NBA Playoffs 2012: LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and the Need for Change

As I watched the Heat surpass the Celtics to take a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference Finals, I couldn’t help but consider how far this league has fallen. More importantly, though, I couldn’t shake a sudden feeling of discontempt I experienced with regards to LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. They have both fallen over the past year themselves.

James has gone to great lengths to improve his image since he left Cleveland, and it’s become apparent he has changed, just not in all aspects of his demeanor. The same goes for Wade, who really had no image to repair and is now just tainting what was once deemed one of the most genuine images in the league.

I’m talking of course abut Miami’s questionable tactics throughout games, tactics that are blatantly assisted by the referees because, well, these are two of the greatest players in the game.

Watching Wade essentially hang his own foot on Kevin Garnett wasn’t sickening, until the whistle blew. And watching him smack Rajon Rondo in the face didn’t warrant any disconcertion, until the realization came that no whistle blew.

This is how far the league has fallen. James and Wade clearly get calls to go their way that shouldn’t. And while some would argue this is the case for all superstars, it’s not, not to this degree at least.

You rarely see Kevin Durant flop or lean into someone to draw a foul. More importantly, though, he’s not an incessant whiner. Even the arguing legend that is Kobe Bryant doesn’t moan as much as James and Wade do now.

And while it should be easy for anyone to shake this off, it’s not, because nothing is done about it. If a player like Amar’e Stoudemire, who has a history of complaining, voices his opinion, he’s given a technical. The same goes for Dwight Howard, Tyson Chandler and Joakim Noah, among others.

Why are James and Wade that different? We expect them to receive some sort of preferential treatment because of the stature they hold in the league, but Durant arguably commands more respect than Wade at this point, and you don’t see this happening to him.

Part of that is because Durant doesn’t put himself in those types of situations, but by the above-the-law standard that James and Wade have come to be viewed by, that warrants some free throws for Durant, and maybe even an ice cream cone after the game.

Now I could be mistaken. Perhaps Wade leans into people on accident. And I’m sure when both he or James fall out of play to have a heated discussion with the referee that they could, in fact, be talking about the best way to make a souffle.

But for some reason, and this is just me, I feel it’s more likely that their complaining about a no-call, the way many others do, but do so without getting reprimanded.

I’m not going to make excuses for the Celtics and claim they would have won had the calls that should have gone their way, gone their way. But I will say that referees, league-wide, need a reality check.

And so do James and Wade. It’s one thing to get calls like that from time to time, but it’s another to actively seek them and then get frustrated when they don’t happen.

Call me a Heat hater, but I’m not. I’m an advocate for hard-fought, fairly officiated competition, and I simply haven’t seen that in any of the Heat series’ this postseason.

This new form of preferential treatment needs to go; it’s time for a change. Condoning unsportsmanlike conduct should become obsolete.

And that starts with both James and Wade, playing the game that their incredibly good at, instrumentally revered for, like men.

For a change.