LeBron James is everything Philadelphia wants. And everything it can’t stand | Bryan Armen Graham
The helicopter detail is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. In Philadelphia, arriving by chopper from Manhattan is practically a declaration of war, like showing up to a construction site in a tuxedo. And yet the city is embracing him anyway, which tells me something about the limits of its famous authenticity obsession. Winning has a way of making people forgive almost anything.
I think the deeper story is about how we've convinced ourselves that commitment is a moral virtue rather than a practical one. Philly fans want to believe their athletes suffer the way they do, that the grind is shared. But the truth is, the best players have always lived in a different world. The city's whole identity is built on a fiction that the superstar was never going to buy into. That doesn't make the love fake, it just makes it complicated.
What I'd want to know is how this plays out when he has a bad stretch. The honeymoon is easy. The real Philadelphia test comes in February, when the novelty fades and every missed free throw gets read as proof he never cared. That's when we'll see whether this city can love a player who was honest about his lack of enthusiasm, or whether the old instinct wins.