While We’re Waiting… Meeting Mangini, LeBron Backlash and Irritating Coaches
July 8, 2010Rangers 4 Indians 3: Because We Need a Break From LeBron
July 8, 2010You want to have hope. It’s hard to do though when all hope has already been spent. By the time most of us woke up this morning, the news had already hit the wire that according to Chris Broussard, LeBron James has decided to sign with the Miami Heat.
Once again, though, the report is so vague it’s unbearably difficult to tell what it really means. The exact wording Broussard uses in the report is:
All indications are that LeBron James is leaning toward signing with the Miami Heat on Thursday night, according to several sources with knowledge of the situation.
Barring a late change of heart, sources say James has decided to join fellow All-Stars Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh to form a potential NBA powerhouse.
Well, which is it? Is he just “leaning toward” signing with the Heat, or has he “decided” to join Wade and Bosh is Miami? There has been so much misinformation and shifts in public opinion on this, much of it coming from Broussard himself, that many of us are just becoming numb to the whole process.
There is so much room for movement and reversals in Broussard’s report that it dares us to still believe Cleveland has a shot in this thing. It’s tough, though. Broussard isn’t alone on this. Newsday’s Alan Hahn reported the same thing. JA Adande tweeted that he had a source tell him it’s 90% certain to be Miami. Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski and Marc Spears are reporting that LeBron is so certain of his decision that he has already begun to recruit free agents to come to Miami:
James’ representatives spent part of Wednesday calling free agents to assess their interest in helping strengthen the Heat roster. James’ camp, sources said, went so far as to propose scenarios where the Heat would trade forward Michael Beasley(notes) to create additional salary-cap space to sign a complementary player. In those conversations, the representatives spoke only of Miami as the destination for James.
There’s nothing wrong with still believing and still hoping that something can happen to change LeBron’s mind, but at this point, this story is different than the usual “LeBron is considering this, leaning toward that, flying to here, meeting with them” type of stories we’ve been getting. There’s meat to this report.
We can save the talk about what LeBron going to Miami says about him until he actually makes that announcement and we hear it from his mouth. There will be a time and a place to discuss the fallout from this decision. We can talk about where the Cavaliers go from here. But none of that matters quite yet. LeBron’s announcement isn’t until 9:00 pm tonight, so we’ll wait for it to be official before we get our hands dirty.
I guess Miami makes sense. People seem to have a lot of doubts about Miami’s ability to win if the “Bigger 3” join salaries, and I really hope they’re right, but I don’t share their skepticism. I’ve watched LeBron James play basketball night in and night out for 7 years now. I know what he’s capable of doing on the floor. He led Eric Snow, Sasha Pavlovic, Drew Gooden, and Zydrunas Ilgauskas to the NBA Finals. He led a team of Mo Williams, Anderson Varejao, Ilgauskas, and other role players to back to back best records in the NBA. He’s played with good players in Cleveland for sure, but nothing like Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.
And that’s what scares me more than anything. Losing LeBron would be devastating enough as it is, but I hate even more what this says about the sport I love so much. It could create a dangerous precedent that I don’t want to see become the trend. Rather than doing what Cleveland did, and try to improve your team to make your superstar happy, now teams might see a better plan of attack be to actually destroy your roster and slash all salary and bottom out your team just to add a couple stars who are incapable of winning a title on their own.
Rather than seeing teams try to more or less build their roster organically like Cleveland, Chicago, Portland, Oklahoma City, etc have done, we might begin to see more shameful displays of self-sabotage like New York and Miami pulled off. It could become a league of arms races. What has always been a sport about spreading out the stars so every team could keep their own stars and build around them will become a league of tampering and collusion.
I wasn’t going to be happy no matter where LeBron went, but I could have at least lived with and understood the Chicago move. The Bulls built that team in a manner any NBA follower can respect and feel good about. There’s something about this Miami situation that feels dirty and impure. Not that anything illegal or shady happened here, but it just doesn’t make you feel good about the NBA as a whole.
The NBA has always been about rivalries. Going all the way back to Wilt vs Russell up to Bird vs Magic or Jordan vs everyone. It was Lakers-Celtics, Celtics-Sixers, Pistons-Celtics, Bulls-Pistons, Lakers-Blazers, Lakers-Kings, etc. We lived for epic battles betweens teams and superstars who didn’t want to join up together, but wanted to compete and beat each other. That sentiment seems to be gone. If LeBron does follow through and head to Miami, it changes much about the way I thought about the NBA.
I don’t know whether or not to allow myself to believe that this is all building suspense for ESPN and that LeBron’s heart is really still in Cleveland. It’s encouraging to know that Chris Paul is fighting for Cleveland’s sake and telling LeBron he should stay and let Byron Scott coach him. It sounds like some friends and family of LeBron are not thrilled with the idea of Miami. These are all factors that may yet make a difference.
So no, I don’t know what LeBron’s decision will be. All I do know is that I’m ready for this to be over with. One way or the other, I’m ready to move on. I’m just clinging to my last little sliver of hope that just once good things can prevail in Cleveland. After all, that tiny sliver of hope is all I really have left.
108 Comments
I agree that it’s a bit silly to say “I’m done with the NBA” if Lebron leaves, but I do agree this seems like something out of WWE and not an organized sports league.
Miami fans suck… all sports. They really do, they can’t sell out a damn thing even in such a glorified “Big Market”. Someone else pointed out last night that Miami is the 17th biggest TV market: Cleveland is 18th
Pathetic
Hey Hectorakacd, Jordan had Pippen,Grant, Charles Oakley, Dennis Rodman and Phil Jackson. The Great larry Bird had Robert Parrish and Kevin Mchale. I think you should look up the fifty greatest players of all time and look for their names. And then I would suggest that you glance over the Cavs roster from 2003 to 2010 and tell me who has Lebron played with that is even threating to make that list. As a matter of fact, Lebron doesn’t even have anyone on his team that’s threating to be a current top 50 player in todays league.
if you’re curious, there is a way to make the numbers work with now orleans.
cp/oka==dwest/jj/moon/antawn … just sayin.
we take on okafor’s beast of a contract; they get dwest’s nice contract and good frontcourt to team with collison.
just sayin.
http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=24wh3zg
Those of you blaming the NBA and categorizing it as MLB need to read up. Do you not realize NBA free agency is set up to keep players on their drafted teams (Larry Bird Rule, Max Contracts)? It’s why a team in a crap city like San Antonio can build a championship team and then make it a dynasty. Lebron is actually leaving money on the table to go to Miami. He has a better shot to win there; he is leaving for that reason not because of money or market size. Miami isn’t that big of a market… ask the florida marlins how great it is to play in the miami market.
@ DP – are you saying Lebron is the Black Smoke? (Love the reference FWIW.)
I’m sick to my stomach about all of this. I’m fully prepared for LBJ to turn his back on his home, and sign somewhere else. All his talk about loyalty, about wanting to deliver a title to this championship starved town, about being the homegrown “savior’, he can shove it. If he does in fact leave, I’ll blow the bank account to get Cavs tickets for the game he comes back to with his new team. I’ll wear my home Cavs #23 jersey with duct tape over his name and JUDAS written in black marker.
That being said….I hope like heck he stays.
JPS3,
Brad in ATL says it best. The NFL, college football and basketball offer great entertainment and are played by people who(mostly) care a lot. I knew the NBA was a joke when I was 13, but LeBron was worth watching. If he leaves, it’s over. Without him as my “hometown hero”, it’s just another league of arrogant, overpaid actors.
I’m done w/ the NBA b/c I’d basically been done with it since Jordan left. I’ve only watched the Cavs since then, and there will be no reason to watch them in the future.
Dad’s been telling me my whole life the NBA is as fake as the WWF. It’s slowly been making sense to me the last couple years, and I’ve just about had enough.
Scooter, can’t argue with that (post 57)
@58
Pandas aren’t fake! They’re lovable creatures. =/
WFNYScott Windy on Chris Paul rumors: “Cavs have tried everything they can do. They don’t have the assets.”
So they don’t have the assets to get paul and they don’t have the assets for Lebron to want to stay. That pretty much sums up what I’ve said on these boards the last few days about the Cavs roster.
Well, he’s taking himself out of the “best player ever” conversation.
He’s going to the have “couldn’t win it on his own” tag around him forever.
Sorry you didn’t have the ba . . . “guts” to do it here.
Kings lead, they don’t follow. Bosh did your choosing for you “chosen one”.
Read my confessions piece. I jumped on the bandwagon again when the Cavs got LeBron, and only then really allowed myself to get invested in the minutiae of the NBA.
After watching what can only be described as a “three-ring circus sideshow of freaks here in this hopeless [bleep]ing hole we call NBA” (there’s a little music riff for y’all) to have LeBron basically leave and say, “Thanks for bending over backward to build me a winning team that I couldn’t lead to a title despite my own proclamations about being a leader; I’m going to go hide behind two other all-stars”… yeah, I’m done with the NBA.
Not the Cavs, necessarily, because I’m sure I’ll come back around with a passing interest (I mean, shoot, I still watch the Tribe). I’m just done with really investing myself in the NBA when the players (save some, like Durant) don’t care about anything other then being famous and having the spotlight on them.
Honestly, even if LeBron stays, I’m not going to be fully on his bandwagon like I used to be. This whole thing has left such a bad taste in my mouth, I’m wary of really letting my guard down anymore. Even if he stays, there’s a part of me that feels like he’s going to drop some kind of post-game-5-“I had a bad game ya ingrates!” type of thing about how he knows how much the city needs him blah blah blah.
At this point, I just want all of these guys to freaking get over themselves and get back to playing basketball.
And, as I told a friend this morning, I just hope that if LeBron goes to Miami, the three of them find out that they actually hate playing together when it’s not for the Olympics. I hope there’s bickering, ball-hogging (seriously, Wade AND LeBron will be able to share the ball?), and plenty of knee injuries. And STDs.
simmons’ article is kinda long, and he says he wants lebron to chicago or new york repeatedly, BUT he has some great points about what lebron’s doing to the city of cleveland (“cruelest television event since david chase made people think they lost power at the end of the sopranos”).
and a nice shot out to windy in there too
Joseph… you just made my day a little better… thank you, lol
@ 53. Eric
Of course I know Jordan had Pip, and everybody who Bird and Magic had, but there is still a huge difference. Pip knew he was second fiddle and so did McHale and Parrish. Rodman? really? Great role player but really?? Phil is a great coach but he is a COACH. Were there ever times when you could say those guys quit? Jordan looked like he would rather die on the court tahn walk off in shame, same with Bird. LBJ accepted his loss to the Celts, and if he could have would have took his ball and left when they lost to the Magic. Again those guys never left to go to another man’s team. KG and ray allen did when they were in their twilight not their prime, same as Karl Malone and Barkley. Again if LBJ goes = taking the easy road…
These comments are popping up like little hate-filled toaster pastries.
this is like larry bird leaving the celtics to go play with magic on the lakers. thats just not how its supposed to work. but i think all the money now days in sports has kind of ruined it. (ie yankees last world serious was the most watched ever) stern will make it seem like they dont want all the big names on one team but obviously they probably prefer it.
I must really be missing the boat here – what is Miami going to do to fill out the other 6-9 spots they need on that roster? Don’t get me wrong, the “big three” will be beasts, but they can’t play 5 on 3 for 48 minutes a game/ 82 games a year and expect to win the big one. Sounds like even if all three take less than the max $, MIA will be trying to sell some aged vets on taking the league minimum for a chance to win the ring. Take a look at the FA’s available that are 30+ – Shaq? Brad Miller? Theo Ratliff? Rafer Alston? I’m not sure I’d go ahead and crown MIA the champion just yet…
lol DP!
STDs? really? haha, that made my day.
@Matt#2 – with bitter cream icing…classic.
I guess the silver lining in all of this…we still have the rights to Eyenga!
magic and bird played against each other in the final four in college and then made the celtic lakers rivalry.
lebron going to play with wade/bosh is nothing remotely close to that. lebron has never played against wade or bosh in a single meaningful way. Did I miss the Cavs/Raptors Rivalry or something?
PDcavsinsider Sources: Cavs are in trade talks with Minnesota Timberwolves for PG Jonny Flynn. Flynn is represented by #LeBron’s agent & LRMR.
Dan Gilbert pulling out all the stops!!!
Breaking News regarding Lebron James:
-AP wire, Bath, OH 07/08/10
Lebron James sneezed at 10:07 this morning shortly after morning breakfast ESPN reported. ESPN analysts will discuss what the sneeze means to the NBA and how it proves what team he’s going to sign with. Fox Sports Ohio has also confirmed the story stating “unnamed sources” inside of James camp have confirmed James did in fact sneeze and used a Kleenex. As we all know Kleenex is a division of Kimberly-Clark paper products, based out of Irving, Texas. Lebron James is a life-long Dallas Cowboys fan, so we are now hearing rumors of James jump to the NFL to play for Jerry Jones and the Cowboys. More details to follow.
I would have to assume if their talking to minn. it would have to be a package deal in some way including Al Jefferson’s contract as well….if that’s the case and they pull the trigger our package would likely include JJ going bye bye along with others.
If LeBron leaves to go to Miami he will be the Scottie Pippen of the Heat. If that’s what he wants his legacy to be so be it.
Go Cavs regardless!
May I add to it Buckeye dog? This took me awhile but Im pretty happy with it. Hope its not too long WFNY.
LeBron(Anakin): What are you doing out here?
Cleveland(Padme): I was so worried about you. Brian Windhorst told me terrible things.
LeBron(Anakin): What things?
Cleveland(Padme): He said you have turned to the dark side . . . that you were thinking about going to…..Miami.
LBJ(Anakin): Windy is trying to turn you against me.
Cleveland(Padme): He cares about us.
LeBron(Anakin): Us??! I can make my own decisions
Cleveland(Padme): At what cost? You are a good person. Don’t do this.
LeBron(Anakin): I won’t lose my chance the way Dan Marino did. I’ve become more powerful than any Jedi has ever dreamed of and I’ve done it for myself. I will win at all costs.
Cleveland(Padme): Come away with us. Help us out of this, win for us. Leave everything else behind while we still can.
LBJ(Anakin): Don’t you see, I don’t have to run away anymore. I have brought peace to the Republic. I am more powerful than the Chancellor David Stern. I can overthrow him, Make things the way I want them to be.
Cleveland(Padme): I don’t believe what I’m hearing . . . Windy was right. You’ve changed.
LBJ(Anakin): I don’t want to hear any more about Windy. Charles Barkley is turning against me. Don’t you turn against me.
Cleveland(Padme): I don’t know you anymore. LeBron, you’re breaking my heart. I’ll never stop loving you, but you are going down a path I can’t follow.
LBJ(Anakin): Because of Windy!?
Cleveland(Padme): Because of what you’ve done . . . what you plan to do. Stop, stop now. Come home! I love you.
—
LBJ(Anakin): You’re with him. You’ve betrayed me! You brought him here to seduce my mother!
Cleveland(Padme): NO! LeBron. I swear … I …
Cleveland reaches out, and LeBron grabs her throat as she starts to choke.
Delonte: Let her go, dawg.
LeBron(Anakin): You turned them against me.
Delonte: You have done that yourself! Your selfishness and your lust for power have already done that. (continuing) You have allowed this Dark Bosh to twist your mind until now . . . until now you have become the very thing you swore to destroy.
LBJ(Anakin): Don’t lecture me, Delonte. I see through the lies of the Jedi. I do not fear the dark side as you do. I have brought peace, justice, freedom, and security to my new Empire.
Delonte: Your new Empire? I thought it was Wade’s team?
LBJ(Anakin): Don’t make me get the Heat to trade for you too.
Delonte: LeBron, my allegiance is to Cleveland!
LBJ(Anakin): If you’re not with us, you’re my enemy.
Delonte: Only a Sith Lord deals in absolutes. I will do what I must.
–Cut to Mark Price (Yoda) tearful in his tower way above the city.
Mark Price (Yoda): Execute order 23, Burn everything LeBron in Cleveland.
I’ll still be a Cavaliers fan if LBJ leaves, but it’s going to be hard to get into it. A team has no chance to win without a star, and apparently having the league MVP with the best record two years in a row guarantees squat.
Like the other two sports (Yankees and Steelers), I’ll simply resort to cheering for a team NOT to win.
antawn+jj for flynn+al_j works…
http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=2wbz8d8
i guess the only thing to do is wait 20ish years for lebron jr. and an overly-aged obi-wan kenobi to set things right again. seems like lebron will be retired by then though…
I’m with DP.
Stay or go, I never signed up to be part of Lebron’s Glory of Me. Sickens me to anticipate the smirking “I never said anything” excuse tonight as he wallows in the perfect circus he and his 20-something cronies have managed to create. Sports are my escape, reality shows are not.
Everyone can say “everything will be fine if he comes back.” Not for me. I would still love to watch him on the court, as I would any great athlete. But I just don’t want to hear his “that’s who I am” crap anymore. The problem with cranking up all the klieg lights on yourself is that, as warm as it feels right now, everyone sees all your warts. It ain’t pretty and it ain’t cute, whether he stays or goes.
@77 How long did that take to type?
@#77 – LBJ(Anakin): You’re with him. You’ve betrayed me! You brought him here to seduce my mother! – I’m laughing out loud at work. Thanks for a little sunshine JK!
JK FTW
“Windy was right. You’ve changed.”
quit your day job, cuz that wuz funnee
On a side not anyone else blowing up windhorst’s twitter page like every 2 minutes???
Thanks guys, haha.. Buckeyedawg was the inspiration with his original quote, hope he sees it.
@82 – Took about an hour and a half, but Im at work so it is what it is.
Yay production!
JK: nicely conceived, well played. That’s a wrap.
Worst part of all of this?
Stephen A. Smith was right.
@66 Hectorakad, you are missing the point Magic/Bird/Jordan didn’t have to join another team because the teams they were on were very good. Not Average but very good. You seem to have difficulty understanding that. And it’s because of Rodman that the Bulls didn’t have to waste their time with garbage like Big Z.
I love how you how to the conclusion that Lebron should only leave when he barely has anything left. Priceless and typical. After you suck him dry then and only then can he leave with whatever is left. Well I guess that makes sense cause Lebron’s youth, talent, and opportunity are your property. Not his.
Lebron accepted the loss to Celtics? Well, that was a reasonable thing to do since the Cavs did lose. No since denying reality. Now if your complaint is that he didn’t scream and cry, then your complaint is assinine. Only in America would someone be criticized for trying to be stoic. god forbid someone doesn’t turn their disappointment into a Dr. Phil episode.
Please stop crying about Lebron not shaking hands. Give it a rest. Cause I’m sure nary a thing was said by you when Peyton Manning didn’t shake hands.
@89 I was literally just about to post the same thing. Stephen A. Smith reported it Saturday I think, so maybe it was planned all along. Now he’s going to feel validated and be around forever…
Robbie
don’t quit on a scrubby Cavs team.
It’s still fun.
It’s not mania-fun.
But fun.
Remember?
@56: If I had tickets to LBJ’s return to CLE (whoever the team is), I don’t know if I would go. And if I did, I would want to be a part of some type of organized walkout. There has to be something besides just boo-ing him when he returns, yet still showing appreciation for Gilbert and what he’s done for the franchise.
I’m so glad I can’t watch this ‘Decision’ from here.
@JK – well done, young Jedi. Glad I could be an inspiration.
Now someone just needs to photoshop LeBron’s face into this picture:
http://media.photobucket.com/image/anakin%20skywalker/theatregeek2009/anakin-skywalker.jpg
@89: Smith guessed and got lucky. Nothing more. Yet, yes, he’ll say he was right all along. God really does hate Cleveland/NE Ohio.
GAH!!
Now someone just needs to photoshop LeBron’s face into this picture:
Wait…is that Denny’s music I hear?
Per FanHouse:
One thing is for sure: the source said Shaq won’t return to Cleveland. “He thought it was OK,” the source said of the one season O’Neal spent with LeBron James there. “But he won’t be back.”
But he told us he looooved it here. Et tu, Shaqtus?
I’m fine with his decision either way. If he stays, great. It means he truly has unfinished business and wants to take down ORL/BOS/CHI (MIA isn’t there yet, not with 2 all stars and a bunch of league minimum players). It means he just might have that alpha dog killer instinct after all.
If he goes (especially to MIA), it means he’s not the killer alpha-dog we need. It mean’s he doesn’t believe he can win a title without running away for help. In that case, good riddance. If he goes to NY, it just means he’s about fame and being the global icon, and not about basketball. They have no title hopes in the next 5 years (Amare isn’t that great without Nash). Cleveland is still better than NY or MIA basketball wise (CHI is probably better with LeBron on the roster). We did win 66 and 61 games the past two seasons, remember?
So either way, his decision tonight tells us a lot about what’s really important to him. Is it being one of the GOAT, being a global icon, or running away and trying to win on the coattails of other players because he’s not Jordan or Kobe and can’t carry the load? If he wants to be the GOAT, he has to stay.
GOAT or goat, which will it be?
The whole day I’ve felt like I’m watching the Cleveland doom reel (The Drive, The Fumble, The Shot, The Move, The Jose Mesa) on an endless repeat seeing how “The Decision” will fit into it perfectly (I can already see how ESPN can simply splice LeBron in there smiling with his #6 Heat jersey. I’m getting physically ill and the decision isn’t even official yet.