It’s been two weeks since the LeBron James announcement that he’d be heading out to Miami. On this most glorious of anniversaries, I am officially putting it to rest. No more. We’ll wait till the start of the season to see what happens. So for the sake of the anniversary, this will be the last thing I say about the issue until the season begins.
First let me say that while I have enjoyed all the LeBron jokes (and I have. My favorite being: What do LeBron James and Cuban immigrants have in common? Both fled their native lands when things got tough and ended up in Miami), I do understand why he left and I have no problem with him doing so. What I think most of us have a problem with is where he went and how he did it, mainly Michael Jordan who recently forgot that both Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman played beside him. So, with that, here’s my take on the LeBron James situation.
LeBron! Over here! The bandwagon is still here! Jump on! Jump on!
Does anybody remember the summer of 2007? That was one of the darkest summers of my life as a Lakers fan. The Lakeshow was coming off of its second straight first round exit, this time in five games to the Suns. The year before they had blown a 3-1 lead to the same Suns but all signs were looking up… Or were they? Phil Jackson’s return marked an 11 win jump from the 05-06 campaign and Kobe stole the NFL’s championship Sunday spotlight when he threw up 81 points on the Raptors in late January. What was lost in that was the fact that those of us who watched that game remember that Kobe HAD to throw up 81 because Toronto was crushing LA. Even 26 first half points from Kobe weren’t helping. His 55 point effort gave LA the win and his fan base the jolt he needed… but the Lakers were clearly in trouble. After 06-07 season Kobe asked for help and when the team failed to supply him with a second weapon, he vehemently demanded a trade. The Lakers had failed to acquire Jason Kidd and Pau Gasol a year earlier and Kobe was not pleased with Lamar Odom as a second option (because he wasn’t) and Andrew Bynum’s development (as referenced by Kobe’s comments about Bynum that summer). But the Lakers had done one big thing: They traded future all star Caron Butler for Kwame Brown in one of the most questionable moves in NBA history and Mitch Kupchak didn’t recover from that one until he pulled the Gasol deal.
Anyway, the point is that Kobe wanted out. He wanted out so badly that there were rumors that he had cleaned out his locker. This was the Lakers. This was Kobe’s team he had grown up idolizing and now he wanted out. He wanted to win and he didn’t see enough of it from the Lakers organization. So what happened? Well, he was under contract. Kobe couldn’t have left if he wanted to. Either the Lakers would have traded him or he’s stuck there. Good thing they didn’t because as it turned out, Andrew Bynum was actually a pretty good player and when he went down, Kupchak redeemed himself by snagging Gasol for Brown, the other Gasol, and apparently a bag of really really good potato chips. That’s why Kobe is still with his first team. This is why LeBron is not.
LeBron watched Carlos Boozer walk to Utah and thus his second man was gone. If you look at the Cavs roster versus the Lakers roster, it isn’t much different. Nobody on the Cavs starting lineup would break the starting five for any of the title contenders. They wouldn’t start for most of the playoff teams. Yet LeBron had these guys for two years and won 60+ games. For three years Gilbert and the Cavs organization knew LeBron would likely opt out and they had to get him someone else to keep him. THREE YEARS. What did they come up with? They got him Mo Williams, a washed up Shaq, Delonte West (one mother of a player if you get my drift), and Antoine Jamison. That’s it? That’s the best you can come up with? Look, I understand that the Suns’ asking price for Amare was a bit high especially when they saw just how high they were in the standings. But when your superstar and your face of the franchise turns to you and says “I want Amare”, you get Amare. That’s it. End of discussion because he probably heavily considers putting ink on paper right there.
So LeBron sees that and he sees the Lakers add Gasol and the Celtics give Pierce Allen and Garnett and he has to be thinking, What the Hell? I get it. I understand how he feels. The Cavs had three years to figure something out and they didn’t. And while they were winning 60+ each year it didn’t mean anything because they were getting knocked out in the playoffs just like before. If not for 29/30 scored against Detroit, LeBron doesn’t even have a taste of the finals. And speaking of Delonte West, why didn’t the Cavs cut him right away? Listen, the cap figures don’t matter. You can’t bring a guy like that back to play with LeBron after what happened. Why was that not the first move they made? That’s one way of showing LeBron that it is indeed, about him. So, congratulations Cleveland, you got what was coming to you.
HEY LEBRON! WHERE ARE YOU? WE’RE HERE! LEBRON? LEBROOOONNN? WHAT? HE’S IN MIAMI?
Okay, so I understand why he left. However, that doesn’t excuse the garbage he put everyone through. I sat and waited for two hours after I had written my sports segments for our nightly broadcast and my boss and I couldn’t help but chuckle when we realized that what we actually had was nothing until LeBron made the announcement. That one hour special was a joke. It really was. Tearing out an entire city’s collective heart on national television is wrong. Maybe the organization deserved it but the fans were there for LeBron and they didn’t deserve that. I get tired of hearing the argument: “Oh, well you watched so there!’ Let’s get one thing straight. Just because it’s intriguing doesn’t mean it’s right. Those are two different things. Whether I like it or not, it’s news and I have to report it. LeBron showed a lot of immaturity. How does the thought of what he’s putting the fans in Cleveland through not cross his mind? Where were his friends to tell him it was a bad idea? It seems to me that none of them knew because none of them are mature enough to understand what he was doing would impact his image. They wanted the spotlight. HE wanted the spotlight and he got it.Watching him up there, I couldn’t help but laugh and my boss said it perfectly when he said that LeBron looked like a high school kid picking his college team. That’s a perfect analogy and I half expected there to be a table with Cavs, Nets, Knicks, Heat, and Bulls caps all in front of him and he’d just put one on and smile for the photographers.
Secondly, he went to Miami. First of all, congratulations to Dwayne Wade. I don’t feel like we have said that enough. He asked for help. He got it. Back to LeBron and this idea that his legacy is tarnished. He’s still playing so let’s hold up on that. He said it was all about winning and that’s certainly consistent with what he did. The fact is, even though he’s still playing, he took a big gamble with his legacy in going to Miami and he did it because he basically decided that a pretty guaranteed chance at winning was too good to pass up. BUT…
If Batman suddenly decides to be Robin then what does it say about Batman? Was that really the only place he could have gone to have a real shot at winning. He had to have analyzed it, right? If he goes to Chicago, they have arguably the best starting five in the league. He’s still the best player on his team and undisputed leader. They’ve got a good core of young players and the challenge of playing in Jordan’s shadow and finding a way to step out of it had to be appealing. But he went to Miami instead. If he goes to Chicago or Miami, it’s instantly the best team in the east. So why Miami? What his actions say is that he doesn’t want to be the guy anymore. He’d rather be a facilitator and he’d rather win. But where is the resiliency? Jordan was right about one thing: he persevered. Maybe Cleveland wasn’t the place but he could have gone anywhere but Miami and it would have seemed like he wanted to take the helm of a new ship and captain his way to the promise land. He was supposed to be the next big thing. He was supposed to be the best player ever in the making. We were all witnesses… To what? A good player on a sub par team that got good results? A player who decided to leave for a better situation and ended up taking the easy way out? That is Dwayne Wade’s team. He has nothing to prove. He has a title. Now LeBron may become Kobe only to the effect that he’ll have to answer questions about winning a title without Wade the same way Kobe had to answer them about Shaq.
The Heat are suddenly more hated than the Lakers. How about that? LeBron better win lots of titles in Miami. Since the league is selling out to go there at this point; it’s not a matter of “if” but “when”. He’d better win it this year because if it is a Heat/ Lakers finals (which will be the Christmas game, I’m calling it) and Kobe gets number six over LeBron and Wade, that’s the end of the debate as to who the best player right now is. First of all, it’s Kobe. But to all the people who still say Lebron, it would be hard to argue in his favor if his super team loses to Kobe’s Lakers.
Now, a new era has begun and it better bring LeBron everything he’s hoping it will because if it doesn’t, it will be the biggest joke in NBA history.
