Cavaliers coach David Blatt compared LeBron James to Moses — in terms of what the two figures mean to their respective team/people. And Blatt made the loaded comparison in Israel, of all places. Blatt’s analogy obviously drew some attention. James is already nicknamed King James after the most famous version of the Bible this side of Gutenberg, so he’s used to basking in biblical light. But Blatt blatantly couched his comparison in “promised land” terms, essentially saying James would lead the Cavs out of the NBA desert.
Now there is precedent for this, but it’s not in the Old Testament. When David Blatt was at Princeton University in the early 80s, the closest team geographically to Princeton was the Philadelphia 76ers. After years of coming close to a title, the 76ers went out in 1982 and signed an actual basketball Moses — Moses Malone — to take them to the promised land. He promptly did so, with the 76ers winning the 1983 NBA title — in the first year Moses Malone was with the team. Blatt surely had echoes of the Moses Malone legend in mind when he mentioned LeBron’s desert rescue plan for Cleveland.
