For all the changes LeBron James needed to endure to finally lift the championship albatross off his back, the toughest had to be the slow realization that his comfort zone had to be the 12-to-15 foot elbow game and low post. In the Miami Heat’s five-game NBA Finals win over Oklahoma City, James and his 6-foot-8, 250-pound frame crushed Thunder players like a freight train in relentless, forceful fashion. No longer was the three-time league MVP settling to hover around the perimeter, shoot difficult jump shots and orchestrate pick-and-rolls.

And yet, over his seven seasons with Cleveland and first with Miami, James was determined to make his mark on the perimeter, as a player who could take – and hit – low-percentage jumpers. As a historian of the game, James knew flash and flair is a selling point and that knocking down a tough, contested jumper looks more impressive than easily handling a smaller defender with his unseen specimen, bullying his way to the rim for a layup.

But all those years spent trying to play to his weakness hurt James. With a raw post-up game, James had been defended admirably by smaller players such as Jason Kidd, J.J. Barea and Jason Terry, an inexplicable situation given his size advantage. On the perimeter, he has always been a rhythm shooter, hitting a combined 13-of-48 three-pointers in his previous two Finals appearances. After two weeks of self inventory following the 2011 Finals, James understood he had to change. Mostly, his on-court game plan was not working.

“It took me to go all the way to the top and then hit rock bottom,” James told reporters late Thursday night, “basically, to realize what I needed to do.”

James admittedly had mental gaps to fill after last year’s Finals showing. He has repeatedly stated since before the regular season began that he was playing to prove people wrong a year ago – not with the drive, passion and love he displayed over most of his basketball career. James has crossed a mental plateau that only experience and failure prepared him for, but more than anything, he altered his style of play: No more taking what the defense gives, no more trying so hard to be a perimeter ace rather than putting to use a physique capable of overwhelming any defender in the world.

All along, teams were more than content allowing James to beat them from the outside as opposed to the paint. The strategy had been given credence over the years as James continued to hoist jumpers and exhibit an unpolished post game. Opposing players didn’t believe James checked out of games, C.J. Watson told me shortly after last season’s Finals, but some felt there was a crack in his armor, a hole in his offensive repertoire.

Now, that dent has been removed. Sure, James’ jumper carried him through stretches of this postseason, namely in the critical Game 6 win over the Boston Celtics as he went 13-for-19 from outside the paint and dropped 45 points. But he was more cold than hot from long-range in these playoffs, shooting 35.7 percent from beyond the arc. Ultimately, unlike previous playoff campaigns, his subpar shooting didn’t define him; there was no way he would let it.

James shot 47.2 percent from the field and 82.6 percent from the free throw line against the Thunder, an exquisite display of offensive prowess. Nevertheless, the most staggering statistic to come out of these Finals was the paltry 10-for-43 he shot from outside the paint, including 3-for-16 from three-point land. James still has room for growth before reaching the same class as Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Kobe Bryant, but his dominance en route to title No. 1 was uncanny.

It speaks to James’ greatness that he can shoot 23.2 percent from beyond the paint in the championship series, yet win Finals MVP and prove so convincingly that he’s the best player in the world.

Furthermore, this was the first year James implemented his low-post game with such dedication. He worked hard on that facet of his game, training with Hakeem Olajuwon last summer, and he will undoubtedly put in another offseason’s worth of effort on his back-to-the-basket regimen. At the age of 27, James’ ceiling likely still hasn’t been seen, as scary a thought as that may sound.

“He’ll only get better down [in the post],” Dwyane Wade said.

Remarkably, James missed all five of his shots from outside the paint in the title-clinching Game 5 win. Instead of continuing to shoot jumpers, though, he gracefully attacked the rim – constantly meeting and surpassing shot-blocking big man Serge Ibaka or physical center Kendrick Perkins at the rim – made a living in the low post against Thabo Sefolosha, James Harden and Kevin Durant and dropped assists left and right off ferocious drive-and-kicks. On the other end, he held Durant to an empty 32 points while finishing with 13 assists to Durant’s three.

James’ all-around excellence were on full display in these Finals. He controlled the entire court, the entire series, and showed just how wide the gap is between him and others. Clearly, James needed to grow from within, but most of all, it took a willingness and commitment to post up, an area he showed arrogance toward in past seasons, by all accounts. All across the board, James admittedly had to approach the game with an open mind.

“I knew what it was going to have to take, and I was going to have to change as a basketball player … to get what I wanted,” he told the assembled media. “It happened just one year later.”

Finally, the most impressive specimen the sport has seen since Wilt Chamberlain decided it was time to stop attempting to prove people wrong, that a change was desperately needed. The days of James playing to his weaknesses appear to be behind him. He had to make plenty of decisions to reach the high point of his career, but none were bigger than the commitment needed to utilize his special frame to destroy opponents in the low post.