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"FacebookPinterest\n\nDirk Nowitzki didn't do much last night. He was running a triple-digit fever, and according to Tyson Chandler, could barely speak in the lay-up line. It was his Flu Game, minus the impressive output, or maybe\u2014in solidarity with his fellow Germans\u2014his E.Coli game.\n\nStill, Dirk remains the single most important player on the Mavericks, perhaps in this entire postseason. He's also been pretty much beyond reproach, which is a strange place for us to find him. Nowitzki has spent most of his career under scrutiny. He was forever suspect, built up and torn down with alarming regularity. In the playoffs, his bad games and good games balanced each other out, nebulously.\n\nWe have Dirk to blame for this. Not anything he did, but who he was: a spry, pristine shooter who stood over seven-feet and moved with a Bjorg-like fluidity. There was always the nagging question of his ceiling\u2014what Nowitzki could do. No one knew the answer to that one. At the same time, basketball convention held that a man so tall should be able to hunker down in the paint, gnash his teeth, and lower his center of gravity like a weapon. Dirk's first coach, Don Nelson, was preoccupied with chasing that first part: potential whose only reward was more potential.\n\nWhen Nellie was replaced by assistant Avery Johnson, Dirk was instructed to play bigger, tougher. The Mavs made the Finals in 2006; in 2007, Dirk was even nastier, awarded the MVP for meeting our most obvious expectations. Of course, Dallas's loss to Golden State in the first round made the whole thing, including Dirk's supposed transformation, ring hollow. He had entered the actual and, for his troubles, was cursed.\n\nWith LeBron James, that split is frustrating both ways. James still has the capacity to astound us, but it's also turned into a burden. We never quite knew what to make of Dirk, which made it okay to stop, stare and wonder. He was an imaginary number in action. LeBron seems like the perfect basketball player, or at least a being stamped hot by Perfection herself. It's excruciating to be reminded that he's mortal, or realize that a man built to play basketball couldn't possibly do everything.\n\nAs a matter of identity and style, certain decisions must be made, paths taken, and moves developed. Perfect isn't the same as infinite, and LeBron isn't either of these. He isn't Dwyane Wade; he doesn't attack like Wade, and isn't nearly as harrowing off the dribble. Wade's been given the role of closer because it makes sense, and yet somehow, that casts doubt on everything we want to believe\u2014and feel in our gut\u2014about James. Wade is in the mold of Jordan, both in personality and game. To crib the easy analogy, that makes LeBron into Scottie Pippen. Some people simply can't accept that the Pippen-esque marvel could be better than the Jordan-ish guard, since Jordan is the greatest, and Jordan-esque equals best.\n\nLeBron's lack of post play, on the other hand, isn't nearly as complicated. It's the material, to the flawed ideology of the comparisons to Wade and MJ. Given his size, need for some scoring tools in the static half-court, and clear mismatch he presents to just about everyone, this isn't bad faith (like, say, Dirk's Big Man phase). James can stay James, and keep all the old arguments alive, while becoming a far more complete version of himself. That's what Dirk has done this postseason, thriving at 15-20 feet away from the basket and combining precision with abandon. James will never be Wade, but that's because he's into other things. A post game, though, wouldn't be contradictory. It would allow us to see him better for who he really is.\n\n\u2014Bethlehem Shoals\n\nShoals is the founder of FreeDarko.com and the co-author of The Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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