With rumors circulating that Lebron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh are colluding to join forces, most realistically in Miami, the only question I can think of is, why?

I know these guys are mainly influenced to attain multiple championships, but will Lebron, or Wade get the same respect as Jordan, Duncan, Kobe, and even Wade in ’06 for the championships they won, if they do so? I doubt it.

Let’s focus this whole topic on Lebron. Lebron wants to go down as an all-time great player, and he certainly has the talent to do so. There have been plenty of players that have been terrific in their career but failed to win a ring. Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, Tom Gugliotta (I’m just kidding about Googs), etc. Those players will always be known for being great, but unable to win the big one and will never be in the pantheon with Olajuwon, Duncan, Shaq, Thomas, and certainly not Magic, Bird, Jordan, Russell, and Wilt.

If Lebron never gets a ring it will be the story of his career, it will be a running joke how someone that good could never win a title. So I can understand if he wants to play with another superstar like Chris Bosh. It’s impossible to win one with the guys he has been trying to win it with the past four years. Jordan does not win anything without Pippen; same goes for Magic not winning without Kareem and Worhty, and Bird not winning without McHale and Parrish. Bottom-line is, no matter how great a player is they cannot win a NBA Championship alone.

So there is nothing wrong with Lebron trying to find his sidekick by possibly packaging himself with Bosh. But now he wants to play with Wade to? That’s like a merger between the CBS and FOX networks, they both have the TV rights for football, just like James and Wade are both ball dominant, super-athletic slashers.

The desire to try and stack an NBA team makes me think that James is scared. I’ve always respected his game, and for a long time I have thought he’s been the best player in the league. And the cliché ‘Jordan wouldn’t do that’ bores me whenever a columnist is judging a Lebron performance. But what great player in the game of basketball has reached out to another great player to play with? I’m not talking about a great player at the twilight of his career like what the ‘Big Three’ did in Boston, I’m talking about one in his prime. Dwyane Wade is in his optimal prime and is easily one of the three best players in the league. He’s not a sidekick like a Pippen, or a Drexler, that is essential to a teams success. Wade is the leading role. Part of being a competitor is wanting to take down the league’s elite, which Wade is certainly in that select few. Linking up with the elite is exactly why we have anti-trust laws in this country to prevent big fucking conglomerates from taking over.

I’m not even sure this would make Miami the best team anyway. The lack of compatibility of these three could backfire completely. In the early 2000’s where basketball was a 2-2 game, where you could just isolate your best player like Shaq’s Lakers did to win three titles, this team would be terrific. But now, the NBA is a team game again like it was in the 80’s (90’s was Jordan-dominated so team game didn’t really matter), and it has been the guys who have played collectively as a team to win the championship every year, since that Laker dynasty was crumbled by the Pistons in 2004.

The likelihood of this happening is slim, but if Lebron is serious about this then he is setting himself up for a ‘lose-lose’ situation. If they win it, every body will think ‘of course, why wouldn’t they, they’re stacked.’ But neither him nor Wade will get the respect of a Jordan, because of the illegitimacy of playing with a stacked NBA roster. And if they LOSE? Whoa! They will be considered the biggest chokers of all-time, whether it is taken in, or out of context.

Lebron just can’t win, even if he wins.