LeBron James thinks he and Dan Gilbert could get along again

Some day we’ll all look back at this Miami mistake as LeBron’s Spring Break

Until he learns to play all 4 quarters, I just can’t agree with you.  As a longtime Cavs fan, I don’t think he would bring anything but ego back to Cleveland.  That’s not being spiteful, that’s history.  Every talking head says that LeBron is too talented to not win a championship at some point.  But why?  Talent is only a part of winning.  Whether it’s MJ, Kobe, Tony Parker, Dirk, or Chauncey Billups somebody on a championship team needs to have the will to win.  If you see LeBron getting to that point, then I think your statement is valid.  I think he’ll always be a little boy who wants to be loved more than he wants to be successful.

Miami fans must love his dedication to their franchise. 

He’s a little boy who can throw up a 35 – 10 – 9 on anyone in the league.  There is no denying his absolute choke job in big games, but there is also no denying that he is the single greatest talent in the game.  He’s also only one of about 3 guys who can shut down any 2 or 3 defensively.  I absolutely agree that he doesn’t and probably never will have the killer instinct.   I think the bigger problem with him coming back would be he would have to accept that the country club lifestyle under Mike Brown is over.  Even in Miami he gets to blow off the coach in ways that I’m pretty sure Byron Scott would publicly humiliate him for.

Don’t think this has anything to do with LeBron returning. He’s still desperately trying to escape from self-induced marketing nightmare and repair his image whenever the Cleveland topic comes up with a reporter.

In other words, “I just want to be loved … is that so wrong?”

Someone open the window, the cynicism is absolutely suffocating in this comments section.

Lebron has, in multiple instances, acknowledged his mistakes and expressed regret.  He has also spoken warmly of his time in Cleveland.

Why are we so incapable of forgiving Lebron and moving on? Why do some people continue to bash on him with the same mindless bromides (i.e. “quitter, choke artist, betrayal, #6″, etc)?  This must surely say as much about us as it does Lebron.

I am reminded of the Nietzsche quote: “I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!”

Eh, it’s just damage control by him and his camp to have people forget the decisions.  I would NOT expect Lebron to even mention coming back, if it were even a possibility.  He should’ve always left it as “I fucked up, I’m sorry, I’ve moved on completely, my time in Cleveland was great, thanks to the fans, I’m on a new team trying to win”.  What is this horse-bleep about ever coming back?  At what point, when he’s 36 and coming off the bench?  When’s he’s probably won 2 rings for another franchise and has only a year or two left in the tank?  Yuck.  Just shut-up already.  Say you enjoy your time here, which you did and that’s it.  Why the apology AND the reference to ever joining up with the Cavs again? 

we will take him back for league minimum.  He would be alright off the bench…oh wait I enjoy rooting against his team!

He is a citizen of the world. His hometown is Earth.

Even if he somehow has recently acquired some debilitating disease that prevents him from playing well in the fourth quarter, I’ll still gladly take those first three quarters and take my chances. You never know, maybe he has the ability to do something like this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzsAi1a1rog

right, absolutely no justification to be cynical about stuff he says to the press. My bad

I actually think he’s a mediocre on-ball defender.  He’s great at the chase down block, but he never was able to shut down Paul Pierce when the Cavs would play the Celtics.  Or any other quality small forward for that matter.  He plays pretty far off his man hoping for a weak-side block.

Man, that Kyrie Irving kid can really ball…

I think Gilbert would make him do that crawling act before he let him back.  He’d have to take out a few full page advertisements apologizing to the fans; have another “Decision” wherein he comes back.  Buy us all sandwiches and pay off our student loans.

Then, and only then, would Gilbert be alright with him back in town.

Also, if we draft Harrison Barnes and Thompson becomes a new Ben Wallace, we may not need him.

I kinda agree with you here man.  I can’t be the only one who just doesn’t care anymore.  The Cavs for Mavs thing was fun and all and after that the venom kinda wore off.

When did ESPN become Keeping Up With the Kardashians anyway???  This is just drama man.  Let’s talk basketball

Bryan, I share the hurt with you and everyone on this site who lives and dies with Cleveland sports teams.

I suppose my problem is that people are exercising a hindsight bias, projecting insincerity and deception onto everything Lebron did in the past and bracketing all the admirable things he did as an athlete. Given the psychological force of “The Decision”, this is an understandable response, but it is also warped.

I don’t doubt Lebron when he says he loved playing in Cleveland (how could you not?), and he absolutely gave his heart and soul for the team and city when he was playing here. To suggest that he was just engaging in deception when he took the team on his back and dragged them past the Pistons and into the finals is delusional.

wow, I think we’re all reading into this far too much. We’re missing the question or statement that prompted him to say this anyway. What’s he gonna say if asked about coming back? “Oh HELLS no, I ain’t never coming back to this dump. Not with what Dan said about me, not with these angry fans”. Of course not. He’s just giving the shiny-happy-media-response. (please note, those are not my feelings, just the complete opposite of what he said)

Which is kind of how I see all the old “I don’t have any reason to leave Cleveland” babble… now, at least. Just saying the right thing, the response of least resistance. It could be true, it could be completely the opposite. It’s what he needed to say at that moment, for his career.

I think what you are saying is that he does not care about defense. He spends so much effort on the offensive side that he doesn’t give the same effort defensively. This is the main distinction between him and michael jordan is that michael wanted to shut you down and took it personal if he didn’t. Lebron is a great offensive weapon but defense is about your natural competitiveness and he should easily be one of the greatest defenders of all time and he is not. With this being said I don’t know in a couple of years if I would want lebron back or not. And I really don’t care if Dan Gilbert wants him or not because he is in it for the money only anyways because he would of never bought the cavs if it wasn’t for lebron. The only thing Dan Gilbert has done is embarrassed a lot of really good cleveland fans that has to deal with this perception that we are like Dan Gilbert. I would never let it have gone that long without knowing where i stood. I would of stood up to lebron not in public but in private after the boston game and called him out. I would of not let him hold the franchise basically for ransom as him and his mom decided that it was alright to be selfish and stupid. Listen if I lost 175 million in a blink of an eye I would be upset too but I would have not taken us all down with you though. I have been a cleveland fan my entire life and after he did this I hope we win a championship but Gilbert embarrasses me as a fan still.

 This just isn’t true. You can get solid 4th quarters from him (and you can get excellent on-the-ball defense), look at the series against Chicago.

I think he does have a tendency to flake out a bit when trying to come from behind, but again, I’m more than willing to take that chance to get the most talented player in the league.

And I don’t buy for a second that he wouldn’t work well with Irving. People said that he couldn’t play alongside Wade, and yet neither missed a beat. Irving would be an even better fit.

I would rather have money over not having money of course but I would not want to come off how dan gilbert does. Dan Gilbert is some michigan transplant that lost money. He made us all look like idiots. We lost so much more than Dan Gilbert. We had our best chance to bring a championship and we get stuck with lebron who is a jerk and gilbert who came off sounding like an idiot who made us all look terrible. Oh no gilbert can’t buy his second yacht. Do you know how long all of us cleveland fans have suffered. But now we have Kyrie and he is really good player. And Gilbert is terrible for not taking brandon knight at #4. We could have had our backcourt for the next 8-10 years.

An honest question for Jaker and Oribiasi and kind of off topic. Have you guys actually watched Barnes play or are you just reading the hype? Since he is linked to the Cavs so much I have been watching him as much as I can and I think he is soft and aloof to everything in basketball except shooting jumpshots.

No thanks.

But it became very clear during the summer he left that he had been planning his departure while he was still imployed by the Cavs. That’s the part that is hard for me to get over.