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About LeBron

6/13/11

                LeBron James is probably the greatest athlete to ever wear a uniform in the NBA and yet he often fails to have "ice in his blood" at critical times like when the championship is on the line. 

Why is that?

                Is it because he is selfish, as some are saying? 

      Is it because he is narcissistic, as others assume? 

                Dirk Nowitski has received heavy criticism for fading in the clutch over the course of his career but he most certainly did not do that in 2011. What was the difference?

                Why do a small number of athletes have the ability to actually improve their play in clutch situations?

                I would suggest that in order to play without emotion, you have to play without emotion.  You can have a lot of grit and practice and practice and be in those situations and think and talk about it and then do OK, about 10% of the time, but to do it every time you have to actually have no emotion.

                Dirk experienced failure after failure and then worked really, really hard and was able to come through in the clutch.  I am certain that LeBron will do the same thing.  LeBron entered the NBA directly from High School and may not have ever experienced the kind of failure he just went through in 2011.  He will bounce back and he will most likely win some championships.  Dirk and LeBron are normal people who experience a full range of emotion and have to work really hard to be late game heroes.

                On the other hand, guys like Jordan, Montana, and Brady do it every time.  Perhaps, these guys really do have ice in their veins.

                There is a psychiatric condition in which individuals do not experience emotion that is related to perceived judgment by others.  That is, they do not have an increased heart rate or blood pressure when doing something that others will judge them for. 

                This condition is called Sociopathy.  It is also called anti-social personality disorder. 

                If you think about it, ours is the only species for which this would be an abnormality.  That is because we are the social species.  We care what others think.

                Sociability is a relatively recent adaptation and there are still a number of us who don’t completely inherit the genes to do it.

                Anti-social personality disorder occurs in about 14% of humans.  In prison populations the percentage is much higher.  It is often something like 50-80%. 

                As an analogy, our Scarlet Macaw is larger than our Yellow-Napped Amazon so she routinely dominates.  That means she physically assaults to get what she selfishly wants.  The Amazon is totally OK with that.  And expects it. 

                Parrots are social animals but not in the sense that humans are.  They have no complex language and they don’t behave in a truly altruistic fashion.  They are true sociopaths and, guess what...they would probably perform well in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl.

                Just because you are a sociopath does not mean that you will necessarily act in a sociopathic manner.  If you are successful and can negotiate life and get what you want, why would you upset the balance?  Also, you don't have to be a ten plus sociopath.  Maybe you just have some tendencies in that direction.  There is always a range of these kinds of human behaviors and there is often good and bad stuff associated with any kind of behavior.  

                It is possible that guys like Montana are highly successful sociopaths.  This is why they have no emotion in situations in which I would be soiling my pants.  (Just to be sure, I am talking about the possibility of guys like Montana and Jordan having some degree of sociopathy in their makeup for the sake of argument.  I have not evaluated them and have no idea of their underlying personality.)

                Therefore, I believe that all the negative press LeBron is getting is misguided.  He is a hugely talented player who is a good guy and has a normal emotional constitution.  I am not going to judge him negatively because the first time he was ever in a pressure packed moment he froze up.  Hey, his shorts were probably cleaner than mine would have been.

-Levystien

Post script-  June 2012-  Heat beat Thunder in NBA Finals and LeBron is MVP.

Post, Post script- June 2013-  Heat beat Spurs in NBA Finals and LeBron is MVP.  Oh yeah, he comes up huge at crunch time.

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