James and Earnhardt finally getting their due

In the past 10 days, we have seen LeBron James and Dale Earnhardt Jr. get their due in a positive manner.

After nine years in the NBA, James finally has a league championship to his credit after he led the Miami Heat to a five-game series win over the Oklahoma City Thunder.

I was actually one of the few outside of the Miami area that wanted the Heat to win the series because I just detest the Thunder which are darlings in the NBA Marketing machine. 

Meanwhile, Earnhardt ended a 143-race, four year streak by winning the Quicken Loans 400 at the Michigan International Raceway.

Earnhardt had a chance to win the Toyota/Save Mart 350 this past Sunday but he was in a wreck with two laps remaining and had to be content with finishing 23rd.

It was great for these individuals to finally reach an accomplishment that seemed out of reach, but in the end they were still successful.

James had already put himself in a position to enter the Basketball Hall of Fame after he retires in the early 2020s and Earnhardt has done a lot more in the NASCAR world than being the son of a legend. 

Many people in sports journalism were under the opinion that the careers of the above as well as many others meant zip, zero, nada, nothing because they didn’t have a ring.

I am sure these guys would have loved to be part of a champion but they still had to do something to either be individually relevant or help to keep their teams in a state of relevance and to be competitive for said awards.

James has always been blamed for making a bad pass or taking a bad shot in the past, but it seems to me that  the Cleveland Cavaliers and Miami Heat do not sniff the playoff picture without him.

As for Earnhardt and other members of the Hendrick Motorsports, if not for their past success Rick Hendrick would be selling used cars on some lot in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Don’t get me wrong, I like winning as much as the next person, but there is a limit to where I don’t believe it is the end of the world.

Right now we are in an economic situation that hasn’t a clear end, the end of the world is supposed to come before Christmas and progress has come to a point where a lot of things are obsolete.

Hopefully James gets a shot at another NBA title and Earnhardt wins another race while having a fantastic season on the circuit.

If neither happens then let’s hope the world doesn’t come to an end.