Nearly a year after we had The Decision, we need to have TheIncision.How else are we going to find out if LeBron James hasheart? Or guts? Or brains? 

Those things certainlydidn’t materialize on the hardwood of the NBA Finals, where Dirk Nowitzki andthe Dallas Mavericks stormedintoMiamiandtook, right from under James’s nose, that which LeBron has long desired butclearly has no idea how to attain—an NBA championship.

This was supposed to be the coronation of a King, but we found out that James isinstead an emperor with no clothes.

James fledClevelandlast summer, turning his back onhis hometown, conspiring with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh toform a trio of stars that LeBron saw as a fast track to a ring. His 2007Cavaliers were outclassed in the Finals by the San Antonio Spurs, and subsequent Cavs teams fell short of theLarry O’Brien Trophy, a round or two shy of the Finals, largely because of James’s confounding disappearing acts in the most crucial of times.

But all is forgotten and forgiven once you win. After you win the title, everythingprior to that is conveniently filed under “learning experience.” Sometimes youcan even manage to be portrayed as having lived a hardscrabble NBA life,culminating in that previously elusive championship, thanks to the requisiteblood, sweat and tears.  

LeBron James’s days of fooling eventhe foolish are over. He is fraudulent—a paper lion, if you will. He’s a playerwith shoulders that narrow and a heart that shrinks in the most important gamesof his life. He quit on the Cavs last year, “took his talents to SouthBeach”—and won’t those soon become some of the most notorious, inglorious wordsever spoken by a pro athlete?—and tried to take cuts in line.

How much more moronic does Scottie Pippen look this morning?

Pippencaused a stir recently when he suggested that James might be better than even Michael Jordan—Scottie’s old teammate, six-time NBA champion and three-time Finals MVP.

Whatelse, Scottie? Saccarin is better than sugar? “Caddyshack II” was a better gift to motion pictures than its predecessor?

The Heat showed flashes of greatness in these playoffs, and James played OK forstretches of time. ButJordan’sjockstrap dwarfs LeBron’s hands.

James’ssupporters believed he would eventually take over one of the Finals games,loading the Heat onto his back and almost single-handedly beating the Mavs. Youknow, like how Michael Jordan did in big games.

Those folks are still waiting. 

“It’snow or never,” James tweeted after the Heat lost Game 5 inDallas.Well,“now” just left town. All that’s left is the booby prize of bad Karma.Shedno tears for the phony superstar who didn’t even have the decency to shakehands with his vanquishers following the 105-95 loss in Game 6 Sunday night.Cry not for James and his failed mission. Don’t you dare try to aggrandize hisquest by attaching to it even a shred of valor.

Jameswanted this. He wanted the biggest stage, once again, on which to showcase hisskills. He wanted to validate his place in the annals of NBA history.Well,he got it, and when the heat—pun intended—got ramped up, LeBron shriveled likenewspaper tossed into a fire.

Where WAS he, anyway? He missed a good series. As soon as you find his fourth quarterproduction, let us know.TheMavericks, on the other hand, played like the more desperate, more driven teamthat was truly on a mission, and they were. For five years, Nowitzki and JasonTerry have relived those awful memories of the 2006 Finals, when the Mavsdarted to a 2-0 series lead and had Wade’s Heat on the ropes in Game 3, beforeMiami stormed back to snatch the championship.Thatwas Dwyane Wade’s team then, and it still is, today. 

That’s what makes this Finals loss by the Heat all the more hilarious in its irony.

Jamesmade a mockery of his free agent choice last July with the whole made-for-TVthing as he slowly eviscerated the Cavaliers and their fans. But you want toknow the punch line?

James left Cleveland for Miamiand he did so to be a caddy for Wade.Don’t buy if someone tries to sell you that James’s decision was proof of histeam-first mentality—that he doesn’t need to be “the guy.”

It’s not that James doesn’tneed to be the guy—he doesn’t want to be. Which is just as well,because he’s incapable.

TheHeat are still Dwyane Wade’s team, but wait, there’s more.

It’s Wade’s team and yet LeBron James will get all the flak for this series loss, as he should.

Solet’s get this straight. James leaves Cleveland, where he was “the guy,” goesto Miami so he doesn’t have to be–so he can win a championship—and is stillexpected to be some semblance of “the guy,” but he’s derelict in that duty andgets all the blame normally assigned to “the guy.”

Some Decision, LeBron.

Jameshas lost on more fronts in this whole escapade than Custer did on his laststand.Jameswas a cockroach in the Finals—scurrying away as soon as the lights got turnedon.

Yet he still had a shot at redemption, despite the Game 5 loss inDallas. LeBron had, potentially, two chancesto rescue his legacy. Two chances to be something that he’s never really been:a clutch player who could kill, with one stone, the two birds of doubt and derision by lifting the Heat past the Mavericks in seven games.

James’scritics would have had a sweat sock stuffed into their mouths. No longer wouldthey have been able to say, “LeBron can’t win the big ones.”

Today,they not only can still say it, it’s going to shouted from therooftops—splashed all over the Internet and burning up the phone lines of allthe sports talk radio stations across the country. This isn’t going to blowover in a few days.

Despiteour fascination and fanaticism about sports, we still have a hard timeremembering the names of the teams who finish as the first runners-up in anychampionship round. It’s not that we can’t—just that it sometimes takes somebrain-racking.

Not so this time.

The Miami Heat won’tsoon live this one down, folks. Maybe not ever. History, me thinks, will be ina cranky mood when it passes judgment on the 2010-11MiamiHeat—the team LeBron James couldn’twait to join. The team that so easily seduced him, but that he alsodisappointed by leaving—during the NBA Finals.  

Until he wins a championship—andthere’s no guarantee that he ever will—LeBron James should go down as one ofthe most laughable “superstars” that pro sports has ever seen. He should godown as a less-than-brilliant, heartless, gutless player who managed to foolhis public even while hiding in plain sight.

But LeBron didn’t just fool them—he failed them.

His name doesn’t belong in the same sentence as Michael Jordan’s, unless it’s tocreate a grocery list of reasons why it doesn’t.