Jordan-esque isn’t Jordan

Just what is it we were supposed to be witnessing, again?

As anyone who has seen those Nike-themed banners (RISE UP, WE ARE ALL WITNESSES) or the most recent of his seven Sports Illustrated covers knows, this is the Age of LeBron, in which he finally succeeds Michael Jordan.

There’s just one problem: We knew Michael Jordan and this isn’t him.

Little as it’s understood, it’s possible for LeBron James to be a dazzling young player without ever becoming as good as Jordan.

It’s also possible for James to go belly-up in the NBA Finals against the San Antonio Spurs and still be a dazzling young player, burdened by a mediocre Cleveland Cavaliers team that’s overmatched at this level.

James’ 48-point breakout in the Eastern Conference finals was deemed “Jordan-esque,” the way to compare players to Jordan, without saying they’re actually as good as Jordan.

(Everyone figured out long ago that direct comparison was impossible. Jordan won six titles and five MVPs; who on the horizon has a chance of matching that?)

Wrote Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News: “James is the one player on the planet who can make the NBA as big as [David] Stern says it is and wants it to be again.”

In that case, the NBA will just have to stay the size it is.

James was merely LeBron-esque in the Game 6 clincher against Detroit, scoring 20 points but making three of 11 shots.

He was clown-esque in his Finals debut, when he wasn’t even in double figures midway through the fourth quarter with the Spurs leading by 18.

Actually, the most Jordan-esque thing about James isn’t James but his supporting cast.

Jordan joined a ragtag team (Orlando Woolridge, Quintin Dailey, Wes Matthews, Ennis Whatley, Dave Corzine), although by his fourth year the Bulls had Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant, the nucleus that would win their first three titles.

James joined a ragtag Cavaliers team that has been only modestly upgraded four years later.

Of course, they are here, but that’s easy to explain. They’re in the East. It was dismayingly clear all season that one of those schleps had to be here.

Even before Game 1, writers were asking if the Cavaliers were the worst team ever to make the Finals. (Other nominees included the 2002 New Jersey Nets, who were swept by the Lakers, and the 1999 New York Knicks, who finished 25-25 in the lockout-shortened season but actually won a game against the Spurs.)

Putting an exclamation point on this calamity, TV ratings, which were expected to hold up for one game, anyway, in the Finals to see what James could do, cratered ahead of schedule, drawing the lowest number ever for an opener in prime time.

Who knows, maybe it was the scintillating play (it was 25-22 midway through the second quarter) or the fact that James didn’t make a field goal until the third.

Nor are ratings expected to rebound tonight unless James goes for another 48. That being unlikely, the media have asked the league to hook up HBO so reporters can see “The Sopranos” finale, which will be on during the game, on the TV monitors.

Of course, if something predictable happens, such as James being unable to lead his ragamuffins past the dynastic Spurs, everyone will go back to Plan B ... trashing James for not living up to their ridiculous hype.

People get on and off this particular bandwagon without seeming to notice, as if walking in their sleep.

Take ESPN.com’s lively Bill Simmons, who wrote after James’ 48-point game:

“This differed from vintage MJ simply because Jordan was never an overpowering physical presence.... Even last spring, when he was only 21 years old, I described a specific LeBron play in an NBA column that was unlike anything I’d ever seen.... For comparative purposes, the only athlete who worked was Bo Jackson. And that’s been the challenge for LeBron these past 12 months -- finding his inner Bo, learning how to channel it, figuring out the right times to unleash it.”

On the other hand, this was Simmons on James at the All-Star break:

“Will he become the basketball version of Eddie Murphy, Britney Spears, Michael Jackson and every other celeb who became famous too quickly and eventually burned out? ... I had four conversations with connected NBA people over the weekend that centered around the same themes: LeBron isn’t playing nearly as hard as he did last season; it looks like his only goal right now is to get his coach fired; he’s regressing.... He’s been protected by magazine fluff pieces and buddy-buddy TV interviews for far too long; he doesn’t have the same relentless drive to keep dominating everyone like [Dwyane] Wade and Kobe [Bryant]; and basically, we’re much closer to LeBron re-enacting the career arc of Martina Hingis, Eric Lindros and Junior Griffey than anyone realizes. This will evolve into THE dominant NBA story of the next two months. You watch.”

Aside from reminding you to discount most of what you read, the real problem isn’t any failing by James but the league with its awful East-West tilt and with Greg Oden and Kevin Durant ticketed for the Pacific time zone.

The answer would be to seed the final four, the elite eight or the whole shooting match. David Stern still pooh-poohs it but without his old scorn, even noting, “If there are people who think we should look at it, we’ll look at it.”

Translation: Two more turkeys and you got it.

Of course, this series just started, but you can already hear faint gobbling.

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mark.heisler@latimes.com