My food, your thoughts

From today's ESPN.com, an all-Wade Daily Dime makes the following somewhat brilliant point:

The wise men always told us the next Michael would not be manufactured, that he would just burst upon the scene without aid from the media's overzealous hype machine.

"Just let it happen," they said calmly as everyone from Harold Miner to Kobe Bryant was anointed as "Next."

As much as I am prone to get swept away by the hype machine (often under the guise of simply tracking the hype), this is worth considering. Not like Jordan didn't come into the league with his fair share of fanfare, but he was pretty much thought of as a dunker (the lazy take on Wade, too). No one's going to convince me that LeBron isn't a once-in-a-lifetime talent, but then again, Magic and Jordan once walked the same earth.