There are a lot of ways one could describe the last 10 days in the NBA.
- Overblown – Rafa Nadal just won another Wimbledon title, giving him 8 Grand Slams (3 more than Federer at this point in his career). Major League Baseball just hit its halway point with interesting races all over the place and a whole lot of trade deadline fodder. Oh, and the world’s largest sporting event which only takes place every four years is going to crown a first-time champion on Sunday, as undoubtably the two greatest footballing countries to never win the World Cup will play for it all. And, the NBA? They haven’t played a single game (unless you count the meaningless one-on-one Summer League battles between Gerald Henderson and Gordon Hayward), yet they have completely dominated every national sports medium in the United States. So, yes, you could call it overblown.
- New School – We are now two decades into the Real World World. Everything is instantaneous. This is just the most recent, largest example of the changing landscape of the world, as seen through the media.
- Narcissistic – LeBron James has a one-hour special on ESPN tonight to announce his “decision.” Chris Bosh is producing a documentary of his life over the past month.
- Intrusive – Somehow Dwyane Wade’s custody battle over his children has been the driving factor in the rumor mill’s most recent opinions on where he will sign.
- Irresponsible – From a journalistic standpoint, have you ever seen less responsibility? ESPN.com has basically become TMZ. What even distinguishes a “story” from a “rumor,” at this point? Chris Broussard (who I like very much, as a journalist, and I don’t fault him in the least) is basically that popular girl in middle school who finds out who likes who and is then telling everyone she knows.
- Embarrassing – I heard Mike Francesca make a good point. Other than Barack Obama, is there anyone in the world that could demand one hour of prime time television in 24 hours? Anyone? And, what does that say about our culture that it is the President of the United States and a 25-year old athlete? I’m not saying, I’m just saying…
- Ridiculous – It’s kind of a circus. There are a handful of players making personnel decisions that are going to dictate the NBA landscape for the next 15 years. The National Basketball Association has become a schoolyard pick-up game, with everyone choosing sides. They might as well shoot for teams, at this point.
But, with all of these very descriptive, apt adjectives, there is one that stands above it all, for me: fascinating.
Yes, I have been utterly fascinated with how this whole thing is playing out. I read the gossip/I mean NBA page on ESPN.com every hour or so. I have played with that little free agent slot machine thing endlessly for the better part of a week now. And, yes, however absurd it may be (though, I found it a little less so considering the charitable spin put on it), I plan to watch The Decision tonight on ESPN to find out where LeBron James is going to sign. And, yes, right now, I’m that guy that makes fun of the middle school gossip queens, but secretly cannot get enough of what they have to say about whom.
A Couple Random Thoughts About James’s Decision
- How awful would it be if he went on national TV for an hour only to tell Cleveland he was leaving? That’s why I have to put Cleveland at the top right now.
- And, I honestly think it’s probably down to a three-team race. ESPN is reporting that it’s probably going to be Miami to join Bosh and Wade, so I guess they are in play.
- And, the only other team that I can possibly see him announcing on ESPN is the Knicks, especially considering Bosh is signed, sealed, and delivered to Miami. If he was going to the Nets or Bulls, he would have taken Bosh with him.
But, then again, who knows? Personally, I am rooting for him to stay in Cleveland. Well, that is unless he wants to go to the Clippers and take LA away from that fraud named Kobe.
Around 9pm eastern last night, a scary thought started to creep into my head: “I kind of hope he doesn’t say New York.” That’s how wrong the whole spectacle had become by then — best basketball player in the league, could save my team just by uttering the words “New York,” and I was half hoping that he said Cleveland. If he came to New York, I’d have to root for him, and I wasn’t going to want to root for him if he left Cleveland by announcing it on a 60 minute self-promoting debacle on ESPN. No. If he did that, I’d want to boo him. I’d want to jeer him. I’d want to call him “princess” or the “traitor king,” to call Wade his daddy, to burn his jersey in disgust, to hope before every game he played for the rest of his career that he would tear his ACL, that his knee would pop, and we could be rid of him forever. And from now on, that’s just what I’ll do.
For most of the stupid fans out there, the ones who think the league is better off since they outlawed defense and stopped calling BLATANT traveling and palming in the name of 120 point games, what the princess just did will fade (except in cleveland). People will forget, for the same reasons they always forget, because for sheep winning and fabulous dunks cures all. People forgot the way Clemens left Boston. People forgot the way Arod selfishly announced he was opting out of his yankees contract during the world series or is a documented cheater whose career home runs should be listed as “0.” Or, it sure seems like people forgot the way they react to Arod every time one of his towering home runs lands somewhere around the 450 foot mark. So they will forget the way princess just acted the first time he finishes a wade pass in spectacular fashion or when he wade and bosh lift that first nba trophy.
I, however, will not forget. I won’t forget the way princess left his home, in the utter disgrace that someone can only bring upon themselves through their own incomprehensible actions. If he wanted to leave Cleveland, that’s fine. The people of Cleveland don’t own princess, however much they wanted him to stay. But for the love of god, leave the right way. Leave with some class. Leave with some dignity. Go see your owner and your team in person, look them in the eye, and say, I have to do this. Don’t announce it to them with the rest of the world on a f’ing espn special.
And don’t leave to follow wade and bosh. The sports guy and some other analysts say that this move removes forever princess’ name from the discussion of the all time greats. It is, without question, an implicit admission that princess could not get a championship as the best player on a good team. To win it all, princess needed to play with the third and maybe the tenth best player in the NBA, if he even gets one that way. I think it removes his name from that discussion for an even better reason — true greatness is forged in the fire of a rivalry. It’s forged in last second shots and miracle comebacks over hated but respected rivals. If the princess and his mommy and daddy steamroll the rest of the league like most people believe they can, princess will never get to experience a true rivalry. We will never see what he his made of when it’s all on the line, if he is made of anything different than what we saw from him in Game 5 of the Celtics series (utter failure, total collapse). As one analyst put it today, if Lebron were the type of player we all hoped he would one day be, he wouldn’t have wanted to go play with wade and bosh, he would have wanted to kick the hell out of them every single time they stepped on the floor together. In his heart, it turns out, princess is just a follower, not the leader we all hoped he would turn out to be. And the “decision” just proved something extremely sad in my opinion: even he knows he’s a follower.
I do not, for a second, buy into princess’ decision being motivated by his “friendship” with his mommy and daddy. They’re friends, sure, and that makes the move easier, but that is a convenient cover for the true reason princess made this decision in my opinion. And even though I disagree with the way Dan Gilbert reacted today, he’s got this one exactly right: this “Decision” was motivated by cowardice. Pure and simple. Fear, like it so often does, over-rode the rest of the decision-making process. Princess was scared that he would forever be the best player never to win a championship, so he sold out cleveland, his home, so that he could get one. You know what? I watched patrick ewing bang his head into never winning a championship for 5+ years, and I loved him for it, hell all of new york loved him for it, and the fact that he didn’t win one didn’t spoil his legacy the way that this will destroy princess’ legacy if there is any justice in the world. Was it Jerry Colangelo who said: “fate loves the fearless”? Let us hope that fate also hates cowards.
I would say that this is the type of decision-making — the destination and more importantly the WAY he left, again, I have no problem THAT he left — you get when your closest advisors are street kids from Akron, small time punks playing in a big boys world who would be nothing except they happened to win the lottery of being born next to princess. I would say that, but let’s remember that it was Scott Boras who advsied Arod to create the PR nightmare that ensued after he opted out of his yankees contract during the world series and had to go crawling back to the team on his stomach, begging and pleading like a little bitch, for another chance. And James Dolan owns a team and he is a total retard. So street kids from Akron don’t have the exclusive on stupid. But it sure didn’t help that they were the ones “advising” princess on this. Surely, a wiser, more experienced hand had at least a better chance of keeping this from turning into the Lebrocle.
How bad was it? It was like watching a train wreck. It made KOBE look good. Going on national television to announce that you’re basically destroying a city. Heartless. Unforgiveable. And above all else, just plain cruel.
So now, even though my head says that the princess and his mommy and daddy will one day hoist one, if not many, trophies, my heart will forever hope that it does not happen. I will hope that princess’ ACL or knee save us from that day. Or, even better, I hope that the three of them stay healthy and never win one, not even after Pat Riley comes down from his perch to coach them (which WILL happen unless they win it all this year). And, finally, I hope that princess never comes to New York, as I no longer want him here.
We already have an Arod, and one is more than enough.