DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Cavs Offseason Continued Continued

He'll always be a child in a man's body. Being bailed out by 2 other superstars in Miami will help him keep the same mindset he's had w/ the Cavs in the regular seasons and in high school, when there was no real challenge to his ability. All he's ever known , minus the NBA playoffs, is winning and having his butt kissed and he can't live w/out it.

So has a mob gone after Delonte West yet?

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/08/sports/la-sp-plaschke-lebron-james-20100709

LeBron James looks neither royal nor loyal
On an ESPN show, the King shows up a supportive community.
July 08, 2010|Bill PlaschkeLeBron James is the King, all right.

The King of Crass. The King of Callous. The King of Cowardice.


What kind of man arranges and stars in a nationally televised infomercial during which he kicks his hometown to the curb? What kind of man summons a crowd of millions to watch him break up with a city that has loved and supported him for 25 years?

LeBron James dragged the Cleveland Cavaliers to the center table of the most crowded, well-lighted joint on the sports landscape Thursday night, then loudly dumped them on the spot.

The basketball news is that two-time defending most valuable player James has announced he will be joining stars Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh on the Miami Heat.

The human news is that, almost overnight, one of basketball's most likable figures has turned into a complete jerk.

James has every right to use free agency to leave a place where he didn't feel he could win a championship. But he had no right to publicly humiliate his neighbors in the process.

That hourlong ESPN program produced and directed by the 25-year-old James and his team of young sycophants Thursday was called "The Decision." It turns out the biggest decision was by James to strip himself of the most basic human decency, and he will again never look the same.

If you are going to leave the team where you've spent all seven seasons, leave the area where you've spent all 25 years, doesn't decorum dictate that you do it quietly, gently, gracefully? Given that this town hasn't enjoyed a major sports championship in 46 years, and given that your departure could keep them from winning anything for many more years, don't you think of them first? Did no part of last season's $15.8-million salary mandate, you know, manners?

You want to leave this place where you are so beloved, fine. Leave it like a man. Issue a news release announcing your decision and thanking Cleveland for its support. Hold a local news conference with the Cleveland media to reiterate those thanks. Then, and only then, do you appear on a national ESPN show to talk about your decision.

But no, years of coddling have filled James with such narcissism that he no longer sees anyone but himself. While reaping financial rewards as this country's most successful basketball prodigy, James has paid the price in a failure to develop integrity or character. Hey, if you can dunk on someone, why do you have to be sensitive to them?

I knew it was coming, but I have to say I'm loving the national sports writers teeing off on LeBron. To paraphrase Gilbert, this is a long time coming. What I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall in the LRMR offices right now.

Assuming they have offices, that is.

It IS the perfect song

One thing I'm glad about, no more front-runner and band-wagoner cavs fans.

I'm stuck with you guys and my other fellow miserable bastards for life

http://joeposnanski.si.com/2010/07/08/the-lebron-decision/?eref=sihp

There’s a handy little life trick you learn growing up in Cleveland. It’s called pessimism. And it can get you through a lot of dark days. I learned in Cleveland that the way to handle a foot of snow is to expect two feet. The way to deal with large potholes is to imagine them to be bigger than moderately priced New York City apartments. The way to beat an endless string of gray skies is to embrace the gray, cherish it, bask in it. And the way to overcome crushing sports defeats is to always, always, always see them coming.

And so, the person who let me down on Thursday night was not LeBron James. No, it was myself. I knew what was likely going to happen — it was IMPOSSIBLE not to know. The Miami rumors had grown so loud that season tickets in South Florida were already flying off the shelf.

And yet, to the end — to the very last word of the only question that mattered in Jim Gray’s interminable interview with the man who would be King — I just didn’t think LeBron James had it in him to create his own ESPN show dedicated to dumping his hometown. I always thought he might leave for another team. But I didn’t think he would do it so readily, so impassively, so cooly, I didn’t think he would so publicly spurn and embarrass the city that has dedicated so much of its energy to loving him. I didn’t think he had that in him. Even with all the Miami reports, even with all the signs, even with all the people telling me that he was gone, once he got to that decisive moment on television I still expected him to say: “I’ve decided to stay in Cleveland.”

And that was my fault. Remember the scene in The Natural, when Robert Redford was lamenting his dark past (when he got shot by a pouty Barbara Hershey)? He was beating himself up to Glenn Close.

Redford: “But I didn’t see it coming.”
Close: “How could you know she’d hurt you? How could anyone?”
Redford: “I didn’t see it coming.”
Close: “You should have?”
Redford: “Yes. But I didn’t. Why didn’t I?”

That’s what I thought about after the first wave of LeBron disgust passed (and I was onto the second wave). LeBron James joins Art Modell, John Elway, Michael Jordan, Mike Davis and Willie Mays as just a few who have broken Cleveland’s still-beating sports heart. But that’s not the point. I didn’t see it coming. I should have. But I didn’t. The Cleveland inside let me down.

* * *

It’s worth remembering the last game. That was really the day that the aura of King LeBron died in Cleveland. He is the most brilliant basketball player on earth — I believe that sincerely. He plays the game with an energy and a spirit that is unlike anyone else — he can do anything. He can transform himself into Magic Johnson or Larry Bird, Dr. J or Karl Malone, and at certain times, at his most inspirational, he can even become Michael Jordan for a few heady minutes. It’s like he’s a master impressionist, the Dana Carvey of basketball, and he can change his 6-foot-8 frame into any form he needs at that moment.

This sort of brilliance made LeBron James the league’s MVP the last two seasons — and he became the best player in the league by a wide margin. He was often spectacular in the playoffs, too. In 2007, James’ brilliance carried a woefully overmatched Cleveland Cavaliers team of Ilgauskas and Varejaeo and Gooden to the NBA Finals.

Those 2007 Cavaliers, though, were destroyed in four straight by San Antonio. And the Cavs would not again reach the Finals — even though they would twice have the NBA’s best record. The common lament was that the Cavaliers around James were not good enough, were not talented enough, and it’s true. They were not. But part of this is that James could not make them good enough. Maybe that’s an unfair expectation… but it’s the unfair expectation that has been placed on every great player in the history of basketball. There were limits to his brilliance. And, as we would later see, no one was more aware of these limits than LeBron James himself.

So… to his last game. You will remember that James had played startlingly bad basketball in Game 5 of the playoff series against the Boston Celtics — and Cleveland, as you might expect, suffered its worst home playoff loss ever. James wasn’t just bad in Game 5, he was lethargic… bored… discouraged. Mostly discouraged. I remember talking to a friend after that game and saying that it looked like LeBron had grown tired of all the expectations and unreasonable pressures. He looked like someone who wanted a day off, like the guy at work who feels like he carries way too much of the load and finally decides to call in sick just so everyone will know how important he really is.

The next game — also LeBron’s last game as a Cav — was only different by degree. LeBron was indisputably more energetic and alive, but it would have been impossible for him to be less so. Anyway, he still did not seem quite into the game. He had a couple of spectacular bursts — like the back-to-back three-pointers that brought Cleveland back — but he also kept turning the ball over, kept trying to set up less-talented teammates, kept refusing to put his mark on the game. He was statistically great (he had a triple-double), but it was a bland greatness. With just over a minute to go, the Cavaliers were down by nine points.

And then-coach Mike Brown wildly gestured for his team to foul — it was only nine points with a minute left. You might win. And even if not, you have to go down fighting. Mike Brown waved his arms, only, his team did not foul. They just stood there and watched the clock and the season melt into oblivion. It now seems that was a direct message from LeBron James — to Mike Brown, to Cavaliers ownership, to his teammates, to the City of Cleveland — that he’d had enough. LeBron James quit. His teammates quit along with him. And when the game ended, James whispered a few words to the Celtics players, high-fived a few fans and, the second he was in the tunnel, tore off his Cavaliers jersey.

How in the hell did I not see this coming?

* * *

It seems obvious watching that the ice-cold travesty on ESPN that LeBron James had no idea just how angry Cleveland would be with him. He should have known. Cleveland has a lot of rage, pent up from a lot of bad breaks. He should have known that. He grew up in Akron. He had played for no other team. He was well aware of all the sports pain Cleveland had endured through the years — Red Right 88, the Drive, the Fumble, the Shot, the World Series heartbreak, the blown series against the Red Sox and so on, forever. He had to know the emotions invested in him, all the hopes he had so willingly built up. He would say that he gave his all on the court, and he did. But this relationship between player and city meant more, and he knew it.

Or, he had to know … but he showed no signs of it. This was something raw. Cleveland offered him more money. Cleveland offered him unconditional love. Cleveland offered him the chance to create his own legacy. He turned them down for what seems to him like a sure thing and a tax shelter in Florida.

I don’t blame him for that … I really don’t. I can understand the draw to Miami, beyond the sun and beach. Dwayne Wade, when healthy, is in the conversation as the third-best player in the NBA behind LeBron and Kobe. Chris Bosh is — well, I’m not entirely sure why he suddenly gets talked about like he’s an all-time NBA great or in the Wade/LeBron league (he’s not), but he’s obviously talented and was a very good scorer and rebounder as the No. 1 option in Toronto. I think there are some major questions about the team and how those three will play together*, but it’s obviously very promising and I understand and appreciate why LeBron James would put his chips down in Miami.

*James’ interviews were not especially revealing, but I thought one quote he offered was pretty interesting. He was asked about sharing the spotlight with Dwayne Wade, and he basically said he did not think there would need to be “sharing.” He thought instead there were little spotlights for all of them. I’m not sure exactly what that means, but it didn’t sound all that promising to me. There probably are not enough spotlights for all of them. Dwayne Wade is Miami. LeBron is coming to town in the role of A-Rod to Wade’s Jeter. He may be better. They may love the way he plays. But it’s Dwayne Wade’s team and his town.

But, his apparent lack of feeling for his old city … that I don’t understand. He just seemed utterly unfeeling about it all from the start. He mouthed a few words of thanks to the City of Cleveland, which he said with all the emotion that baseball announcers use when reading airport parking advertisements. When asked how he thought Cleveland would react to him, he mostly shrugged and said his friends would stick with him. He simply did not seem aware that he had broken the heart of a city that always feels just one heartbreak away from collapse.

“You simply don’t deserve this kind of cowardly betrayal,” Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert wrote in an outrageous open letter to the city, and people around town burned James jerseys, and I can tell you this won’t end. Maybe if LeBron James had gone to Miami but announced it in a different way, handled this whole circus differently … well, I don’t know. Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. I do know that to spit in the city’s eye like this, well, Cleveland will never forget it. A New Yorker named Art Modell kept the Browns in Cleveland for 34 years, and he won a championship, and he always seemed to try his best to build good teams, and then he was overwrought with money problems and a decrepit stadium, and he moved the Browns to Baltimore. Since then, a new team called the Browns have come to town, filling the gap with a beautiful new stadium. I’ll still never forgive Art Modell.

LeBron James, meanwhile, a native son, ran off to Miami to play ball with Wade and Bosh and held a public television spectacle that rubbed Cleveland’s face in the mud. As one friend says: “This is so humiliating, so degrading. I can’t imagine another athlete putting his home town through this wringer.” As another says: “This feels like The End of Loyalty.”

And the thing is: LeBron James never seemed to understand any of this. He was entirely tone deaf. The Cleveland inside let him down too.

* * *

If this thing was about public relations, well, it’s pretty clearly a disaster. LeBron James entered the free agency time as the most popular player in the NBA. He leaves having alienated New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and everyone who associates with the pain of Cleveland. He will get booed pretty much everywhere he goes. I really don’t get the benefits.

Well, wait, I do get the main benefit — I think it really is about trying to win a championships. Cynics will say that the LeBron Brand is incomplete with championships. Maybe that’s it. But I think there’s something real there too — LeBron James is 25 years old and he just might be scared, truly scared, that he will go down in history as a loser. He seems to care about this stuff, and he knows that NBA history is loaded with very good players who did not win championships — Charles Barkley, Reggie Miller, Pete Maravich, Stockton and Malone. Very good players. But no legendary ones. You can’t be legendary without a championship. One championship might not be enough. Even Wilt Chamberlain — the most awesome offensive force in the history of basketball — is still viewed as flawed because he ONLY won two championships. Rings are the currency of NBA greatness. LeBron James knows this.

And when backed into a corner, he had to ask himself the question: Was he good enough to win a championship with an uncertain cast in Cleveland? Was he able to build a team? My suspicion is: He just wasn’t sure. Michael Jordan was a great player and a killer on the court. Kobe Bryant is a great player and a killer on the court. LeBron James … is a great player.

There are reports that James tried to convince Chris Bosh to come to Cleveland to play with him there … Bosh preferred the beaches of Miami and the cover of Dwayne Wade. And LeBron James, faced with the decision so big that it became The Decision on ESPN, follows Chris Bosh. You have to ask yourself if you could imagine Jordan or Magic or Bird or Kareem or Russell following Chris Bosh in hopes of glory.

Look, it may work. Those three stars, surrounded by some young and emerging players, may become the superpower of the next decade. And, also, they may not.*

jc


That many ego's on one team. I imagine the sun will make way for rain in the near future for Miami.

I am afraid that James sees winning Titles as a means of expanding his "brand" rather than as a goal in and of itself.

I really think that the idea of cross marketting himself with teammates Bosh and Wade was even more important than winning.

All things being equal, I think that he wanted an easier path ..... less "pressure" .... an "out" if he fails ...... and more ability to market himself.

It's a shame that there is a really good possibility that such a singular talent might just be better remembered for his lack of willingness to be the foundation of his team ..... to be its "Atlas" ,,,,,, to be the strong back and leader who called to his teammates "follow me through hell and I'll get you to heaven" ....... and, in the end, will be remembered as a "Pippen" even if his best case senario happens, and he wins a championship on Wade's team.

He took the coward's way out. He wants high reward with the lowest possible risk to himself or his "image". Ironic that he may have damaged his image more than any loss, or string of losses, ever could have.

probably too early to post this seeing the comments still going on, but i'm doing it anyway.

here's the best plan for getting better for the future (i do NOT think Gilbert is patient enough to execute it though)

1. Step One: Determine which players on our roster to keep. Focus on young players with good work ethic.

AV, Hickson, Gibson, Green, Jawad, Kaun, Eyenga. I say keep Powe, Parker and Moon as they are vet's but both good guys and work hard. They can be key on teaching. They probably leave for better situations when their contract is up of course.

2. Step Two: Fire sale the rest of the roster. Try to get as many future 1st rounders and young players back as possible.

Mo, Jamison, Delonte, Telfair, Shaq sign-n-trade (though if Dallas wants him now, we want Roddy-B back not Haywood)

3. Step Three: Identify FA's to target and go after (we have cap space now). Focus on young, possibly budding players.

Felton - longshot. NYK are going to give him big $$$.
Childress - longshot. he's a great worker, but he's likely going to a contender.
Chandler - longshot. he's going to a contender in the East that needs to stop Dwight. Did Bulls burn that bridge?
Ian Mahinmi - possibly most underrated player in NBA. He's really, really good.
Ty Thomas - Larry Brown figured out how to use him as a defensive weapon.
Outlaw - only 25 years old. really.
Kleiza - 25 and we do need a SF.
Foye - 26 and he could just be what Delonte was if we trade him.


4. Step Four: Don't try to get into the playoffs the next 2-3 years. This is going to be difficult as Byron Scott is a good coach, his style is built to wear down teams in the regular season and win games underdogs shouldn't win. But, it's important to get into the top10 draft picks.

5. Step Five: Draft well. Most important step and the hardest to execute. Have to nail one superstar and at least not have DuJuan Wagner style misses on the others (getting a Chris Mills is okay if you land that superstar with one of these picks).

6. Step Six: Be patient. Let the players develop, extend the ones who are improving. Don't get hasty and trade away youngsters for vet's because you are getting an itchy trigger finger. Be stressing defense during this time so that all the young players are dedicated on that end.

7. Step Seven: When you are ready to compete for the championship again, be honest about the team's holes and willing to fill them with veterans.

I wonder if the schedule makers will be awesome and open up the season with Miami in Cleveland...

Or they'll probably put it on christmas day like te first year Shaq and Kobe faced each other...

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-a...3_1214158_n.jpg

lolz

The frame with the text "where's your crown king nothing" should take the place of the witness banner.

He does need championships to cement his legacy.. problem is that he's going about it in the worst possible way.. the absolute worst possible way.

The very best way would have been to win one or two in Cleveland with just a very good cast of support players but no other superstars.

The second best way would have been to win one or two in Cleveland by luring in another star like Bosh or Chris Paul or whoever.

The third best way would have been to leave Cleveland and go to a solid team which had everything but that final superstar piece.

The fourth best way would have been to go to a team that already had one superstar.

The fifth best way, and the way he did it, is to go to a team that already has one superstar but you appear to be the guy following the SECOND superstar because you couldn't convince him to come to YOUR team...

I'm sorry but this whole thing makes LeBron James appear weak and insecure about his ability, his legacy, everything...

LeBron's chasing celebrity, not championships
LINK








LeBron's new reality: He's the villain now
LINK

I agree 100%, and that is exactly what I meant about the journey of how it's done. I like the way you laid it out.

The hometown aspect just enhances what could have been the ultimate accomplishment.

i am so glad this is over. it sucks not having him, but now that we found out who he really is, and what he thinks of us, i'm glad he's gone.

there will be a few more days of this, and then the focus will be on nfl/favre

favre watch seems like a walk in the park compared to what we were basically forced to go through for the last 2 months.

Jason Whitlock just eviscerated LeBron. "America’s first all-male, PG-13 celebrity sex tape?"

Wow.

Quote:

---

His people are pro's. They know this wouldn't enhance his image, just his chance to win a title.

---

Most of "his people" are the morons that went to St. Marys and barely graduated high school who have ridden LeBron's coattails to some kind of minor celebrity status... that and his mom, who from what I've seen isn't exactly qualified to work in the arena of global PR campaigns...

I think LeBron made a bad decision.. I think Cleveland would have been better, I could have even understood the Knicks and to some extent the Bulls (if you read my top 5 ways to win a championship both of them rank above the way he did it).... but beyond the decision itself is the way he pulled it off, which might be unparalled in the history of assinine PR stunts.

charles barkley defended cleveland and the cavs.

he basically said that people rip the rest of the cavs too much, said they were one of the 4 or 5 best teams in the nba, and if you are one of the 4 or 5 best teams and have a "superstar" than basically you shouldn't leave.

he blasted him well, a lot of the same stuff other writers have put out this morning. he's thrown out all comparisons to the greats of the game, which should hurt since he's claimed to be such a historian of the league.

who on that team is gonna check dwight howard?

Heck, who on that team is going to stop Dwight Howard and Rashard Lewis or Gasol and Bynum? Bosh wasn't exactly known for his defense, and he's going to be paired with some scrub for a center.

How about their bench? While those three are getting a breather, every team in the league will be able to go on HUGE runs.

They're going to end up playing so many minutes every game that they're gonna be beat down by the end of the season.

Should be interesting to see what else fills that team out after those 3.

Kinda like he made the cap a couple of million larger than it was going to be?