i was having dinner with some friends Wednesday night, and – for my Friday Free-For-All post – they asked me to repost an article i wrote on July 11th, 2010 for my Facebook account about LeBron James' announcement that he was going to play for the Miami Heat in the 2010-2011 NBA Season. i will repost it – as they asked – and then make some updated comments, since now we have a couple of months of the actual NBA season to go off and deduce conclusions...
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[Re-Posted from an original Facebook Note from July 11th, 2010...]
OK. i have had enough. i am going to write only once about the NBA and its free agency whirlwind this summer – specifically about LeBron James and his decision to join Dwayne Wade & Chris Bosh in Miami as a member of the Heat franchise.
For the record, i told several people early this year in 2010 (before the playoffs even began) that – if LeBron James was smart, and i know that he is – he would make sure he met with Dwayne Wade after the season and went to play with Wade for the foreseeable future – whatever & wherever that required. Everyone either laughed at me as if i had just said something absurd or else said, “Well, that would be nice, but that’s kind of a pipe dream.” Well, exactly what i said would happen has now occurred, and everyone is bashing LeBron for it. Amazing. i haven’t heard one person defend LeBron James. Well, here’s my perspective on the whole situation.
[Full Disclosure: i like LeBron James. i always have, since before he was a household name (yes, i knew who he was before he was on Sports Illustrated as an 18-year old and his high school games were broadcast on ESPN). He’s not my favorite player, and he’s not someone i root for or usually follow – but he is someone i like in a casual sort of way. In all sincerity, i guess i would say i’m kinda neutral about him – although i will admit that i am becoming a fan over the last several days….]
First, there are the “personal” issues. We’ll get to the basketball issues later, but i want to first address some of the stupidity relating to comments, judgments, accusations, slander, etc. made about the characters involved. Finally, we’ll address more general sports issues after first discussing the personal issues and then the basketball issues secondly.
OK – let’s get it all out…
Issue #1: Personal Issues
i find it LUDICROUS that sports reporters, commentators, water-cooler geeks, casual fans, etc. are upset at LeBron. i have read, heard, witnessed, & observed almost universal criticism of LeBron the last few days from almost every front. Most of the criticism revolves around a perception of “classlessness” about the “way” he did what he did or some misguided sense of “betrayal” towards Cleveland or the Cavaliers organization or whatever. Wow…
Let me just say that i have never heard anything more absurd in my entire Life. OK, well – maybe the Iranian president claiming the Holocaust never happened is a little more absurd…but not much.
People are assaulting LeBron personally on every level. i have yet to meet anyone who actually knows him personally, but they feel free to make all kinds of judgments about him, anyway. They question his decision, they impugn his motives, & they assail his loyalty. Really? Is that all You have to do with Your Life? Go after some kid who’s doing his best?
They argue that he and Dwayne Wade had already decided to play together and that this decision was somehow “premeditated,” and – they howl – that, if that is True (because they don’t really know and refuse to take LeBron at face value when he claims it isn’t), it is somehow unfair and sets a bad precedent and is unethical to the integrity of the league and bad for the credibility & intrigue of the Association and – i’m quite sure i’ve heard this somewhere – the end of the world. Really? Shut up!!!
i think LeBron handled this situation stupidly, because i DO take him at face value. i believe him when he says that he only made up his mind on Thursday morning. To me, that shows great indecisiveness and lack of vision. i think he should have made this decision in January…
It should have been premeditated. Don’t give me that crap about it being bad for the league. How is the entire world talking about basketball in July (the off-season) bad for the league? How is putting three superstars on a team (in a legitimate way via free agency, i might add, and not through back-room scandals and cheating deals like the Lakers do all the time) bad for the league? How is making Miami (a nominal basketball, or any other sport for that matter, town) the epicenter of the basketball universe bad for the league? How is keeping Kobi from winning six titles to match Jordan or preventing the biggest narcissist in the history of the NBA (Phil Jackson) from winning his fourth three-peat and somehow “fulfilling” his self-described “destiny” that God told him to come back next year to make God’s plan come True bad for the league? It isn’t…none of it is bad for the league – despite whatever the media-biased, self-absorbed idiots in New York or Chicago or L.A. tell You…
If it wasn’t premeditated, then i have much less respect for LeBron and Dwayne Wade as businesspeople. What is there not to like? Play with Your friend making tons of money in a beautiful, tropical city and give Yourself the chance to be successful at the sacrifice of not making as much money as You could make while still making millions? Uh, what was the question?
And why is that a stupid decision?
It isn’t a stupid decision. It would have been stupid to do anything else, so – for LeBron’s sake – i hope it was premeditated and that he wasn’t that short-sighted or insecure or just downright dumb that it took him until Thursday morning to make up his mind. i hope he’s saying that he only made up him mind on Thursday morning out of some misguided notion of allaying everyone’s fears that he really did listen during the Clippers presentation. (Yes, honest to God, the Clippers made him a presentation and said they could win with LeBron as their centerpiece. Give me a freakin’ break – the Clippers, as long as Donald Sterling is their owner, anyway, couldn’t win if Jesus was their star and He played both invisibly and froze all the other players on the court at the same time). i hope LeBron is just trying to go through the free agent process like other players do and not – for whatever reason – show his hand that he and Dwayne decided this during their Olympic Games championship run where they (yes, the two of them, were the mainstays and foundation of the best team in the world...Not sorry at all about that contention, either, Kobi). But, whatever the Truth, i think it was almost unforgivable for him to not have decided to play with Dwayne Wade several years ago – much less several months ago or even a few days ago.
People say LeBron had bad motives. Reallly? And what, pray tell, would those have been? Making good money? Playing for an owner who isn’t a jerk and having a better work environment? Working for an organization that is competent (like the Heat) and not incompetent (like the Cavaliers)? Living in a great city (like Miami) instead of an awful place (like Cleveland)? Working with Your friends as partners? Exactly what was wrong with his motives?
O, i see. You think he was selfish. i got it…
You think him having his own television special to announce his decision was selfish…or that the millions of people, dozens of news networks, hundreds of reporters, and all the fans didn’t really care at all except for LeBron forcing them to pay attention. You think he hyped all this up, even though – for the last two years – he has kept mum about it while everyone else has speculated incessantly about it in every medium on every platform and without any solid information. i see…You think he is the problem. Wow. i laugh at Your naïveté…
The television special was genius – if, for no other reason (and trust me, there are many other reasons), than for my personal convenience. Yes, i could have found out on SportsCenter Thursday night, but i didn’t want to wait. i’m glad they did a special, and – no – it wasn’t James’ idea. i thought James handled this whole situation the last couple of years with adept aplomb and ample grace. He always spoke highly of Cleveland and its fans, ownership, & organization. He politely listened to people and organizations he never should have (uh, like the aforementioned Clippers who have absolutely no business even being in existence – much less pitching LeBron). He granted interviews to almost anyone wanting one, even though he was sick of talking about it. He kept his circle tight, family-oriented, & largely mute. He did everything right, in my opinion. O, wait - did i mention that all the proceeds of the ESPN Special went to the Boys Clubs of America? What!?! An athlete capitalizing on his fame for, gulp, charity and, gasp, a good cause? Say it ain't so, Cleveland!
What’s that? O, You think he was disloyal, huh? Hmmm…let me think about that for just a minute…
Loyalty. Yea, You’re right. Sports, especially, is such a loyal endeavor. i don’t know what i was thinking?
i mean, teams never change cities. Franchises never sell to other owners. Referees and umpires and officials and players and agents and owners and commissioners never cheat. Fans never fade in their support. i must be kidding myself. i’m so sorry…i had forgotten that sports models to us exactly how loyalty should be Lived out in each of our Lives.
i mean, i know – in the old days – that sports teams NEVER traded players back before players could become free agents. (Well, other than Babe Ruth being traded by the Red Sox, i mean…O, and Wilt Chamberlain being traded…O, and…well, maybe i’ll just leave that alone for now). But, obviously, owners always paid players what they deserved, and free agency came about just because of the agents being jerks – not because the owners weren’t treating the players fairly....
Loyalty? Are You freakin’ kidding me!?! LeBron wasn’t loyal to Cleveland, but they weren’t loyal to him, either. They didn’t trade for good players. They didn’t spend money to sign top free agents. They didn’t get rid of incompetent personnel. They had seven years to assemble the help LeBron needed, and he gave them a lot more chances than i would have to show him they were both competent and willing. Loyalty…You must be joking…
People gripe about James calling himself “the king.” Really? That is just pathetic. i have had lots of nicknames in my Life, and i have been called all kinds of names. LeBron didn’t give himself the nickname “King James,” and the fact that he embraced it isn’t any reflection on him negatively. i mean, i know everyone else LOVES it and accepts it when people give them demeaning or degrading nicknames but hates it and refuses it when people give them exalting or endearing nicknames, but that is not right. Stop whining about his nickname, people. It shows You to be immature….
People are saying LeBron “betrayed” Cleveland. No, he didn’t. Cleveland betrayed him. They didn’t help him, and now they are blaming him for both the conflict and the resolution. i’ve been married – i know how this game works. Trust me, LeBron didn’t betray anybody, and it’s just plain stupid to say otherwise. To prove betrayal, You would have to demonstrate the he owed Cleveland something, and he didn’t owe them jack. He gave them everything, and so they got spoiled and used to his lavish gifts. But them misinterpreting his generosity as an obligation instead of as a gift just shows their dysfunction as fans, a city, and an organization. Sheesh…
And what about LeBron's "lack of class?" What about it? How was he classless? Because he didn't personally call the Cavaliers owner to tell him he was going to Miami? O, i'm sure all of You have never left a job without hunting down the owner to personally tell him that You were taking another job offer. It's not like LeBron didn't notify them. He had his business partner (the appropriate person) call the Cavaliers GM (the appropriate person) and notify them. It was done in an appropriate time frame though a legitimate channel. my God, what are people thinking?
When someone has a legitimate personal axe to grind, let me know. Until then, shut up….
Issue #2: Basketball Issues
Everyone is jumping on LeBron for going to play with Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh – two other superstars who are perennial all-stars, fellow top draft picks, and highly sought free agents. For the Life of me, i just don’t understand this…
People are always griping about sports stars and saying that the athletes don’t care about winning enough (which shows fans’ dysfunction) or the community enough (which shows the community’s dysfunction) or whatever. People claim athletes only care about the money and the fame. Well, James took less money than he could have made (actually, all three of them did) and already had fame but eschewed it to go to a team where he will be perceived (however True or not that notion is) as the second-best player, and yet people somehow claim he made the wrong decision. Uh, no – he didn’t…
Let me explain. LeBron James is, in my humble opinion, the best athlete i have ever seen. Basketball players are commonly considered to be among the best overall athletes in the world along with water polo, triathlon, and gymnastics athletes. Their skill sets require agility, strength, endurance, balance, and much more. They run 10-12 miles minimum every game and more in practices. They have to deal with officials, split-second decisions, strategy, pressure, and more – all in a highly creative, oppressively competitive, & restrictively political culture. LeBron James is the best athlete i have ever seen. But, he is not a “closer.”
He needs a closer. And at least James is smart enough to admit it.
LeBron is unselfish – yes, that’s right, the exact opposite of what people are claiming about him. He always has been unselfish. He likes comradery and team play and passing and winning or losing together. He’s always said that, and his actions have always demonstrated that. There has never been any conflict between his verbal assertions and his behavioral actions. He has much more integrity than most people who are criticizing him.
LeBron is a great player – one of the best to ever play basketball, by most people’s count. But a Closer has to have four traits – all of which are non-negotiable, and James only has three, at best. A Closer must have: 1) Natural talent for precision shooting, 2) Internal Confidence, 3) Developed ability to get his own shot, and 4) Absolute Ruthlessness. James doesn’t have #1 and, therefore, i think, doesn’t have #2. i also question his #4.
Dwayne Wade has all of them. Kobii Bryant has all of them. They are the only two players currently playing who do. LeBron would have been an idiot to not play with one of them, and he’s too good a person to play with Kobee.
He could have gone to Chicago, and that would have been a great decision – as long as Wade went there. But Wade didn’t go there, and so it would not have been a good decision. Charles Barkley said several weeks ago that to be Truly great, You have to be the best player on the best team. That is not True. Charles says that out of frustration, because he never was what he described. However, being Truly great is about being unselfish and sacrificing for the success of the team and caring about people as people in the process – and LeBron has done and will do that…
He makes it virtually impossible to double-team Wade or Bosh from a strategy point of view. He can run the point from any position. He is a lock-down defender who doesn’t have to score to be engaged in the game or feel like he’s contributing. He’s an all-around player – something most current fans don’t remember or know how to properly value.
People say he’s not a competitor for going to play with DWade and Bosh. Excuse me? That is complete rubbish and just flat-out stupid. Magic Johnson is the best comparison i know of to LeBron. Magic wasn’t a closer, either. He needed a closer, and he had Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Lew Alcindor). But Magic wasn’t criticized when the Lakers drafted James Worthy (and, yes, his last name is ironic since he isn’t worthy of as much of the acclaim he gets) or when they stole Mychal Thompson or got Byron Scott or whatever. No one said Larry Bird (the best basketball player to ever Live) wasn’t a competitor when they traded for Robert Parrish or drafted Kevin McHale or picked up Dennis Johnson or added Bill Walton. The Pittsburgh Steelers or New York Yankees or Dallas Cowboys or Edmonton Oilers never saw their stars diminished by having other great players on their teams, but – then again – they weren’t LeBron James. LeBron will never be able to make anyone happy, no matter what he does or how humbly or well he does it…
To all the people bashing LeBron: Get over it…
Issue #3: Sports Issues
What i find most laughable about all this is the reverence people have for sports. i like sports, but i used to Love them before i was delivered from their hold on me. my calendar used to revolve around the sports seasons – not the sun's movements. A lot of this LeBron-bashing is due to people having an unhealthy interaction with sports based on either a pathetic dependence on it as a key coping mechanism in their Lives or a sad misunderstanding of what is appropriate behavior based on perceived “virtues” derived from sports (such as competition)…
Sports are a joke. They always have been and always will be. People who put any stock in them are sad….
Championships are inherently political. They are much more often acquired with money or influence or favor or than by sheer talent, hard work, and fairness. Basketball is especially so.
In “Remember The Titans,” Coach Boone walks out to a football field and is confronted head-on with this reality. He makes the absurdly stupid and naïve statement, “Ah…this is my home…this is always right.” Unbelievable that a grown man could say something so dumb, and Coach Boone figures that out when the administrator of the new segregated school explains to him that the white folk only put him in so that they could fire him the first time he lost and give the job to his white counterpart…
i haven’t ever witnessed a championship in my Lifetime that was legitimate on any level. Championships are based on competition – one of the great evils of the world and one of the great tools & developments of Satan.
Anyone who wins a championship in any field or who is the top salesperson in any industry or who wins any award of any kind or succeeds in any endeavor in any way ought to be thankful to all the people who made them successful, and they ought to realize that they only won it because other people wanted them to win it. Psychologically, You just cannot make the case that people succeed by themselves or without the help of administrators, officials, and other bureaucrats. It’s just not possible.
As Americans, we are particularly crazed with “winning,” and it harms us as a nation. There are good lessons to be learned from sharpening one another, but competition is a ruse of the enemy that only demoralizes, demeans, and degrades people. It is a mechanism for establishing a hierarchy, and that makes it – by definition – bad and unrighteous. we evaluate people based on whether they win or not, and that is awful. we condition our kids to “win” at all cost (or sometimes at only ethical or appropriate or fair costs), and we teach them – in so doing – to be like the world and not to value faith and sharing and sacrifice above winning. In fact, we actively teach them that those godly values don’t really work, and that – though they are nice ideas, in theory – the way things really work is to seize power and grab for Yourself and get Your own.
LeBron wants to win more than he wants to be rich, so he is sacrificing. Now, there’s no good way for him to navigate this, but i like the way he did and is doing it. As for all the critics, You might want to take out the forest of logs from Your own eye before seeing whether or not he even has a speck in his eye that You could remove – if the damage to Your own sight isn’t permanent, that is…
In short, don’t believe the crap You’re hearing about LeBron “King” James. No one knows enough to say the things they’ve been saying, and he will show his True colors in the coming years. At least he wasn’t on trial for rape or hasn’t cheated with performance-enhancing drugs or pulled stunts like pretending to work for one franchise so You can give Your old one the steal of the century or manipulating games like the NBA refs and commissioner’s office. No, apparently, LeBron’s foul is much worse: he’d like to win and enjoy it by doing it the right way and - apparently most aggregiously, gasp - with a couple of his best friends! What is the world coming to!?! Way to ruin the curve for the rest of us, dude. Now, we’re all going to hate You for it…or at least most of us….
For the record, i told several people early this year in 2010 (before the playoffs even began) that – if LeBron James was smart, and i know that he is – he would make sure he met with Dwayne Wade after the season and went to play with Wade for the foreseeable future – whatever & wherever that required. Everyone either laughed at me as if i had just said something absurd or else said, “Well, that would be nice, but that’s kind of a pipe dream.” Well, exactly what i said would happen has now occurred, and everyone is bashing LeBron for it. Amazing. i haven’t heard one person defend LeBron James. Well, here’s my perspective on the whole situation.
[Full Disclosure: i like LeBron James. i always have, since before he was a household name (yes, i knew who he was before he was on Sports Illustrated as an 18-year old and his high school games were broadcast on ESPN). He’s not my favorite player, and he’s not someone i root for or usually follow – but he is someone i like in a casual sort of way. In all sincerity, i guess i would say i’m kinda neutral about him – although i will admit that i am becoming a fan over the last several days….]
First, there are the “personal” issues. We’ll get to the basketball issues later, but i want to first address some of the stupidity relating to comments, judgments, accusations, slander, etc. made about the characters involved. Finally, we’ll address more general sports issues after first discussing the personal issues and then the basketball issues secondly.
OK – let’s get it all out…
Issue #1: Personal Issues
i find it LUDICROUS that sports reporters, commentators, water-cooler geeks, casual fans, etc. are upset at LeBron. i have read, heard, witnessed, & observed almost universal criticism of LeBron the last few days from almost every front. Most of the criticism revolves around a perception of “classlessness” about the “way” he did what he did or some misguided sense of “betrayal” towards Cleveland or the Cavaliers organization or whatever. Wow…
Let me just say that i have never heard anything more absurd in my entire Life. OK, well – maybe the Iranian president claiming the Holocaust never happened is a little more absurd…but not much.
People are assaulting LeBron personally on every level. i have yet to meet anyone who actually knows him personally, but they feel free to make all kinds of judgments about him, anyway. They question his decision, they impugn his motives, & they assail his loyalty. Really? Is that all You have to do with Your Life? Go after some kid who’s doing his best?
They argue that he and Dwayne Wade had already decided to play together and that this decision was somehow “premeditated,” and – they howl – that, if that is True (because they don’t really know and refuse to take LeBron at face value when he claims it isn’t), it is somehow unfair and sets a bad precedent and is unethical to the integrity of the league and bad for the credibility & intrigue of the Association and – i’m quite sure i’ve heard this somewhere – the end of the world. Really? Shut up!!!
i think LeBron handled this situation stupidly, because i DO take him at face value. i believe him when he says that he only made up his mind on Thursday morning. To me, that shows great indecisiveness and lack of vision. i think he should have made this decision in January…
It should have been premeditated. Don’t give me that crap about it being bad for the league. How is the entire world talking about basketball in July (the off-season) bad for the league? How is putting three superstars on a team (in a legitimate way via free agency, i might add, and not through back-room scandals and cheating deals like the Lakers do all the time) bad for the league? How is making Miami (a nominal basketball, or any other sport for that matter, town) the epicenter of the basketball universe bad for the league? How is keeping Kobi from winning six titles to match Jordan or preventing the biggest narcissist in the history of the NBA (Phil Jackson) from winning his fourth three-peat and somehow “fulfilling” his self-described “destiny” that God told him to come back next year to make God’s plan come True bad for the league? It isn’t…none of it is bad for the league – despite whatever the media-biased, self-absorbed idiots in New York or Chicago or L.A. tell You…
If it wasn’t premeditated, then i have much less respect for LeBron and Dwayne Wade as businesspeople. What is there not to like? Play with Your friend making tons of money in a beautiful, tropical city and give Yourself the chance to be successful at the sacrifice of not making as much money as You could make while still making millions? Uh, what was the question?
And why is that a stupid decision?
It isn’t a stupid decision. It would have been stupid to do anything else, so – for LeBron’s sake – i hope it was premeditated and that he wasn’t that short-sighted or insecure or just downright dumb that it took him until Thursday morning to make up his mind. i hope he’s saying that he only made up him mind on Thursday morning out of some misguided notion of allaying everyone’s fears that he really did listen during the Clippers presentation. (Yes, honest to God, the Clippers made him a presentation and said they could win with LeBron as their centerpiece. Give me a freakin’ break – the Clippers, as long as Donald Sterling is their owner, anyway, couldn’t win if Jesus was their star and He played both invisibly and froze all the other players on the court at the same time). i hope LeBron is just trying to go through the free agent process like other players do and not – for whatever reason – show his hand that he and Dwayne decided this during their Olympic Games championship run where they (yes, the two of them, were the mainstays and foundation of the best team in the world...Not sorry at all about that contention, either, Kobi). But, whatever the Truth, i think it was almost unforgivable for him to not have decided to play with Dwayne Wade several years ago – much less several months ago or even a few days ago.
People say LeBron had bad motives. Reallly? And what, pray tell, would those have been? Making good money? Playing for an owner who isn’t a jerk and having a better work environment? Working for an organization that is competent (like the Heat) and not incompetent (like the Cavaliers)? Living in a great city (like Miami) instead of an awful place (like Cleveland)? Working with Your friends as partners? Exactly what was wrong with his motives?
O, i see. You think he was selfish. i got it…
You think him having his own television special to announce his decision was selfish…or that the millions of people, dozens of news networks, hundreds of reporters, and all the fans didn’t really care at all except for LeBron forcing them to pay attention. You think he hyped all this up, even though – for the last two years – he has kept mum about it while everyone else has speculated incessantly about it in every medium on every platform and without any solid information. i see…You think he is the problem. Wow. i laugh at Your naïveté…
The television special was genius – if, for no other reason (and trust me, there are many other reasons), than for my personal convenience. Yes, i could have found out on SportsCenter Thursday night, but i didn’t want to wait. i’m glad they did a special, and – no – it wasn’t James’ idea. i thought James handled this whole situation the last couple of years with adept aplomb and ample grace. He always spoke highly of Cleveland and its fans, ownership, & organization. He politely listened to people and organizations he never should have (uh, like the aforementioned Clippers who have absolutely no business even being in existence – much less pitching LeBron). He granted interviews to almost anyone wanting one, even though he was sick of talking about it. He kept his circle tight, family-oriented, & largely mute. He did everything right, in my opinion. O, wait - did i mention that all the proceeds of the ESPN Special went to the Boys Clubs of America? What!?! An athlete capitalizing on his fame for, gulp, charity and, gasp, a good cause? Say it ain't so, Cleveland!
What’s that? O, You think he was disloyal, huh? Hmmm…let me think about that for just a minute…
Loyalty. Yea, You’re right. Sports, especially, is such a loyal endeavor. i don’t know what i was thinking?
i mean, teams never change cities. Franchises never sell to other owners. Referees and umpires and officials and players and agents and owners and commissioners never cheat. Fans never fade in their support. i must be kidding myself. i’m so sorry…i had forgotten that sports models to us exactly how loyalty should be Lived out in each of our Lives.
i mean, i know – in the old days – that sports teams NEVER traded players back before players could become free agents. (Well, other than Babe Ruth being traded by the Red Sox, i mean…O, and Wilt Chamberlain being traded…O, and…well, maybe i’ll just leave that alone for now). But, obviously, owners always paid players what they deserved, and free agency came about just because of the agents being jerks – not because the owners weren’t treating the players fairly....
Loyalty? Are You freakin’ kidding me!?! LeBron wasn’t loyal to Cleveland, but they weren’t loyal to him, either. They didn’t trade for good players. They didn’t spend money to sign top free agents. They didn’t get rid of incompetent personnel. They had seven years to assemble the help LeBron needed, and he gave them a lot more chances than i would have to show him they were both competent and willing. Loyalty…You must be joking…
People gripe about James calling himself “the king.” Really? That is just pathetic. i have had lots of nicknames in my Life, and i have been called all kinds of names. LeBron didn’t give himself the nickname “King James,” and the fact that he embraced it isn’t any reflection on him negatively. i mean, i know everyone else LOVES it and accepts it when people give them demeaning or degrading nicknames but hates it and refuses it when people give them exalting or endearing nicknames, but that is not right. Stop whining about his nickname, people. It shows You to be immature….
People are saying LeBron “betrayed” Cleveland. No, he didn’t. Cleveland betrayed him. They didn’t help him, and now they are blaming him for both the conflict and the resolution. i’ve been married – i know how this game works. Trust me, LeBron didn’t betray anybody, and it’s just plain stupid to say otherwise. To prove betrayal, You would have to demonstrate the he owed Cleveland something, and he didn’t owe them jack. He gave them everything, and so they got spoiled and used to his lavish gifts. But them misinterpreting his generosity as an obligation instead of as a gift just shows their dysfunction as fans, a city, and an organization. Sheesh…
And what about LeBron's "lack of class?" What about it? How was he classless? Because he didn't personally call the Cavaliers owner to tell him he was going to Miami? O, i'm sure all of You have never left a job without hunting down the owner to personally tell him that You were taking another job offer. It's not like LeBron didn't notify them. He had his business partner (the appropriate person) call the Cavaliers GM (the appropriate person) and notify them. It was done in an appropriate time frame though a legitimate channel. my God, what are people thinking?
When someone has a legitimate personal axe to grind, let me know. Until then, shut up….
Issue #2: Basketball Issues
Everyone is jumping on LeBron for going to play with Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh – two other superstars who are perennial all-stars, fellow top draft picks, and highly sought free agents. For the Life of me, i just don’t understand this…
People are always griping about sports stars and saying that the athletes don’t care about winning enough (which shows fans’ dysfunction) or the community enough (which shows the community’s dysfunction) or whatever. People claim athletes only care about the money and the fame. Well, James took less money than he could have made (actually, all three of them did) and already had fame but eschewed it to go to a team where he will be perceived (however True or not that notion is) as the second-best player, and yet people somehow claim he made the wrong decision. Uh, no – he didn’t…
Let me explain. LeBron James is, in my humble opinion, the best athlete i have ever seen. Basketball players are commonly considered to be among the best overall athletes in the world along with water polo, triathlon, and gymnastics athletes. Their skill sets require agility, strength, endurance, balance, and much more. They run 10-12 miles minimum every game and more in practices. They have to deal with officials, split-second decisions, strategy, pressure, and more – all in a highly creative, oppressively competitive, & restrictively political culture. LeBron James is the best athlete i have ever seen. But, he is not a “closer.”
He needs a closer. And at least James is smart enough to admit it.
LeBron is unselfish – yes, that’s right, the exact opposite of what people are claiming about him. He always has been unselfish. He likes comradery and team play and passing and winning or losing together. He’s always said that, and his actions have always demonstrated that. There has never been any conflict between his verbal assertions and his behavioral actions. He has much more integrity than most people who are criticizing him.
LeBron is a great player – one of the best to ever play basketball, by most people’s count. But a Closer has to have four traits – all of which are non-negotiable, and James only has three, at best. A Closer must have: 1) Natural talent for precision shooting, 2) Internal Confidence, 3) Developed ability to get his own shot, and 4) Absolute Ruthlessness. James doesn’t have #1 and, therefore, i think, doesn’t have #2. i also question his #4.
Dwayne Wade has all of them. Kobii Bryant has all of them. They are the only two players currently playing who do. LeBron would have been an idiot to not play with one of them, and he’s too good a person to play with Kobee.
He could have gone to Chicago, and that would have been a great decision – as long as Wade went there. But Wade didn’t go there, and so it would not have been a good decision. Charles Barkley said several weeks ago that to be Truly great, You have to be the best player on the best team. That is not True. Charles says that out of frustration, because he never was what he described. However, being Truly great is about being unselfish and sacrificing for the success of the team and caring about people as people in the process – and LeBron has done and will do that…
He makes it virtually impossible to double-team Wade or Bosh from a strategy point of view. He can run the point from any position. He is a lock-down defender who doesn’t have to score to be engaged in the game or feel like he’s contributing. He’s an all-around player – something most current fans don’t remember or know how to properly value.
People say he’s not a competitor for going to play with DWade and Bosh. Excuse me? That is complete rubbish and just flat-out stupid. Magic Johnson is the best comparison i know of to LeBron. Magic wasn’t a closer, either. He needed a closer, and he had Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Lew Alcindor). But Magic wasn’t criticized when the Lakers drafted James Worthy (and, yes, his last name is ironic since he isn’t worthy of as much of the acclaim he gets) or when they stole Mychal Thompson or got Byron Scott or whatever. No one said Larry Bird (the best basketball player to ever Live) wasn’t a competitor when they traded for Robert Parrish or drafted Kevin McHale or picked up Dennis Johnson or added Bill Walton. The Pittsburgh Steelers or New York Yankees or Dallas Cowboys or Edmonton Oilers never saw their stars diminished by having other great players on their teams, but – then again – they weren’t LeBron James. LeBron will never be able to make anyone happy, no matter what he does or how humbly or well he does it…
To all the people bashing LeBron: Get over it…
Issue #3: Sports Issues
What i find most laughable about all this is the reverence people have for sports. i like sports, but i used to Love them before i was delivered from their hold on me. my calendar used to revolve around the sports seasons – not the sun's movements. A lot of this LeBron-bashing is due to people having an unhealthy interaction with sports based on either a pathetic dependence on it as a key coping mechanism in their Lives or a sad misunderstanding of what is appropriate behavior based on perceived “virtues” derived from sports (such as competition)…
Sports are a joke. They always have been and always will be. People who put any stock in them are sad….
Championships are inherently political. They are much more often acquired with money or influence or favor or than by sheer talent, hard work, and fairness. Basketball is especially so.
In “Remember The Titans,” Coach Boone walks out to a football field and is confronted head-on with this reality. He makes the absurdly stupid and naïve statement, “Ah…this is my home…this is always right.” Unbelievable that a grown man could say something so dumb, and Coach Boone figures that out when the administrator of the new segregated school explains to him that the white folk only put him in so that they could fire him the first time he lost and give the job to his white counterpart…
i haven’t ever witnessed a championship in my Lifetime that was legitimate on any level. Championships are based on competition – one of the great evils of the world and one of the great tools & developments of Satan.
Anyone who wins a championship in any field or who is the top salesperson in any industry or who wins any award of any kind or succeeds in any endeavor in any way ought to be thankful to all the people who made them successful, and they ought to realize that they only won it because other people wanted them to win it. Psychologically, You just cannot make the case that people succeed by themselves or without the help of administrators, officials, and other bureaucrats. It’s just not possible.
As Americans, we are particularly crazed with “winning,” and it harms us as a nation. There are good lessons to be learned from sharpening one another, but competition is a ruse of the enemy that only demoralizes, demeans, and degrades people. It is a mechanism for establishing a hierarchy, and that makes it – by definition – bad and unrighteous. we evaluate people based on whether they win or not, and that is awful. we condition our kids to “win” at all cost (or sometimes at only ethical or appropriate or fair costs), and we teach them – in so doing – to be like the world and not to value faith and sharing and sacrifice above winning. In fact, we actively teach them that those godly values don’t really work, and that – though they are nice ideas, in theory – the way things really work is to seize power and grab for Yourself and get Your own.
LeBron wants to win more than he wants to be rich, so he is sacrificing. Now, there’s no good way for him to navigate this, but i like the way he did and is doing it. As for all the critics, You might want to take out the forest of logs from Your own eye before seeing whether or not he even has a speck in his eye that You could remove – if the damage to Your own sight isn’t permanent, that is…
In short, don’t believe the crap You’re hearing about LeBron “King” James. No one knows enough to say the things they’ve been saying, and he will show his True colors in the coming years. At least he wasn’t on trial for rape or hasn’t cheated with performance-enhancing drugs or pulled stunts like pretending to work for one franchise so You can give Your old one the steal of the century or manipulating games like the NBA refs and commissioner’s office. No, apparently, LeBron’s foul is much worse: he’d like to win and enjoy it by doing it the right way and - apparently most aggregiously, gasp - with a couple of his best friends! What is the world coming to!?! Way to ruin the curve for the rest of us, dude. Now, we’re all going to hate You for it…or at least most of us….
[End of Re-Post...]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, the Heat got off to a slow start, but they are just going to get better and better for the next 5 years. They are nowhere near their potential, and yet they are reeling off double-digit win streaks. Pray, people. Pray for mercy for the rest of the league. i'm not convinced they can beat the Celtics this year, but the Celtics had better get younger before the end of next year. The Magic? Please. Even with adding the always-packing 007 himself, Gilbert Arenas, they can't hang with the Heat. And the West: the Laker girls, the Spurs, the Mavs? i don't think so. i'm not a Heat fan, but i prefer heat to cold....
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