LeBron: Best in Show...Right Now.

Before you start reading this post, reach up to your eyes and remove the "I Hate LeBron" colored shades you might be wearing. I took mine off on Tuesday night. That allowed me to watch LeBron close out Game 4 that night, and then help orchestrate the greatest comeback/collapse in recent memory. I'm just waiting for the new NBA commercial..."The Eastern Conference Finals: Where 18-3 in the final two minutes and forty-five seconds Happens."

This is not the scene most NBA fans wanted to see.

It's well documented that Daily Onions has not been the biggest fan of the Miami Heat, LeBron James and Chris Bosh this year. We weren't impressed when LeBron lit up the Cavs in his first return, we knocked them when they cried after a regular season loss, we said LeBron couldn't close (which was valid), and we thought LeBron's apology to for The Decision AFTER he beat the Celtics was a day late and a dollar short.

Now I'm not going to go all Scottie Pippen on you and claim that LeBron James is the greatest all-around basketball player ever. That's just stupid, Scottie. I will say this though. LeBron James might be taking that next step. It's the step that he has been missing for the past 7 years. The step that is him putting his foot on the throat of the opponent, and closing something out. He did against Boston by scoring the final ten points of a game to seal it. He closed out the Bulls in Game 2, 4 and 5. Remember that suspect jump shot that he had, well it looked to be quite deadly last night with a couple of threes to get the Heat back into the game, and then the 18 foot pull-up jumper to give them the lead for good. Throw in what he did on the defensive end, shutting down this year's (well-deserved) MVP Derrick Rose in the last quarter of the final two games, pretty damn impressive (We'll get to Rose's struggles in a second).

You can hate the way LeBron James left Cleveland (we do), but if you truly enjoy watching the game of basketball on the court, what LeBron has done in the last two weeks has proven that he is hands down the best player in the NBA right now (Scottie, notice the two words "right now"). We've all witnessed him go through his growing pains over the last few seasons, but in this playoffs he's started to put it all together. Does the fact that he teamed up with Wade and Bosh to help get to this point rub me the wrong way? Yes. It does. Does his wink after the flop last night annoy me? Absolutely. But the skill, athleticism, and tenacity that he has had in the past few weeks, is all him. And its scary good.

As much as it pains me to say this, I think Miami beats Dallas in the Finals. I hate that part of this whole thing. Its bad for the future of the NBA. You get 2 super-duper stars on one team, throw in another all-star (I'll admit, Bosh had a pretty good series vs. the Bulls), and you can win in your first year of playing together. That pep-rally they threw in mid-July was just foreshadowing for what they'll do to celebrate in a few weeks. I don't like that part of it. I wanted LeBron to go head to head with Wade to see who was the best in the league, not team up with him to dominate the next few years. That's not happening, and now we need another super team to form and knock off the Heat (Dwight Howard, or a good shooting guard, if you are reading this, feel free to crash in our guest room while you are thinking about how to get traded to Chicago).

And now a few words about Derrick Rose. First of all, don't rip on Rose for taking a jumper at the end of regulation of Game 4. At that point in the game, there was NO WAY Rose was taking LeBron off the dribble to get to the rim. Either there needs to be a play drawn up where Rose is coming off a screen and catching on the wing, or you are living and dying by a pull-up jumper. Last night, the final three minutes of the game could have been Rose's worst three minutes of the season, or even career (minus a nice baby hook floater in the lane w/ 1:45 left). He fouled Wade on a breakaway layup for a 3-point play, he fouled Wade on a three for a 4-point play, he turned the ball over when the game was tied, and missed a free throw that would have tied the game with 25 seconds left. Before we take the MVP trophy away from him, let's remember this. First, his supporting cast let him down. Carlos Boozer might have replaced Chris Bosh at the top of the "Daily Onions Most Disliked Overrated Power Forwards with the initials CB" list. The Bulls aren't winning anything if Boozer is your next best scoring option. Secondly, Rose is 22-years old, and this was his first Eastern Conference Finals. Not many of the greats won at this age, or their first time around. Derrick Rose will be back to this stage (next year?) and he'll be better. The "only" bad thing is, so will the Heat.

Daily Onions Page 5: Celeb Sightings for NBA's Eastern Conference Finals

Instead of going to the New York Post's Page 6 to get your celebrity dirt and sightings, just come to Daily Onions Page 5 (its a page earlier, so its quicker to get to).

Between the Eastern Conference Finals featuring the Bulls and Heat, and some woman named Oprah filming one of her last tv shows, the city of Chicago has been buzzing with celebs from entertainment and sports.

While we didn't run into any of the Oprah crew, Daily Onions was running in the same circles as some sports notables last night.

With a college friend in town (Go Cuse!) covering the Heat-Bulls series, we've done our best to hit some of the best restaurants the Windy City has to offer. Last night it was Gibsons Steakhouse. A late reservation due to prior job #1 commitments meant we were entering a packed house at 9 pm.

Bosh Face

• On the way to our table we spotted Bears middle linebacker Brian Urlacher finishing up dinner with some friends.
• Following our own dinner, which included the avocado and crab meat appetizer (amazing), salad, filet mignon, side of mash and some strawberry shortcake to close things out (who's hungry now??), we rubbed shoulders with the Heat's top player in Game 1. Chris Bosh, who is known for the Bosh Face and for being a foodie, strolled into Gibson's at 11:15pm to sit down for dinner. I guess if you don't need to be at shoot around until 11 am the next day, you can start thinking about dinner plans around midnight.
• Working the bar at Gibsons as if it were the sideline of an NBA game, TNT's Craig Sager was missing his loud and eclectic collection of blazers, but he was rocking a pretty sweet zip up argyle sweater, with some multi-colored Nike sneaks (as a sneakerhead myself, I was impressed).
• We eventually moved from Gibsons to The Lodge (how can this night get any better - The Lodge - one of my favorite bars in the city). Holding court at The Lodge was TNT's Steve Kerr, who was laughing it up with some friends, most likely reminiscing about all the big shots he hit for the Bulls back in the day. Broadcast partners Marv Albert and Reggie Miller were nowhere to be found.

Ok, so maybe it wasn't Oprah's "Murderer's Row" of Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Madonna, Beyonce, etc; but for basketball fans following the NBA's Eastern Conference Finals, it wasn't too bad. Now we'll just need to figure out where Ernie, Kenny and Charles will be after the game tonight.

It's Too Late to Apologize

Congratulations, you now will all have OneRepublic's Apologize in your head for the rest of the day. But we're not here to talk about R & B hits of the last five years. We're here to talk about the week that was in the NBA for apologies. If you ask me, we were 0 for 2, striking out badly on both.

No place in the game for this

We'll start with Andrew Bynum of the Lakers. His flying elbow to the ribs of an airborne J.J. Barea can be summed up in two words: bush league. In fact, that is exactly the term ESPN's Mike Tirico (Go Cuse!) used to describe the play. With eight and a half minutes to play, and the Lakers trailing by 30, Bynum's forearm shiver earned him an ejection. He then proceeded to act like a 4-year old and took his jersey off as he strutted off the court. Who would have thought that Ron Artest would be the guy trying to calm down a teammate while escorting them off. Go figure.

Everyone in the world knows that was a dirty play. I have no problem with a hard foul when you are playing the ball. But throwing and elbow to the ribs when someone is in the air, not even coming close to making a play on the ball is flat out wrong. In Bynum's post game comments, he said, "We were getting embarrassed, they were breaking us down. So I just fouled somebody, I was just kind of salty about being embarrassed. ... For me, it was embarrassing to have the smallest guy on the court keep running down the lane and making shots."

Right, you were embarrassed. I get it. Still not a good enough reason for your actions. As your teammate Kobe Bryant said, "they played better than we did, so to make the game ugly like that where players could potentially get hurt, you don't want to see that happen ever. ... It's not something that you want to see happen in the game of basketball, ever."

The fact that Bynum didn't apologize for the dirty play after the game might be more ridiculous than the play itself. Don't give me the "players need a cooling off period after the game" line. Bynum was tossed with eight minutes to play, so he had plenty of time to "cool off". Instead, he waits 2 days, TWO DAYS, to come up with a prepared apology. Big thanks to his manager, agent, Lakers PR staff for help crafting that one.

Poor Decision: LBJ definitely didn't handle his exit from Cleveland the right way

Two days might seem like a long time for Bynum, but that's just small peanuts when it comes to LeBron James. Last night, after the Heat disposed of the Celtics in five games, LeBron James apologized for "The Decision". He didn't apologize for leaving Cleveland (and he shouldn't have to), but he apologized for "the way it happened". Well, first of all, that was your decision to do "The Decision". Secondly, that happened back in July. Now eight months later you are finally sorry about it? You beat the Celtics, so you are now sorry for it? What if the Heat would have lost to the Celtics this round, would LeBron not be sorry about the way it went down?

Here's what I think. I think LeBron knew within a week after The Decision, that is was a bad.....decision. He should have apologized then. Those advisors that were in his ear telling him The Decision was a good idea, should have come right back to tell him that was a mistake. Actually, he shouldn't need someone else to tell him what was right or wrong. He knew it was wrong, and he should have been a man about it much earlier. Don't want to apologize a week later? Fine, why not apologize  during training camp, or after his return to Cleveland, etc. Instead James decided to apologize after accomplishing something that he couldn't do in Cleveland with his teammates there. In my book, that's a cop out. You went and joined forces with a superstar and an annoying sidekick to take down the Celtics. So now you think its acceptable to apologize for the way things went down? That's what I call bush league.

One Shining "Moment"

As you've learned from 86 posts over the past 5 months, basketball and sports in general are a huge part of my life. If sports is my major, than history is my minor. In fact, I was a broadcast journalism major in college, accompanied by a minor in history. My interest for history probably stems from stories that my parents told my siblings and me growing up, about historical events from their childhood and early adulthood years; where they were when JFK was assassinated, etc. I remember taking great interest in JFK, Watergate and other historical events of the 60s and 70s, thanks to first hand accounts from my parents memories.

My generation had our first "moment" on September 11, 2001. We all can remember where we were, what we were doing, what we were wearing on that Tuesday morning that changed the world forever. Me, I was waking up to go to a morning class, was about to hop in the shower when a roommate alerted me to news coverage that a plane had hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center. Three hours later, I was still on the couch with that shower towel still wrapped around me (I had a pair of shorts on too - get your mind out of the gutter). As a journalism student at the time, I hit record on the VCR and watched Peter Jennings and company deliver the news throughout the day. It was the beginning of a new world that we would now live in.

Just over seven years later, I had another "moment." On an unseasonably warm night in early November, I joined a couple of my closest hundred-thousand friends at Grant Park in Chicago, to be a part of history, as Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States of America. That night brought a sense of hope, change, history, and it rejuvenated my interest in history and the politics of our country.

Obama, National Security Team and US Armed Forces get the job done (NYT)

That brings us to May 1, 2011. A normal Sunday night in the Daily Onions household: dinner on the grill, 60 Minutes, paying some bills, getting ready for the week to come. The First Lady and I decided to watch an episode of Friday Night Lights to end the weekend. At the conclusion of the show, there seemed to be nothing on TV, so I reverted to throwing on CNN. It was about 9:10 pm CST, and as we turned on CNN, we saw the report that POTUS would be speaking to the country at approximately 9:30 pm CST. The reports did not say what he'd be talking about, so I immediately took to Twitter to see what else I could find out. For the first 10-15 minutes, there was nothing substantial. Then as time went on, POTUS's speech was being pushed back and reports of Osama Bin Laden being killed and captured were being confirmed on Twitter. Moment.

I don't think I've refreshed Twitter as much as I did over the next two hours. I wanted as much information as possible - all my former journalism teachers/professors would be proud. Then, just as we waited on Election Night back in 2008, we waited once again to hear directly from Obama. Once again, he approached the podium with that swagger, and told us how things went down. Even the vague details of the secret mission and firefight gave you the chills. The speech was thoughtful, well-written and delivered nearly flawlessly. The final lines made me proud to be an American, and made me forget about the nonsense that has divided our great country over the past few months.

But tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to. That is the story of our history, whether it’s the pursuit of prosperity for our people, or the struggle for equality for all our citizens; our commitment to stand up for our values abroad, and our sacrifices to make the world a safer place. Let us remember that we can do these things not just because of wealth or power, but because of who we are: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. May God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.

Best Picture: FDNY (NYT)

Guaranteed those words will be put in the history books (will they still have books then?) that our children will be using in classes for years to come. Along with those words, they'll see all the memorable pictures from Ground Zero, outside of the White House and other locations around the country where crowds gathered to show their US pride. Just when you thought we'd have an entire post with no real sports mention, I have to talk about the fact that the crowd at the Mets-Phillies game broke out into a USA chant when they heard the news (in the 9th inning, with the score tied at 1-1.....wow), and that college campuses across the country acted as if their team had just won a National Championship. This is what our country should be about.

May 1st, 2011. The night that President Obama, Commander-in-Chief,  made the official announcement that Osama Bin Laden was dead. The night that POTUS gave new meaning to "walk-off" as he took the confident swagger back into the White House offices after delivering the news to the world. The night that all Americans collectively celebrated and said THANK YOU to all the US troops that have put their lives on the line, to ensure our country remains safe. Your time, energy, intelligence, courage, bravery and effort should be recognized and commended every day. May 1st, 2011. Another "moment" we'll be able to tell our kids about, thanks to the men and women that protect us every day.