Well, that was a fun day. Rock’s excellent piece on LeBron James certainly stirred the pot, as evidenced by the number of comments and visitors to the site. We wanted to acknowledge a couple of things-
First, thank you to our regular readers for your support and outpouring of appreciation on the piece. Next, we wanted to say that we did in fact see Terry Pluto’s article, which came out after Rock put his post. A few people accused him of ripping off our article, but we believe Terry when he says he didn’t read our piece first-
From Terry Pluto:
Dear Fans,
www.waitingfornextyear is an excellent blog.
I did a long interview with Scott Sargent who runs it a while ago. He sends me stories that I should see, and I really appreciate it.
I wrote my LeBron column on the way home from my in-laws in NC, killing time in airports.
When I got home, Scott sent me his entry. I suggest you check it out.
It is outstanding. I had not seen it when I did mine.
I also wrote about this subject and free agency in my scribbles during the playoffs….
http://www.cleveland.com/pluto/index.ssf?/base/sports-0/1210667430308880.xml&coll=2
thanks for reading the PD! terry pluto
Aside from him naming Scott senior editor, we appreciate Terry’s comments. (Zing!)
Next, we did see the ESPN article on LeBron James and his favorite cities. Obviously we should just fold up our tents. It’s all over. No chance LeBron signs here now…
You know my favorite cities are Toronto, Cancun, Clearwater Beach, Niagara Falls and Columbus. I have had a great time in each of them. I lived in Virginia Beach for a year. I also lived in Kentucky for a year, and let me say that while living in those places I couldn’t wait to get back to Northern Ohio. LeBron’s comments yesterday don’t change anything. It is ridiculous to try and guess what a FA will do in 2 years. It is ridiculous to assume, as some commenters yesterday did, that Wally Szczerbiak and Joe Smith will be flanking LeBron in March, let alone in 2010. Wally will be traded this year. He has an attractive expiring contract. Even if he weren’t traded, he certainly wouldn’t be resigned. I never thought they would be able to get rid of Larry Hughes’ contract, but Ferry pulled it off. Don’t think that Ben Wallace is absolutely untouchable with his contract either.
The bottom line is that we’re a little tired of hearing that LeBron is absolutely going to leave Cleveland at the first chance he gets. Today another ‘expert’ chimes in with his stupidity. This time it is the argument that Cleveland’s management doesn’t deserve LeBron because they haven’t surrounded him with good enough talent. Of course, that’s why he’ll run to New York…because they have a flawless track record in that department. The best line in that article was the assumption that everyone in the NBA was hypnotized by Jay-Z, probably because of his wife Beyonce. Brilliant! There you have it folks. (And you wonder why we get tired of this garbage?)
