LeBron James: Malingering, pampered star, or victim of the silent, pervasive racism that prevails in America each day?

Well, that escalated quickly.

Somebody turns up the heat in an arena to brick pizza oven levels, a guy gets a cramp that won’t quit, and suddenly he’s poster man for everything in the world that’s soft, overprotected and unwilling to die for a cause.

We’ve lost our minds.

James, star of the two-time (“Not three … not four … not five …”) defending NBA champion Miami Heat, is the most polarizing dude in sports. And yes, it’s a sad commentary on how unnecessarily argumentative our society has become that the word “polarizing” is so often used.

Perhaps it’s because of the self-absorption implied within those parentheses. If the foolishness of “The Decision” didn’t alienate most of us who were already mourning the death of team sports, the full-on rock concert celebrating the Heat’s near-simultaneous signing of James and Chris Bosh alongside mainstay Dwyane Wade finished the job.

We grumbled that the 1980s Celtics, Lakers or Pistons and 1990s Bulls wouldn’t have dreamed of such look-at-me lunacy to celebrate the accomplishment of absolutely nothing, and we were right. But the world has changed. For better or worse, it has.

Yet the comparisons keep coming. Fueled by ex-wannabe-jocks on ESPN morning shows and millions of paunchy thinkalikes, the new favorite hobby among NBA fans of a certain age (shockingly there remain a few in captivity) is comparing James negatively to Larry Bird.

This pointless, Back to the Future-ish argument got underway long before James and Miami wilted under the San Antonio, er, Heat in Game 1 of the NBA Finals. It started mid-playoffs. So it took all of 5.8 seconds after James’ failure to close the deal Thursday night for the LeBron “haters” (again, an excessive, all-too-2014 term) to roll out footage of Bird and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar sweating their short-shorts off during the 1984 Finals at Boston Garden.

Anyone who has spent more than 15 minutes in a critical thinking class knows these are called logical fallacies. It’s foolish rhetoric and an exercise in futility to compare any athlete to another athlete who did his best work before the current star was born.

We do it anyway, of course, out of need. The need to fill precious time. Or the need to validate our formative years as the best freaking era to grow up in America, ever, and don’t you forget it, buster.

We’re comparing things that weren’t meant to be linked. You can’t summon Doc Brown and the Flux Capacitor and find out how Bird would guard James in 1984 or how James would handle Bird’s incessant trash talking, no-look passing and step-back perimeter perfection in 2014. It just doesn’t happen.

Also, whether or not you believe in the concept of evolution as it’s taught in secular parlance, human growth and development is a thing. The athletes of today are simply bigger, stronger and faster.

People approach the LeBron vs. Larry debate as if that doesn’t matter. James’ supporters gloat that his sheer athleticism would reduce Bird to smithereens. Of course it would. Bird’s backers believe his mental toughness and chess-champion ability to think three moves ahead of the guy guarding him would leave James crying in his Powerade. Of course it would.

We can’t put LeBron in a 1984 body. Not built like an NFL tight end, in other words. We also can’t make Larry grow up in an era when the grasp of fundamentals and gym-rat work ethic arguably are in shorter supply.

I can’t be bothered with such silliness. What I can do is look at the comparison that truly matters in the here-and-now — Heat vs. Spurs — and see that San Antonio is the team that’s a lot closer to embracing the sensibilities of 20th century team basketball.

That could open a whole different can of worms. But then, I guess a Tim Duncan-Kevin McHale debate just isn’t all that sexy.

Here’s a better idea: How about we celebrate the past, appreciate the present, and understand that somebody will come along in the future who inspires us to reminisce about both Bird and James … and Jordan, and Magic, and Chamberlain, and Russell.

Isn’t that why we watch? To appreciate greatness in all its forms?

Or maybe it’s more fun to be absorbed in the moment to the exclusion of all preceding moments, and to overanalyze the motives of anyone who believes differently. Maybe sports and intelligent discourse really are dead.

If that’s the case, you’ll have to excuse me from the discussion. I feel a cramp coming on.

Kalle Oakes is a staff columnist. His email is koakes@sunjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @Oaksie72.

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