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LeBron James ' first season as a member of the Miami Heat didn't end how he would have liked, and now will likely have a chip on his shoulder moving forward.
Despite James playing very efficiently during the regular season, as evidenced by his career high 51 percent clip from the field, his 26.7 points per game were his lowest output since his rookie season, but that is a direct result of having to share the ball with his new teammates .
However, his 7.0 assists per game were his lowest since 2006-07, and his free throw percentage once again moved in the wrong direction as he averaged a mediocre 75.9 percent from the stripe.
Regardless of what his averages were, numbers don't tell the full story. They can serve as a great tool that can help to illustrate a point, but never do they tell the saga in its entirety.
James had one of the more interesting campaigns that I've seen in a long time. After performing in typical fashion through the first 82, LeBron's staggered postseason performance is not something that we have seen a lot from him in the past.
After looking downright dominant in the first three rounds of the playoffs, James disappeared from the final round vs. the Mavericks looking like he was completely uninterested in asserting himself and instead constantly deferring to a white-hot Dwyane Wade.
His 17.8 scoring output was well under what we're used to from James. He didn't play the same type of lock down defense that we saw from him in the previous rounds, and he simply fell short of the massive expectations that were heaped upon his shoulders.
But James could have had a quadruple-double and he still would've received the same criticism that he has thus far without securing the ring.
The LeBron resentment started long before the regular season even started. Unlike every season as a pro, there were serious expectations placed on James.
Don't misinterpret that. During his tenure in Cleveland, everyone knew what the former no. 23 was capable of doing.
Having said that, not many realistically expected his Cavs team to compete for a championship. James was viewed as a one-man show no matter what players complemented him on the ever-changing Cleveland roster.
With all of the moving pieces that former general manager Danny Ferry brought to town, the chemistry simply wasn't there for James to ever really build and grow with the group around him.
By signing in Miami as a free agent, James really set off a lot of people who perceived it as the cheap way out in the pursuit of a title.
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But is that really what it was? For the first time in James' career, he went through the recruiting process. He had the ability to map out his own path in the pursuit of winning and establishing a real legacy defined by championship rings.
And instead of applauding him for wanting to win, the public tore him down.
This is not in defense of LeBron. There were certainly mistakes made along the way.
We know he is not a master of rhetoric and articulation. Beginning with "The Decision", followed by his welcome party to South Beach and ultimately his post-game press conference after losing the finals were all key examples of how James could have avoided a lot of the criticism that he received.
At the end of the day, James simply wanted to land in a spot that gave him the best chance to win at a high level for a very long time.
And he did.
Coming off of the finals loss, James now faces true professional adversity for the first time in his career. After promising multiple titles before the club even went through a practice together, James now needs to stand and deliver.
Joining a new team meant welcoming in an entirely new set of expectations, and after his MVP performance during his days in Cleveland, James is expected to go above and beyond what he accomplished previously.
The bar has been set incredibly high, and whether that's fair or not is a moot point considering that public opinion of him won't change in the public sphere.
James now has a giant chip on his shoulder heading into his next season with the Heat, and it's fair to say that he's going to be a lot more motivated after the beating that he took in the media after Miami's conclusion to the season.
Now that he's got more than enough bulletin board material to use as motivation, it's entirely up to him to define his legacy as a basketball player from this moment moving forward.
At just 26 years old, James still has plenty of time to define how he is viewed and remembered as a basketball player.
It's time for him to speak with his game rather than his mouth.
That's how he'll silence his critics.
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