The London Lightning are moving on.

They are moving on not only to the National Basketball League of Canada championship, but moving on from their star player.

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They are saying goodbye to Royce White, a man who has turned into perhaps the most polarizing athlete the city has ever seen; a man who was instrumental in winning them a third National Basketball League of Canada championship last year; and a man who has put the Lightning and NBL in the national spotlight both in a positive and negative fashion.

Wherever White has been he leaves behind a maelstrom of opinion, a ragged emotional edge that leaves those who have been in contact with them feeling like they survived an event of some sort, whether fulfilling or traumatic.

White is without question one of the most interesting athletes to come through London. He arrived here carrying the reputation of a No. 1 NBA draft pick that took on a system that wouldn’t acknowledge mental health issues, and he leaves here solidifying his reputation as an enormously talented basketball player with a personality that refused to avoid confrontation; that was incapable of acknowledging the possibility that he might be wrong; and that kept controversies alive because of his belief in his arguments. The result — especially this year — were volcanic moments that publicly embarrassed the league and the Lightning.

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That’s not to say that White didn’t have valid arguments. Some of his points about the league were not only spot on, but need to be accepted as pillars of change if the league wants to move forward.

But his method of delivery did little to help his cause, on or off the court.

In keeping with White’s belief in himself and his way of advocating for himself, he doesn’t care what the league or anyone thinks of him. He continues to lament how prejudicial the league is to him and the Lightning; he continues to lament the league’s inability to deal with players like him, the outspoken superstar that’s clearly a step ahead of all other players.

Again, there is validity to what he says, but if you continue to beat a gong in someone’s ear, that person will eventually grow deaf and not hear what you want that person to hear.

There is much debate about whether the 10-game suspension for conduct detrimental to the league was an overreaction to the league, especially since it was spawned because White confronted NBL deputy commissioner Audley Stephenson publicly during Game 5 of the St. John’s Edge series. The official announcement indicated the suspension was about that confrontation, captured prominently on social media.

The reality is something different. White wore out his welcome. The accumulation of his on-court behaviour, criticism of the league and the officials led to the heavy suspension. No matter what the league says, it was not about one incident. What’s more telling is the Lightning’s refusal to appeal the decision. The league approved the suspension, and appealing might not have changed anything, but the appearance is that even the Lightning just wanted to put the incident behind them.

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Either it was too difficult for the Lightning to reel him in, or until things got truly out of control, they didn’t think to do it.

Short of the coaching staff becoming Jedi Knights and practising the Jedi mind trick on White, he was not going to conform to the strict structural mores of sports culture but continue to be his own man. That guaranteed more confrontations.

White was a key element to the Lightning’s success and none of his teammates would tell anyone anything different. But they felt the fallout from everything that came with White being White.

The Lightning had a great chance to win their fourth championship with White, but that doesn’t mean that chance ended with his suspension.

They’ve been without White through his four previous suspensions and when he took some time off in January; they won and played well in most cases. They can win without him.

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In Game 6 while eliminating the Edge, the Lightning looked more relaxed. There were fewer emotional outbursts, fewer moments of high anxiety outside of the pressure of winning a playoff game.

There was a sense that it was time to move on not only from all the controversy surrounding White, but also from the Edge series which evolved into something more than just two of the better teams playing to make the NBL final.

“It was good to finish it off,” said Lightning forward Ryan Anderson of the Edge series. “To my mind it was getting a little outside of basketball with the off-the-court stuff. It was kind of cool to be done with that so we can move on to the finals.

“It was tough but we’re battled tested with (Kirk Williams Jr., myself, Garrett Williamson, Marcus Capers.) Winning the championship is about who has the best team. One through 12 it’s whoever has the best team that is going to win.”

The Lightning will play the Halifax Hurricanes for the NBL championship. It will be the fifth time in the final for both teams. It will be the third time in succession the two have played for the NBL championship and the fourth time they’ve met in the final in the seven years the league has been in existence.

That should be the focus for the NBL and its fans. There’s a much better chance of that happening now than there was before.