Oh LeBron, now we have to hate you.

Amidst all the hoopla, stories, non-stories, rumors, innuendo, and general media frenzy surrounding LeBron James’ pending free agency decision, I resisted writing anything.  There are several reasons.  One, is that no one reads this blog except me, a couple of my friends, and a few spam crawlers, so basically no one cared and I had no obligation to express my thoughts and opinions on what was going on.  Second, there was waaaaaaaaaay too much attention being paid to LeBron and his little ego fest already, punctuated by his ESPN special, which successfully conveyed five seconds worth of information into an hour-long event.  The best way to stand up to that was to not feed the beast, even by writing how ridiculous it was.  Third, was that there really was no story to write about.  LeBron was a free agent, there were five or six teams with a chance to sign him, and eventually he would pick one.  That was the situation, and absolutely nothing more ever happened with it over the past several to change it or be worth spending every waking minute obsessing over it (easy to say up here in NBAless Seattle, as opposed to Cleveland).  Now that he has announced that he is going to Miami, I felt like it was appropriate and needed for me to give my thoughts.

We were all witnesses, LeBron made sure of that. We just never wanted to see what ended up happening.

I guess I can start with LeBron himself.  A lot of people are throwing out opinions and psycho analysis about him.  They’re saying he’s immature, he lacked a father figure, he subconsciously needs to feel like part of a group, whatever.  Maybe it’s true, but I’m not a psychiatrist, I don’t read astrological charts, and I don’t know him.  I’ll try to stick to the basics.  More than anything, we learned that he is a self-absorbed kid with a massive ego.  Not a real shocker when you’re talking about a 25-year-old NBA player, but I think we’re all surprised by how much and how big.  The way he went out of his way to make a spectacle of this entire process, and culminate it with an ego feeding one hour special amazed me.  To keep this in perspective, this was, contrary to what LeBron James or the media would have you think,  not the biggest sports ever by the biggest sports star ever.  Those titles both belong to Michael Jordan.  When he made the decision to come out of retirement and come back to basketball, he didn’t have a special, an sit down interview, or even a press conference.  He did it with a one line press release that said “I’m back”, and then was in uniform playing for the Bulls right after.  Say what you will about what kind of person Jordan is, but think about the difference between those for a minute.  This has actually made me like Jordan, who’s rep has been in a bit of decline the last year or so, more than ever.  LeBron James is not Michael Jordan, in soooooo many ways, and never will come close.  Jordan would never do this.  He would never decide that leading a team to a title was just too hard and up and leave the Bulls to go join Magic in LA , Bird in Boston, or even Ewing and best bud Charles Oakley in New York.  The great ones want to do it on their own.  Not with no help, but they have a need to be the alpha dog that lead a team to a championship.  Kobe Bryant went out of his way for that chance, because he is wired the same way as Jordan.  LeBron would rather be Scottie Pippen or Pau Gasol.  It’s an ego thing, but it’s different.  Jordan fed his ego through his own accomplishments and the respect and accolades that came with them.  LeBron just wants attention.  He wants to be liked.  Jordan could give a damn if you liked him or not, but you would respect him as a basketball player.  Jordan had the kind of ego that drives people to become corporate titans, industry innovators, and leaders of nations.  LeBron has the ego of an 22-year-old wanna be actress with daddy issues.

The other big difference between them, and reason Jordan would never do this, is because Jordan cared.  Unlike most athletes, Jordan cared as much as, if not more than, the fans.  He couldn’t stand losing.  It ate him up inside.  It fueled him to work harder and get better.  He would never have done this to the fans of Chicago.  They were his people, and he would bring them championships or he would die trying.  You think an injury like James had in the playoffs would have slowed Jordan?  Hell no!  Even if his team would have still lost, it wouldn’t be because of him.  He’s keep filling the stat sheet up and performing like the greatest player of all time.  Even if he had an injury so bad he couldn’t play well, then he would have been equally, just as spectacularly bad.  He would have kept driving, kept jacking up shots, kept pushing himself farther than his body could handle.  He would go down in such an epic ball of flames that it would be remembered.  LeBron got an owie and just stopped trying.  He stopped shooting.  He deferred to inferior teammates.  He did have it in him though, which he made the mistake of proving.  He got hurt and pouted, then threw up 38-12-7 in a brilliant game three, only to fade back when it counted in games six and seven and let the Celtics have what they wanted more.

Lastly, on LeBron anyway, he’s just not a good guy.  He might smile a lot and be nice to your face. but he doesn’t really care about anyone else outside his world or how his actions affect them.  I might not agree with what he did, but I get it.  He wanted to lighten his burden, play with his friends, and have fun in Miami.  That’s fine.  But good god, have some respect for the people you are shafting along the way.  There was no way around hurting and betraying several groups of basketball fans, but to make such a purposefully public Spectacle of it is just cruel.  It’s like buying a commercial spot during your local news to tell your girlfriend your breaking up with her, then introducing your new hotter girlfriend that you’ve been having an affair with the last two weeks and making out with her before throwing back to the anchors so they could talk about it and make sure everybody in town knew.  Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh didn’t have specials or press conferences.  They came on TOGETHER and announced it before taking questions from Mike Wilbon and classily going back to their business.  That’s the way it should be done.  I know in todays media with a 24 hour news cycle and all that, that you can’t avoid having everything be a story.  But Wade and Bosh did what they needed to do to appease the media and fans, then let it be.  LeBron went out of his way to get more attention and make sure that even though the entire country was already focused on nothing but him the last two weeks, they were going to be glued to their sets for one last glorious self-indulgent moment.  Also, it’s probably the least of people’s concerns, but what about his sponsors?  Take Nike for instance.  They’re paying mega bucks to be the official brand and endorser of the greatest player in the game.  Now all that money is going to be getting paid to Dwayne Wade’s sidekick.  Will James, who always talked about establishing himself as a world-wide brand, be worth as much when he’s no longer averaging 30 points per game, winning MVPs, playing second banana on Miami Heat?

And now Miami has the best threesome of players on any team in the NBA.  They are instantly a top five team, and title contenders.  And they will win titles.  Maybe not this year, the rest of the roster will just be too thin, but in the next couple off seasons, the will use exceptions and drat picks to round out the rest of their rotation.  By 2012, at the latest, they should begin a run of what will be multiple championships, maybe four to eight, and the basketball world will be the worse for it.  This whole thing just seems so contrived to me.  it just feels..wrong.  I don’t want any part of it and will be rooting from afar for them to fail.  The worst part is that fans in Miami won’t appreciate it.  They’ll take it for granted.  How can they not?  Most championships in sports are earned.  Teams are carefully built.  They grow and go through tough times and growing pains and are the better for it, and that makes the championship that much sweeter.  There will be none of that in Miami.  They have their big three now and titles will be expected.  they bought their stars on the free market.  The fans will cheer, but they won’t really have anything invested in it.  Miami has hardly any basketball tradition to begin with and just won a title in 2006.  They’ll get their championships, but they’ll be hollow.  It’ll be like dating a brainless model.  Sure she’s super hot and you’re happy to be screwing her, but it’s not really fulfilling and definitely isn’t the same as meeting a girl you really like and having a real relationship.

Then there are the poor people of Cleveland.  Many have said that he didn’t make any contributions to the city and  never really gave them anything, but they are lying.  He did give a lot.  If he didn’t it would hurt so much.  He didn’t give what he promised or what you wanted, an NBA championship, but he did give some.  At least having won a title would have made this easier.  Sure he left, but he gave you what you wanted.  He did would have done what he said he would do for you, and now it was time to do for himself.  You’d still be mad, but you’d understand.  What’s so bad is that he gave just enough to make it hurt.  He gave you a glimpse at what could be the best player ever.  He gave highlight reel plays and memorable games.  He took you right to the brink, only to take it all away.  That town’s sports fans have been crushed more often and worse than any other.  This is up there with the worst, but probably not the most crushing.  That would have to be Art Modell taking their beloved Browns to Baltimore.  I’m going to try and make this positive.  Look Cleveland, LeBron betrayed you.  He made promises and he didn’t keep them.  He showed that he never really cared for you like you did for him and left you out in the cold.  It sucks.  It’s horrible.  Look at the bright side though, now you get to hate him.  You can fill the air waves with snide comments and rants on what a phony he is.  You can burn his jersey.  You can boo him like mad every time he sets foot in the state of Ohio.  You can take all your pain, frustration, and anger and direct it right at him for the rest of his career and beyond.  You can have a new purpose, and as that happens, basketball will go on.  Things will get better again.  It could be worse and you know it.  Take it from a guy in Seattle.  We have no team.  We have no one to hate.  Oklahoma doesn’t come to town two or three times a year so we can boo them.  We just have a big sad empty feeling, and that’s much worse than what you have right now with LeBron.  Think of how you felt when the Browns left for no reason at all.  That’s how we feel, except that at least when the Browns left, you knew someone cared.  The NFL quickly announced a new expansion franchise and a new team was in place within a couple of years.  No one cares about Seattle.  Hell, the commissioner was one of the biggest forces in helping hijack our team to Oklahoma City.  There is no team promised for us.  No light on the horizon.

To me this seems like the final chapter for the NBA and me.  Sure the Sonics leaving made me hate the NBA and David Stern, but I was too big a sports fan and too big a basketball fan to give it up entirely.  I’d still watch a few games a year.  Mostly, I’d flip through channels when nothing else was on and come across LeBron.  I’d always stay and watch.  He was fun and you could never pass it up, because he could always put up a game that would go down in history and you didn’t want to miss that.  In a matter of minutes though, or maybe it was a matter of weeks, he went from being one of my favorite players and the best show in the game to public enemy number one.  I can’t stand him anymore.  I can’t stand his attitude, his ego, his selfishness, or his naivety.  I hate him.  Now what do I have left to root for in the NBA?  You always have to have a favorite among the games great players.  You have to choose a side.  Russell or Chamberlain?  Bird or Magic?  Jordan or anyone else?  There are no sides for me anymore.  My previous fav was Kevin Durant see my previous post), but how can I root for him and the Thunder (god what a stupid name for a team)?  What?  Am I going to have to root for Kobe now?  No thanks.  People in Cleveland can at least get behind something.  Up here in Seattle, we’ll just have to sit this one out.

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