- The National
I am pretty sure that Ohio will remember LeBron James and at that on 7/8/10 at 8:27 (CT) he completely ripped their heart out. It’s 11:00pm and I am sitting in my room feeling disgusted for having watched the conclusion of this week long saga, which culminated in an hour long ego stroke from our friends over at ESPN. But hey it was for charity at least, right? The following won’t be written from the perspective of a pissed off Bulls fan, but rather an NBA fan that feels used like a sorority girl at a Frat house.
I wrote a post on LeBron James back in May defending him and his potential legacy as one of the greatest players to ever lace up a pair of sneakers in the NBA. I liked LeBron James even with the constant celebrations and his self endorsement as “The King” even without winning a title. Many of bar arguments in the last few years I had LeBron’s back so to speak. And at times he has been a tough guy to defend, but I always thought LeBron was a refreshing presence in the NBA and that in time he would be paid off by winning a title in his hometown and doing so his way. Well as of 8:27 pm (CT) my opinion has changed. I’ll probably get a million “I told you so” from those same drinking compatriots, who have hated LeBron all along, but much like LeBron will have to do I am willing to take the criticisms. Here are two things I can’t criticize LeBron on: 1) He still is a very talented player and probably either 1 or 1a as far as current NBA players go. 2) Nobody can now say that he would rather make money than win championships. Yes, LeBron kids won’t be starving and in the end he only sacrificed a few bucks to sign with the Heat, but it’s clear that he wants to win a title no matter what it costs or takes away from his legacy and in his mind Miami was the best place to do that.
Now that my positive praise portion for LeBron has ended let’s get down to the good stuff…
- It’s clear now that LeBron James would rather be Robin instead of Batman. I have always said that LeBron James should never be compared to MJ, but instead more likened to Magic Johnson (Although, at this point I should not sell Magic short. He was always willing to take big shots and was always the Alpha-Dog on his Lakers title teams). Well, he better get used to that sort of comparison because at the end of the day that’s what he will have to become for this to work: the ultimate facilitator. It’s the ultimate back seat move by a guy that has never taken a back seat to anyone and that’s what I liked about LeBron. He always to me seemed willing to be a guy, who said hop on my back and we’ll do this. Now I see a guy that doesn’t want to carry that burden, so he might as well pass the crown to King Wade because Miami is still D-Wade’s team and that won’t change. Sure Prince James will probably win his titles, but he won’t go down with the NBA elites. Where is his competitiveness? If he supposedly holds all this power and wants to go down as the best ever (“The King”) then he should have lured another piece to Cleveland/Chicago/Knicks and then pointed his sights on taking down Wade & Bosh rather than playing with them. Because that is what a true King would have done; kill the competition.
- All of the basketball aspects of this move has yet to come to a conclusion, but there is certainly one conclusion I can firmly make right now and that is the best way to describe this entire last week for LeBron James and more specifically the "Decision 2010" special is: Amateur Hour. I guess dog and pony show would have worked as well. I am sure it was a tough decision to leave his hometown and I am pretty sure he was never going to announce his decision where we would just see it as a crawl on ESPN’s bottomline, but to do this to your hometown on national tv is just downright stone cold. This hour long special and the farce of all these meetings was an absolute joke. And you know what? Most of us fell for it or at least we did until today and the build up for "Decision 2010". The minute the camera panned on James to me he gave off a look of a boy, who made a huge mistake and there was no turning back. Where was the smile LeBron? Instead it felt like a televised funeral where the casualty was LeBron James’ pride. If he honestly didn’t know what decision his was going to make until today then that’s a joke as well. If it killed you to leave Cleveland then why do you do it? So, it boils down to that this has been a huge self-marketing ploy for a guy that should not need to be self- marketed. A twitter account, a website and a marketing team being run by a guy, who biggest deal to date is landing Johnny Flynn a used car commercial in Minnesota. Is this the new LeBron? I guess so and that’s biggest reason my opinion has soured on James over the past few days. I realize this is not the glory days of watching sports where guys had to work other jobs in the off-season and that players certainly have opportunities to market themselves and make more money, which I am fine with to a certain point. And yet for me in no time LeBron went from being just an icon to a self-promotional d-bag in my eyes that was constantly referring to his “team” during his special not as the Cavs or anybody else, but rather a bunch of 25 year olds, who handled this about as well as Obama has the BP oil spill. From the minute I turned on “The Decision” special tonight I felt pissed at myself for buying into this image of LeBron as the guy that didn’t bring unwanted attention to himself off the court and for the most part I saw him as player that all he cared about was having fun and playing basketball. I guess I should have seen this coming with the in-season visits to Kentucky to woo John Wall to his marketing company or his statements of wanting to be the 1st athlete billionaire. In the end I guess I was just as naïve as LeBron was to this whole process. This decision was made in his mind as soon as he left court after game 6 in Boston and for him to drag it out and stab Cleveland in the heart on national tv was just a disgrace. Not to mention all the kids he crushed at the Boys & Girls club in Greenwich, who were probably hoping he would sign with the Knicks.
- Not only was this a disaster for LeBron’s image, but it was also a bad basketball decision. Objectively the Bulls roster was a better fit for LeBron James and apparently many others thought that as well. Coming to Chicago would not have preserved his rep in Cleveland, but I think it would have tempered some of the ire being directed at James.
- Dwayne Wade was never going to leave Miami. I don’t care that he took a second meeting with the Bulls or that his kids live in Chicago he was not leaving. I don’t think he was a spy so to speak, but he wanted to play this out just as much as LeBron did. He hired a camera crew to film him and lapdog Chris Bosh as they took these” meetings” to add some drama to a foregone conclusion. Dwayne Wade didn’t do an hour long special, but he also wasn’t immune to stroking his own ego during this process.
- Apparently, Chris Bosh has the most power in the NBA? Bosh is a good player, but not a superstar. He had the most to gain in this process as far as getting his name out there and becoming more of a known quantity. Like I said I don’t think Wade was going to leave Miami, but for him to say that Bosh committing there made him re-sign and leave the Bulls in the dust is a joke. To me that sounds like Chris Bosh held all the power and if that’s true then shame on D-Wade and Prince James
- Playing in an Olympic tournament is much different than playing an 82 game regular season and the grind of the NBA playoffs. As much as these guys say they can adjust their game and play together there is still a lot of ego there with Wade and LeBron. Who plays off the ball? Who takes the last shot? What happens after a few bad games? What happens when these guys have to play 40+ minutes night in and night out just to maybe grab a #1 seed in the East? Fantasy teams always look good on paper, but they don’t always work out. This is not the Big 3 of the Celtics, who were guys that needed to play together to win a championship and did so towards the end of their careers. Be careful what you wish for.
- Where do we go now? Where do we go now? Well I can now enjoy the rest of my summer and only check twitter every 15 minutes instead of every 5. There is no question that LeBron and the Heat have become public enemy #1 in the NBA. There will still be pressure on LeBron to win a title maybe even moreso now. Time will tell what his ultimate place in the overall history of the NBA will be, but for now that place is as a guy, who took the easy way out. It’s like LeBron saw all the cards being dealt, he drew it out to the last hand and rather than push all-in he stepped away from the table to make the safe play rather than have the guts to take a gamble. Maybe this was always LeBron’s destiny to be a 2nd banana on a championship team and try to average a triple-double. If it is then I have to say I misjudged him for the last seven years. Because people that call themselves “The King” should not play 2nd fiddle to anyone. So, maybe I would have been wise to write an obituary piece way back in May because this is certainly the death of a persona and a legacy known as “The King”.
This is for Cleveland...
