Like Elway, LeBron won’t be defined by championship losses

Remember when the Lakers got destroyed by the Celtics in the finals, and Kobe's legacy was supposedly in the trash can? Remember a few years later, when the Lakers won two straight titles and Kobe was suddenly considered almost at Michael Jordan's level? Legacy is flexible -- it's prone to change at any moment's notice. If you run into a burning building and save an innocent woman, that's probably going to be what we remember about you by. Your legacy is that you're a hero. But then, suppose you decide to raft down Niagara Falls in an innertube, and you plummet to your death. Well, your legacy's changed, hasn't it? Yeah, you saved that woman. But who cares! You're an idiot, and your death was way more interesting anyway.

"Legacy" is a word that'll get tossed around a lot this week now that the Heat have been eliminated. Analysts will be lining up in droves to tell us that LeBron's legacy took a serious setback on Sunday, and that his placement among the pantheon of NBA greats is now lesser because of it.

The l-word is thrown around so often these days with so few people realizing what the point of having a legacy is. If the Rapture happened today, and your final impression of LeBron James was him floundering on the biggest stage of his life, then yes, his legacy would be very low in your eyes. But legacy isn't for the people in today's world. It's for the people in tomorrow's world. Legacy is how we look back at someone once we have a full, complete appreciation of what they did; trying to predict what it is beforehand is nonsense. After all, if LeBron James died in a Niagara Falls accident tomorrow like Ed Delahanty did, wouldn't that be his legacy? Wouldn't a mysterious, fluky death like that to one of the biggest names in the world come to define him more than his entire career did? Case in point: name one other thing you know about Ed Delahanty. Name one thing about Jimmy Hoffa that's more compelling than his sudden disappearance. It can't be done.

Granted, James didn't exactly help himself with his performance in Game 6. But one bad game, or even a bad series won't define him if he wins even one championship. Magic Johnson made a plethora of crunch-time mistakes in several 80's playoffs series, enough that people started calling him "Tragic Johnson." And yet whenever we see a highlight of Johnson, it's of him converting that junior sky-hook to clinch a sweep over the Boston Celtics. His legacy now? In a word, clutch. (At least as far as Magic Johnson the basketball player is concerned. His personal legacy is a whole different story.)

As hard as it is to accept, James' second career defeat in the finals won't deprive him of his deserved place in history. After all, many people believe that John Elway is the greatest quarterback who ever played in the NFL, and Elway lost in the Super Bowl three times before he finally won. In fact, that's even understating it. Elway got his ass kicked three times in the Super Bowl, by 19, by 32 and by 45. Elway is considered one of the clutchest QB's ever, but orchestrating "The Drive" alone wouldn't have meant much if he never won a championship. Today, James is a choke artist. But a year from now, if the Heat win the NBA championship, his 2007 performance against the Pistons, scoring 29 of the last 30 points in a crucial playoff game, will be his "Drive," as will the way he closed out the Bulls in this year's playoffs. If Elway could overcome three separate ass-kickings in the Super Bowl and still be one of the best ever, LeBron, who's only 26, can certainly do the same.

I mean, would you want to bet against him? The man does have Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh after all. He's acknowledged as the top player in the game and is in the most stacked lineup in the league. There's a pretty good chance his legacy will include a lot of celebrating. Let's not bury his legacy just yet when the corpse isn't even cold. Let's leave the legacy-ing to the next generation, and let LeBron James define it for himself rather than trying to guess it.