upon the king

this year's nba finals have been unbelievably engaging. last night the dallas mavericks won to take a 3-2 series lead back to miami. if you knew none of the subtext for this event, it's still unbelievably good spectacle. every minute, every possession, every motion, significant. if you know the subtext, the story is so much more compelling. i'm not going to offer much in the way of background. i simply want to focus on lebron james, aka, the king.

this morning i started thinking about shakespeare's second tertralogy, which climaxes with the much-recently-quoted, henry v (think, "once more into the breach" and "band of brothers"). for my money, the most arresting soliloquy from this final henry play is the upon the king soliloquy. there are a number of parallels in it to our nba king james.

the soliloquy is largely a plaintive protest; that of a man, a man who is king, but who is dressed in common soldier's attire, the night before the decisive battle at agincourt. hal (henry) muses painfully that there is little more to his being king, than the "ceremony", posturing, spectacle. to hal's mind, there is no other advantage to his regal position, and far less peace of mind.

the last part of the scene provides an even more interesting parallel. hal prays fervently for the success of his troops. he begs to be forgiven for the manner in which he obtained the throne (hal's father murdered the previous king, richard ii). yet, hal's monologue ends with a resignedly fatalistic capitulation:

Though all that I can do is nothing worth,
Since that my penitence comes after all,
Imploring pardon.

king james came to power through a back door similar to henry. with nothing more than a grown man's body in a teenager's lifespan, lebron was crowned conqueror. of the two main ways a man may become king, by force or inheritance, james' coronation was the latter.

within the past year, james polarized the basketball universe with his decision to join the heat, to take his talents to south beach, and all that. in the eyes of many, most disturbingly, the rabid, jersey-burning cleveland fans, king james is a betrayer, a judas, a turncoat, a benedict..., no matter how many donations to the poor he makes (think benefiters of the decision), no matter the contrition he may genuinely exhibit and offer, there seems to be a nascent and inevitably burgeoning flaw to the king james championship plan.

Not to-day, O Lord,
O, not to-day, think not upon the fault
My father made in compassing the crown!

picturing james in the hysterical maverick throng, beaten but not discouraged, ineffective but unapologetic, i am thinking about the weight of hal's verse; how james seems to wish he were a common soldier, like hal, costumed in the camp before agincourt's walls; what weight on king james' shoulders, despised and repudiated everywhere but in his own house; how entranced a world is to see if they are correct, if we know how to rightly crown a king, a conqueror.

to me, this story is largely a social one. for those that love and hate king james, what happens on sunday (and possibly tuesday) is as much about us as it is about james. it's a kind of reckoning, a test of the collective social instrument to evaluate and determine greatness. and to his infinite credit, it's all founded on the sturdy shoulders of a young man who seems to accept praise and hatred with equal measure, never blanching excuse or soliciting sympathy. it's beyond great spectacle at this point. the curling beak of fate has begun to tap incessantly at the chamber door while we, our lives, our souls, our debts, our careful wives, our children and our sins lay upon the king...

I know thy errand, I will go with thee:
The day, my friends and all things stay for me.