, instead. “Just something simple about dads and sports,” I thought. And predictably, it wound up entirely about LeBron James. Bear with me, won’t you?

For all the relentless comparisons of James to basketball’s pantheon of all-time greats—Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan—one key point of distinction is rarely examined. It can’t be found in any stat sheets or game films. And it’s not quantifiable or even identifiable beyond the subtle recognition of something so deeply ingrained as to be almost primeval. It’s the “father factor”— a distinct motivational archetype generated and perpetuated (traditionally, anyway) by a masculine influence during childhood. It’s scientifically known as the “Make Daddy Proud Syndrome,” though it also goes by the more familiar and obnoxious “killer instinct” and “eye of the tiger.”

To those shouting sexism, note that the “eye of the tiger” is not passed down exclusively by dads, nor learned only by sons. It is, however, a trait more prevalent in males—tied to the prehistoric, testosterone-fueled territorialism that still pervades most Spike TV approved pastimes; be it chasing tail, drinking shitty beer, or picking fights in the parking lot outside Home Depot. Competitiveness—while initially an uncontrollable urge—is consciously nurtured from one generation to the next into a singular, steadfast, and often ill-advised drive to conquer—made all the more powerful by the child’s need to both appease and eventually surpass his good old dad. It tends to translate itself most successfully into two pursuits—politics and sports.

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The reactions to the Dallas Mavericks winning the NBA Championship, or more likely, the Miami Heat not winning the NBA Championship, are about as expected.  You can't just take a dump on an entire city and its fan base the way LeBron James did on Cleveland and not expect a little backlash.

And for however thoughtful James can appear to be at times, he does have a tendency to become his own worst enemy at just the wrong time, which only feeds the beasts.  His press conference afterward was classic James: poorly masked irritation mixed with a healthy disrespect for anyone who doesn't agree with him and wrapped in a giant tortilla of egomania.

It's true as James said that once those people who feel good about James losing will eventually have to return to their own lives filled with their own problems while James goes off and lives what he views as a better life.  But it's the underlying premise of it all that eventually will come back to teach him another hard lesson.

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"Crazy. Karma is a b****.. Gets you every time. God sees everything!"
-LeBron James
January 12, 2011

From the Associated Press:

With an unstoppable cosmic charisma and an indefinable power over the human spirit, Sunday night Karma captured its first major sports championship since 1984, defeating LeBron James in six games in the NBA Finals.

The victory was satisfying for long-suffering Karma, which was referred to as a “bitch” by LeBron in a widely publicized tweet last January.

“It’s not the first time I’ve been called that,” Karma said in a champagne-soaked locker room after Game Six Sunday night. “But I guess it was the first time I’d been called that by someone this famous who is truly incapable of comprehending what I stand for, but whatever.”

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