LeBron James brought this on himself.

The ridicule, the scorn, the unabashed delight seemingly everyone outside of South Beach is taking in his failure to win the NBA title - it's all on him.

When you make a spectacle of yourself and give the impression you're above everyone else, as James did with his shockingly tone-deaf "Decision," you have to back it up. Not only did James not live up to the hype he predicted, his ineffectiveness when it mattered most showed that his supporting cast in Cleveland might not have been the real problem.

"I think it all comes down to the play," said Steve Rosner, the co-founder of 16W Marketing. "He really did not play well in this final series. Everyone started reading articles comparing him to the greatest players in the game. Really, besides having some individual honors, he hasn't put his stamp on the game of basketball."

Harsh, but hard to argue with when the title bestowed on James and Co last summer wound up belonging to someone else.

There is no question James is a spectacular talent, a once-in-a-generation player who can do things that defy the imagination and the laws of physics. His back-to-back MVP awards in 2009 and 2010 were well-deserved, and with 17,362 points in his first eight seasons, he likely will be among the NBA's all-time leading scorers by the time his career ends.

Statistics have little weight without a championship to back them up, though, and James is now 0 for 2 in the NBA finals.

Accused of quitting in last year's playoffs with Cleveland, James responded with a ferocity this year, dragging the Miami Heat through the early rounds. He'd become a national pariah after abandoning his beleaguered hometown in humiliating fashion, and he played like a man who knew the only way to salvage his reputation was with a title.