Cleveland fans are bitter right now, and understandably so. Their city has yet again been punched in the gut by the cruel hand of sports. The Browns, the Indians, the Cavs...they've all been tormented over the years. But this time their agony was plastered all over ESPN for one full night. LeBron's decision to hold an hour-long special was an unprecedented "fuck you" that makes him either the most tone-deaf athlete on the planet or the most cold-hearted one. I don't think there's a middle ground.
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The first thing people need to realize is that athletes are not tied down to one city. The fans in Cleveland seem to believe that LeBron should have stayed there because he's a local kid. Well I'm sorry, but just being from Ohio does not marry you to the Cavaliers for eternity. LeBron has a career to worry about, and he needed to make the best decision for his career. Blind loyalty to the city of Cleveland would be stupid when he could somewhere else, win championships and cement his legacy.
But again, I think what really burns people is the manner in which he handled it. If he had just held a simple press conference in which he thanked the city of Cleveland for their years of support and then went on his merry way...well, fans would still be disappointed, but I don't think they'd be feeling the rage they feel today. The way he dragged the city of Cleveland through the mud last night really makes you wonder what exactly is in his heart. Has he surrounded himself with such yes-men that he didn't see the backlash coming? This hour-long special was a disaster from minute one, and everyone knew it.
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I don't mean to harp on that special too much, because at the end of the day he was leaving for Miami regardless of how it ended up being covered. But not only did LeBron burn Cleveland in the worst way, but I think he also offended NBA fans in general. I think Miami fans are the only ones today who are feeling good about how last night played out, and even then they'd probably admit that the coverage was over-the-top. I think the whole affair leaves us all with a bad taste in our mouths. Free agents have left before (Shaq leaving Orlando for Los Angeles being the closest parallel), but never before in this fashion. And it felt tawdry.
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If Cleveland fans want to blame anybody for LeBron leaving, they need to look at management. The team that was assembled around LeBron was, quite frankly, unacceptable. Look at what Oklahoma City has put around Kevin Durant in a few short years. They've given him young players to grow with, like Russell Westbrook and Jeff Green. The best Cleveland could do for LeBron was Mo Williams. Trading for Shaq was both a short-term and long-term disaster, in that he helped the team in no way and also cemented the fact that Cleveland was incapable of surrounding LeBron with an acceptable supporting cast. Trading for Shaq was merely a ploy to make it look like they were serious, and LeBron saw right through it.
Remember at the trade deadline when they would not part with J.J. Hickson in order to acquire Amar'e Stoudemire? I'm not a bid Stoudemire fan, but he undoubtedly would have made Cleveland much better, and perhaps could have been the difference in beating Boston. Instead they ended up with Antawn Jamison, who would have helped them more had he simply sat out the Boston series, and on top of that, Hickson barely played during the postseason. Don't think that LeBron didn't notice this. Cleveland's management was clearly clueless about building a contender around LeBron, and I'm glad he chose not to waste his prime years in NBA purgatory like Garnett did. Garnett's loyalty may have been something to admire, but his legacy was almost permanently tarnished by staying in Minnesota. Had Kevin McHale not shipped him off to Boston as a gift to Danny Ainge, Garnett's career would be viewed as a disappointment. Championships matter in a player's legacy, and LeBron knows this. Ultimately, that's why he's no longer in Cleveland.
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With all of that said, I'm still perplexed as to why he went to Miami. I really wonder if he just got tired of trying to carry a team, and has decided to share the heavy lifting with Wade. Because no matter how well LeBron plays in Miami, it will always be Wade's team and Wade's city. He's the established star there, and he's won a championship. And I wonder if LeBron knows this to be the case, and wants that to be the case. I wonder if he wants Wade to be the Jordan to his Pippen, which would be very disappointing to me.
LeBron has been given a rare gift, in that he's gifted enough in all facets of the game to potentially go down as one of the best ever. There aren't many players born with this gift. Guys like Charles Barkley and Karl Malone were very good, but even they were not born with this gift. There have been maybe 10 players with this type of transcendent ability, Jordan being the tops among them. Even Kobe, for as good as he's been, was not born with as many gifts as LeBron (LeBron's size allowing him to physically dominate in ways that Kobe couldn't).
But by choosing to sign with Miami and play with Wade, I wonder if LeBron truly has the temperament to be an all-time great. Being an all-time great carries large responsibilities, chief among them being that you lead your team to championships. If LeBron does win championships in Miami, it (probably) won't be because he led them, but rather because he AND Wade led them. And that would be thoroughly disappointing to me. I wanted to see LeBron go somewhere and put his signature on that team, and become an all-time great as his own man. Instead he's chosen to tag along with Wade. Maybe that's the way he wants it, and winning championships will not hurt his legacy regardless of how he gets it. But it would be disappointing to me if he fell into a Pippen-like role in which Wade ultimately takes the big shots. I wanted LeBron to be that guy, because damnit, he's been gifted like so few have. And he may not realize his FULL potential tagging along with Wade.
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Chicago, in my opinion, would have been the place to go. The pecking order would have fallen into place nicely, with LeBron-Rose-Boozer-Noah comprising a pretty good top-four that could definitely win championships. And it would have featured LeBron as the man, with Rose being the sidekick, and Boozer providing some interior scoring and rebounding while Noah does the dirty work and becomes a modern day Charles Oakley. That was the dream scenario to me. LeBron could have realized his full potential with a good supporting cast, and he could have done so playing in the same city where Jordan did it. But again...maybe LeBron didn't want the challenge of living up to Jordan. It's a lofty standard to live by, and maybe LeBron didn't want that. Which, again, is disappointing to me.
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I don't know how LeBron's time in Miami is going to go. I kinda feel like if there's karmic justice in this world that it won't go well, with how much he hurt the city of Cleveland by leaving on national TV. Miami, outside of LeBron, Wade and Bosh, is a bare-bones roster that still needs outside shooting, interior defense and rebounding. Apparently they're going to sign Mike Miller, but it seem to me that it's been years since he's been an effective player. It's going to be very interesting to see if two superstars and a good player can carry a team that probably won't have much else.
But I do know that I'm not satisfied with how last night went. I'm not satisfied with the hour-long ESPN special (as a fan who's lived through a lot of sports-related heartache, I can relate to Cleveland), and I'm not satisifed with his decision. I did want him to leave Cleveland, because I don't think he can win a championship there. But I didn't want him to tag along with another superstar. I wanted him to become his own man on a team with a good supporting cast in place. I wanted him in Chicago. I don't know what's in LeBron's heart, but I'm worried that he just doesn't quite have what it takes to realize his full potential. He may realize 95% of it, which would still be a very good career and probably top-ten all-time. But this is a guy born with the ability to challenge Jordan's status as the NBA's all-time best. And I just don't think he wants it.
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