The word “legacy” is in continuous circulation in commentary on athletes demonstrably capable of elite performance, especially in cases wherein the player has had some measure of on-court or -field success but failed to Win It All—think NFL quarterbacks John Elway or Dan Marino—and here’s where things get a bit confused:
a) Of course it is: you play the game to win!
But then,
b) Of course it isn’t: Marino’s still Marino—recipient of fierce ovations when he’s captured court-side at the Heat’s American Airlines Arena, regardless of the legacy-deflating reality that he never won a Super Bowl; Elway was inarguably great before the two late-career championship victories (bolstered by a power running-game) solidified his “legacy.”
Well wait a second: which is it? Do you play the game to win, or do you play the game to play it well, and must these two ultimate aims be linked?
The reason this question should be central to any discussion of James is that the criticism directed at him every time he passes up the contest-closing shot presumes the answer must be: winning equals playing well. Playing well is winning. Period.[4]
[4] Thinking in particular of the heavy criticism when LeBron passes to wide-open teammate Udonis Haslem during a statistically uncritical contest this season against the mediocre Milwaukee Bucks, which was about as well-executed a basketball play as I've seen, the so-called right play, a perfect pass to set up a shot much easier than the one LeBron would've had to take if he'd elected not to pass, only Haslem missed, which meant that LeBron was afraid of the Moment; compare, meanwhile the two obscene pull-up, fall-away jumpshots against the Bulls late in games during last season's Conference Finals that ultimately earned James' Heat wins but were terrible shots. If they hadn't dropped—and this kind of shot just doesn't always go down, not for James, not for Kobe, not for good old Michael Geoffrey—then you could argue with validity that James was playing worse basketball in the latter case, when his team won, than he was in the former, when it lost. . . .