LeBron James got this one right. His "decision" in 2010 was a narcissistic disaster and the fact that he didn't realize that until 2012 only made it worse. People jokingly referred to his free agency this season as "indecision" or "decision 2.0", but he was determined to keep this one on the down low and handle things right. He refused to open his mouth the entire time. He didn't even publicly meet any teams except the heat - he owed that much to Pat Riley and the gang out of courtesy, if not anything else. And he didn't even have a press conference to announce his signing. He wrote a letter penned by Lee Jenkins on SI and flew away to Brazil. The letter (http://www.si.com/nba/2014/07/11/lebron-james-cleveland-cavaliers) was beautifully penned and ends with a "I am coming home" message which was music to many ears, including mine. The letter struck all the right notes and touched on everything relevant.
LeBron in that letter came off as a humble, loyal, home-sick, forgiving, apologetic, superstar and he also made sure he drove the fan expectations down - a far cry from the "not 6, not 7" days. He gained a lot of fans back and a championship or two in Ohio is going to make him incredibly popular and we might finally have a legitimate threat to Michael Jordan for GOAT - Greatest Of All Time. He definitely knows what he is doing here and is trying to go in a different direction to build a unique legacy. He is way past just the ring counts - he is not winning that argument anyways since he has already lost 3 finals. MJ is 6-0 and LeBron is 2-3. But winning for his small-market home town and a resume along the lines of 4 championships and 8 finals appearance or something like that in addition to all the ridiculous stats he is already putting up is going to be hard to ignore.
He gave us all a feel-good, cool story and you don't have to be a Cleveland cavs fan to appreciate this. Some of the LeBron apologists in the media were calling us all "haters" when LeBron was in Miami. They missed a basic point. Fans don't owe their fandom to anybody! I am not beholden to like LeBron or anybody just because he jumps the highest for his dunks or drops the sweetest dimes. Fans have every right to like or hate anybody for any reason as long as they keep it civil and don't make it personal. No fan asked to put LeBron in jail for leaving Cleveland in 2010, but he or she had every right to like LeBron in 2009 and change their mind and not like him in 2011. We see this everyday when athletes change teams and fans go from cheering to booing or vice versa just based on the laundry. We accept this, but somehow some people in the media didn't get why people disliked LeBron after the "decision." The "decision" took a feel good, small market, home town story away and some fans lost all incentive to pull for LeBron once he moved to Miami.
Fans don't owe the athletes anything. After all, fans pay LeBron, it's not the other way around. Customer is God in any business and it's LeBron's job to impress the customer. The "decision" did the exact opposite - both the modus operandi and the end result were wrong in the minds of many fans. May be because the media is so involved with the sport and LeBron was clearly the best basketball player in the world, some people in the media couldn't see why people did not like or root for LeBron. Well, I hate the term "casual fans", but casual fans like or dislike an athlete for many reasons and the summer of 2010 gave them a truckload of reasons to hate LeBron. It's on him, not the fans. The league was not happy either for a completely different reason. The league made many changes in 2011 during the lockout just to prevent the kind of superstar conglomeration that the Miami heat created in the previous off-season.
One of the less appreciated aspect of the big 3 was how rare and unusual it was for 3 of the top 5 draft picks from the same draft to come together in their prime. This absolutely threatened the competitive balance and the whole logic of the draft in the NBA. Imagine a league where the top guys from every draft ganged up after their initial contracts and ended up in cities of their choice. Though, to be fair, these 3 did re-sign with their respective teams once after their rookie contracts before joining forces in 2010. But still, if LeBron, Wade, and Bosh could gang up in their prime, it would have probably been easier for guys from the other drafts to do it - given that the big 3 were superstars from a historically top-notch draft and it will cost a lot less and involve lesser egos with top picks from your typical, average draft. This scared the league as it threatened the system and the whole notion of parity and put too much power in the hands of the players. The NBA fixed it in a hurry, to the point that the same big 3 in 2014 faced much bigger problem re-signing with the heat though they were heat's own free agents this time around and had all kinds of "Bird rights".
LeBron has changed the culture of NBA free agency with his move in 2010 and superstars now are constantly trying to team up with each other. But the system has made it extremely difficult to do it. So after a lot of talk this off-season, stars were forced to go their separate ways. LeBron seems to always pioneer new ways to build a legendary career. He left town and teamed up with two other superstars who he was competing against in 2010. Now, he is going back to his small market, home team to try to win a championship for a downtrodden franchise. Few stars get a chance to do this. Neither MJ, nor Bird, nor Magic can claim to have done that. So he is charting his own course here. More power to him. It was interesting to see him hold the entire league hostage for a week without uttering a word. Everybody, including other stars were forced to wait for his move before free agency resumed again. He is wielding unprecedented power right now and wielding it well I might add. As a suns fan, I am getting ready to root for a suns-cavs finals every year. Some of us root for good things and the davids of this world against narcissistic things and the goliaths. I have no problem supporting LeBron now proving that us fans can change our mind and keep things fair if only the athlete does the "right thing". In the words of the king, "who am I to hold a grudge?"
LeBron in that letter came off as a humble, loyal, home-sick, forgiving, apologetic, superstar and he also made sure he drove the fan expectations down - a far cry from the "not 6, not 7" days. He gained a lot of fans back and a championship or two in Ohio is going to make him incredibly popular and we might finally have a legitimate threat to Michael Jordan for GOAT - Greatest Of All Time. He definitely knows what he is doing here and is trying to go in a different direction to build a unique legacy. He is way past just the ring counts - he is not winning that argument anyways since he has already lost 3 finals. MJ is 6-0 and LeBron is 2-3. But winning for his small-market home town and a resume along the lines of 4 championships and 8 finals appearance or something like that in addition to all the ridiculous stats he is already putting up is going to be hard to ignore.
He gave us all a feel-good, cool story and you don't have to be a Cleveland cavs fan to appreciate this. Some of the LeBron apologists in the media were calling us all "haters" when LeBron was in Miami. They missed a basic point. Fans don't owe their fandom to anybody! I am not beholden to like LeBron or anybody just because he jumps the highest for his dunks or drops the sweetest dimes. Fans have every right to like or hate anybody for any reason as long as they keep it civil and don't make it personal. No fan asked to put LeBron in jail for leaving Cleveland in 2010, but he or she had every right to like LeBron in 2009 and change their mind and not like him in 2011. We see this everyday when athletes change teams and fans go from cheering to booing or vice versa just based on the laundry. We accept this, but somehow some people in the media didn't get why people disliked LeBron after the "decision." The "decision" took a feel good, small market, home town story away and some fans lost all incentive to pull for LeBron once he moved to Miami.
Fans don't owe the athletes anything. After all, fans pay LeBron, it's not the other way around. Customer is God in any business and it's LeBron's job to impress the customer. The "decision" did the exact opposite - both the modus operandi and the end result were wrong in the minds of many fans. May be because the media is so involved with the sport and LeBron was clearly the best basketball player in the world, some people in the media couldn't see why people did not like or root for LeBron. Well, I hate the term "casual fans", but casual fans like or dislike an athlete for many reasons and the summer of 2010 gave them a truckload of reasons to hate LeBron. It's on him, not the fans. The league was not happy either for a completely different reason. The league made many changes in 2011 during the lockout just to prevent the kind of superstar conglomeration that the Miami heat created in the previous off-season.
One of the less appreciated aspect of the big 3 was how rare and unusual it was for 3 of the top 5 draft picks from the same draft to come together in their prime. This absolutely threatened the competitive balance and the whole logic of the draft in the NBA. Imagine a league where the top guys from every draft ganged up after their initial contracts and ended up in cities of their choice. Though, to be fair, these 3 did re-sign with their respective teams once after their rookie contracts before joining forces in 2010. But still, if LeBron, Wade, and Bosh could gang up in their prime, it would have probably been easier for guys from the other drafts to do it - given that the big 3 were superstars from a historically top-notch draft and it will cost a lot less and involve lesser egos with top picks from your typical, average draft. This scared the league as it threatened the system and the whole notion of parity and put too much power in the hands of the players. The NBA fixed it in a hurry, to the point that the same big 3 in 2014 faced much bigger problem re-signing with the heat though they were heat's own free agents this time around and had all kinds of "Bird rights".
LeBron has changed the culture of NBA free agency with his move in 2010 and superstars now are constantly trying to team up with each other. But the system has made it extremely difficult to do it. So after a lot of talk this off-season, stars were forced to go their separate ways. LeBron seems to always pioneer new ways to build a legendary career. He left town and teamed up with two other superstars who he was competing against in 2010. Now, he is going back to his small market, home team to try to win a championship for a downtrodden franchise. Few stars get a chance to do this. Neither MJ, nor Bird, nor Magic can claim to have done that. So he is charting his own course here. More power to him. It was interesting to see him hold the entire league hostage for a week without uttering a word. Everybody, including other stars were forced to wait for his move before free agency resumed again. He is wielding unprecedented power right now and wielding it well I might add. As a suns fan, I am getting ready to root for a suns-cavs finals every year. Some of us root for good things and the davids of this world against narcissistic things and the goliaths. I have no problem supporting LeBron now proving that us fans can change our mind and keep things fair if only the athlete does the "right thing". In the words of the king, "who am I to hold a grudge?"
3 comments:
Before I read LeBron's letter, I heard Colin Cowherd read it aloud on his radio show when it just came in (http://espn.go.com/espnradio/play?id=11203141) as breaking news that LeBron was returning to Cleveland. It was well written to say the least. I think he meant most (if not all) of what he said so his heart's definitely in the right place. I hope he stays there for a while, at least until they win 1 championship which I can't imagine is too far away. I've said before that San Antonio is still the team to beat, but LeBron has at least 4-5 good years left and age certainly isn't a problem for his teammates. The playing field should even out after Tim Duncan retires and ever since they let James Harden go, OKC has never been the same. If Cleveland trades away a young player or two and grab a good/great player in his prime, that could draw even more veterans to sign for the minimum and make the Cavs a serious contender. Any team with LeBron is at least a semi-serious contender -- he's just that good.
The decision did sour me on Mr. James but I was a hater back when he took over the mantle of league's best player from Kobe Bryant. I did however come around after that epic Game 6 against Boston in the 2012 Eastern Conference Finals. Boston had just won 3 in a row against the Heat and after beating them in Miami in Game 5, everyone was thinking "here we go again" for LeBron who had never won a title until then. But LeBron said no, this year is going to be different and he put up 45/15/5 shooting 73% from the field and 50% from behind the arc to beat the Celtics in Boston in an elimination game. I think he won a lot of new fans that day including me. Of course he went on to win his first championship that year and I was happy for him. This letter about going home has made me an even bigger fan and few things in sports would be a better story than Cleveland winning a title in any sport. I would disagree with you slightly that MJ never did what LeBron is trying to do, because Chicago, for all it had going for it as a city (no one would've called it downtrodden), didn't have much in the way of sports success (Bulls, Bears, Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks) until the Bulls started their run.
If nothing else, getting LeBron back is itself a redemption story for Northeast Ohio and it should be interesting to see how far the Cavs can go. They have a new coach who's well respected but unproven and with a few good off-season / mid-season moves they should put things together sooner or later for a reasonably-sized title window. They've sold out season tickets and the many auxiliary businesses that depend on professional sports should see an uptick as well. It's amazing how much impact one person can have on a team, a city, a league and a sport, but it seems like LeBron has finally realized it (based on the things he said in his letter). I think he's ready to resume his journey where it all began and eventually show people why he truly is the chosen one.
Very good article. You make a great point about fans not owing anything to the players and that its the other way around.
About his coming back home - I don't buy it at all. It was about winning championships. The Heat "may" have had one more run at the Finals if James, Wade and Bosh returned but it would be downhill - 2015 and beyond.
With Cleveland, James has a shot at 2-3 Finals in the next 5 years with a roster thats many years younger at the star level. That was the point. The exclamation point will be winning it in Cleveland where there have been no championship celebrations for 6+ decades.
The only point I will agree with is that he handled this very well this time around. Better form but its the same content - its all about winning!
PS: You should start writing for Y! Sports or ESPN.
Great points Magesh. It's especially amazing to see the economic impact of his return in Cleveland. It's pretty fascinating to see some of the numbers.
Thanks "Anonymous" for the compliments. You are both right and wrong about "winning". He is chasing "legacy" more than "winning" though legacy obviously includes winning. He is genuinely interested in winning in Cleveland. I agree with you that the younger roster in Cleveland gives him a better shot. I also wonder about a lot of what ifs - What if he had won last year in Miami? What if Wade was still dominant? What if Kyrie was not this good? But he had a lot of leverage wherever he went. I am sure he could have forced Miami to do anything to surround him with a better team. I did write when free agency started that he has only 2 options - Miami or Cleveland. With that said, if he was just abut winning, he could have gone to Houston for instance. He would have gotten a big 3 right away. I think Cleveland's history and the "returning hero" storyline was too attractive for him and he wanted that to define his legacy as much as "winning".
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