Wolves’ owner wants to keep Kevin Love
July 17, 2014Tribe “Deep Tracks” Trivia, Vol. 1: Reliving Yesteryear
July 17, 2014Obviously, most everyone in Cleveland is elated with the return of Lebron James. Equally obviously Heat fans are bummed and feel let down. LeBron didn’t have another “The Decision” and he didn’t have a pep rally to tally up expected championships in front of Cavs fans in The Q. Both of these things are massive improvements since 2010, but did LeBron James still cause some unnecessary injury to the Miami Heat? Are Heat fans justified in feeling upset at all with how LeBron handled his business this time? One half of Dan LeBatard’s show in Miami, Stugotz, does think so. He wrote an interesting perspective on it and I felt it was a worthwhile discussion for the WFNY crew.
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Craig: I actually think this warrants discussion. I think LeBron handled his business better this time, but I still think it’s pretty wrong how he goes about it. He waits. He builds drama. He holds the rest of the league’s off-season hostage.
And all that secrecy and so much of what he goes through is self-serving so his moment can be huge and important for himself. Yes, Cleveland fans were the beneficiaries this time, but when Windy told me this week on our podcast that LeBron’s people were using mis-direction to protect the SI essay release on Friday, that seems pretty morally iffy.
I mean it’s just sports, but is the fact that this is “entertainment” enough to justify the very real playing LeBron does with fan emotions? Does the overall desirable story arc of a boy returning home justify the means with which LeBron enacted for those ends?
It’s degrees obviously, but I can see Miami’s point. I’m not crying for them and their championships over the past four years, but it’s at least worth the discussion I think.
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Scott: I read that op-ed a couple days ago and wavered back and forth between the scent of sour grapes and one which made me think a bit. I think anyone from Miami is in absolutely NO position to chastise national media — this is the same group of people who are trying to make us believe that Shabazz Napier is worth tracking while he’s hitting four of his last 24 shots while averaging just under five turnovers per Summer League game. And for anyone in Miami to think James was going to spend the rest of his career there … come on. You were always a rental.
Do I wish that the entire situation was wrapped up a bit quicker? Sure. It certainly would’ve been easier on my iPhone battery. But do I understand why it took as long? Absolutely. James’ team had to meet with potential suitors, which, if you recall back to 2010, took a good chunk of a week. Secondly, there had to be a meeting between James and Dan Gilbert — something that was integral to the decision, but an extra meeting which didn’t have to happen the last time. Factor in the schedules of everyone involved, and the logistics muddy things up. Thirdly, should we be surprised that there’s a dramatic element to anything a professional athlete (or celebrity in general) does? I feel like James does so much good — philanthropic, global, has nary a rap sheet — that we have to search for something to cling to in the way of negativity. If “dramatic” is the worst thing about someone, I think we’re in good shape.
Why do the Heat fans deserve better than Cavalier fans? You can argue that both situations have a bit of dirt on them — I’d listen to that. But LeBron James, like it or not, carries more power in the NBA than Adam Silver. He generates the most money for a league and has never been the highest paid player on his team. He doesn’t owe anyone anything. He controlled the message, just as he always has. To answer Stugotz’ closing question — yes, I would be surprised if James left Cleveland again. I think there’s a level of selfishness to every business decision. I think there has to be. But I don’t think there’s any vindication. Not at all.
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Jacob: “Morally” iffy seems like a bit of a stretch to me. It is again just sports. You can say they handled it poorly, but morals gets into a tricky situation.
But yeah, I’d pretty confidently say that LeBron’s camp consistently orchestrated and fed into misdirections for weeks and weeks leading up to the announcement on July 11. Recall as well, The Decision was on July 8, 2010. So it was three days earlier and at an announced time, so fans were much less on edge. Cleveland (or at least the Twitter version of it) was mighty angsty this month.
Is that the end of the world? Is that enough to say it’s not worth the process, both for Miami in 2010 and now Cleveland in 2014? Nope. This is the best basketball player in the and world and this isn’t a moral situation. He can act generally however he wants to act within the laws and framework of the institutions involved.
LeBron – and thus, LRMR and Klutch – have handled this business in a outwardly funny and slightly off-putting way. This is twice now. We can kind of expect it. We’ll likely have similar rumors and chaos this coming summer with his opt-out. To me, it doesn’t necessarily change that much. Of course, we have the slight confidence he’s finishing his career with Cleveland now, but that’s not his style to withhold the suspense.
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Joe M: Even the Decision was awesome for the NBA as much as Cavs fans hated it. It created so much intrigue around the season and cast LeBron as a villain which every good narrative needs. I honestly don’t find it all that off-putting. These owners get away with much worse in terms of how they conduct their business. LeBron is just always in the spotlight.
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Craig: I don’t know how you can remove the morals from it Jacob. I mean you can say you don’t care, but clearly the reactions to “The Decision” back in 2010 indicate that morals do matter to some people. Even if it’s not life and death, there are stakeholders and people involved and impacted by LeBron’s actions. To think that this situation where many people’s real futures – financial and geographic to name just two – hang in the balance, of course there are moral implications.
And Joe, I don’t think a relative comparison to the owners is all that relevant here. While Stugotz defended Micky Arison in his post, that’s not a stance I care about. I always consider it from the fans’ point of view and to me there are some similarities to the way LeBron handled his business in both 2010 and 2014 which in a vacuum seem to take liberties for the sake of drama.
Again, that doesn’t mean anyone has to care, but I guess I’d be lying to myself if I said I didn’t see the similarities at all. LeBron got a pass because his end choice was “morally superior,” but many of the same hallmarks in “how he did it” were there. Obviously he skipped the two biggest offenses between the TV show and that ridiculous pep rally.
But one thing I’m done with in my life as a sports fan is being blinded (or at least totally blinded) by my fan bias. I love that LeBron chose Cleveland and is coming back. I love that he wrote that essay and didn’t do a TV show or pep rally, but I see some of Stugotz’ points.
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Colin: Miami must be running the gauntlet of emotions right now. Certainly, they have to be thrilled that LeBron chose them in 2010, bringing along Chris Bosh and a multitude of cheap, productive veterans. The Heat reached the Finals in all four years of LeBron’s reign in Miami and won two titles that would never be possible without The Decision. Despite all this success, I can understand a level of animosity.
Had LeBron chosen to re-sign with the Heat, Cavaliers fans would have been justifiably angry due to this being the second time he led Cleveland fans on. He gave no signs pointing to Cleveland or Miami, utter silence from him. All of a sudden, Cleveland’s trade of Zeller, Karasev, and a first round pick to rid themselves of Jarrett Jack would be called into question. Would Miami have signed Josh McRoberts, Danny Granger, and drafted Shabazz Napier without thinking LeBron would return? There is a good chance that money would have been spent elsewhere.
However, I never know what to believe any more. Recent reports have said that LeBron made his decision a week or more before the SI story by Lee Jenkins was released. But, if that is true, why did LeBron talk to Pat Riley In Las Vegas just two days before announcing his decision and not let him know whether he was taking his talents to Cleveland or making another run with Bosh and Wade?
A few things seem indefensible and others make sense. Miami has little reason to be upset that LeBron left, in a vacuum. The Heat won two titles and appeared in four Finals series. The Cavs’ young, talented, and flexible roster, chance to repair his legacy, and his ability to be closer to Akron are all defensible reasons to choose Cleveland.
However, the final few days seemed to drag on unnecessarily. On July 6th, Cleveland fans managed to track Dan Gilbert’s plane to Miami. The Heat used their remaining non-LeBron/Bosh/Wade cap room on McRoberts and Granger on July 7th. They already drafted Napier. By then, LeBron knew who would be on the rosters and had spoken to Gilbert. But, LeBron waited until July 12th to make his announcement official.
We will likely never know why he waited, what the meeting with Pat Riley was about, or when LeBron actually decided to sign with Cleveland, but we do know that he loves the spotlight. He destroyed Cleveland fans’ dreams in 2010 with The Decision” and made it up to them last week with The Essay, a brilliantly planned out PR move. Miami fans can’t be angry that LeBron left, he took them to the Finals every single season he played for the Heat, but it is understandable for them to be agitated that he stretched out his decision longer than they anticipated.
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“I think LeBron handled his business better this time, but I still think it’s pretty wrong how he goes about it. He waits. He builds drama. He holds the rest of the league’s off-season hostage.
And all that secrecy and so much of what he goes through is self-serving so his moment can be huge and important for himself.”
This completely ignores the notion that LeBron making a decision on where he plays basketball is a huge decision for him to make, and that it should be made with the appropriate weight. That time that he was ‘drawing it out’ may have actually been spent, you know, actually thinking about his choice.
“But one thing I’m done with in my life as a sports fan is being blinded (or at least totally blinded) by my fan bias.”
But you’re projecting morals based solely on fan bias. You wanted him to make a decision quickly because that would be most convenient for you as a fan.
Indications are that he waited extra time merely for the marketing. Again, if his guys were running mis-direction to protect the SI Essay, is that defensible?
It is difficult to engage an article like this once you’ve come to understand the real whores are the media. We pretend to know Lebron James, but we don’t know a person. We know a TV character. We know him the way we know Ross Geller or Sean Maguire.
Reporters present the narratives as though they were real. They know about the players’ personal lives, relationships, tendencies, interactions. But they don’t report on those things. They create and report a narrative, like reality show editors cleverly clipping, editing, and restaging to get a cohesive story that seems more real than a sitcom. Stugotz is upset because Lebron’s TV character went in a new direction, one that will result in less work for him and more for other writers.
One exception to that was the Decision. Lebron’s character did something to us as individual human fans that we would have hoped the actor playing Lebron would not have done. Of course, reporters immediately patched that right into the narrative. Now we were also a bunch of grouchy extras on the Lebron James show, loser fans from a loser city who had never deserved such a star. And in the eleventh season of that show, we pathetic fans get to be recipients of a redemption story for the main character.
Lebron’s Return is not real. That is the reason I think he could leave again in a few years. The TV character is coming back to Cleveland because for some reason the actor playing Lebron James wanted to come back to Cleveland. That is all we know. The person who plays Lebron should consider the people who love the character, when he makes his decisions. But Lebron James the person owes nothing to Pat Riley, Mickey Arison, or Stugotz; nor to the people they play on TV.
all the likes.
Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be defensible?
I am a Cavs fan, am happy LeBron has returned, and I pretty much entirely agree with Stugotz. Think of it this way – how would we be feeling if after all this, LeBron chose to stay in Miami? Would we not be writing essays about how crappy it is that LeBron didn’t have his people send out signals to quell the upsurge of hope? (Windhorst was on air was fretting over this real possibility – trying to do what LeBron’s people would not). Well, he didn’t send any signals to Miami to stop them from signing players, trading up to draft a guy just because they thought LeBron would want him, or to the Miami Heat fan base that it was a real possibility that he might leave. No, it was just silence, and there’s no real purpose in that except to serve one’s own interests. We don’t care as much because, hey, it’s Miami, and we figure they don’t care as much and have championships in the bag (and honestly, if LeBron left after even one championship, I probably would care less). However, apparently, they do care enough to have some feelings of hurt (and for someone to deface his mural), and it’s honestly a lousy way to treat people. (All the same, Go Cavs!)
i refuse to get busy with miami types upset that lebron left them. it’s just not worth the time. truly beneath me/us.
i do want to point out that the were ample basketball and personal reasons for lebron to come back and some of us were able to identify them. that most media types were unable to do the same says more about them and the phenomenon of groupthink than it does anything about lebron’s character.
Re the wait, that was the only misstep I saw – it just went on 24 hours too long given the tension LeBron orchestrated. But these things are tricky if you’re really still deciding. Lee Jenkins can’t fly in, do the interview from the hotel, write, polish, get Lebron’s feedback on a draft and send for publishing in a mere couple of hours. The Letter had to be perfect, say the right things in the right way and omit things that might come back to bite later. The Letter, and giving Riley a face-to-face, had to be the long-awaited antidote to The Decision. And it was. The extra day will be forgotten soon.
Re this Miami guy, I read it a few days ago and if four years ago we were publishing things this thumb-sucky, this completely devoid of self-awareness, wow. I guess Riley was a savior of talent held hostage, but damn LeBron and his Stockholm Syndrome. Even worse is a Miami guy named Addande on a few podcasts – wow. Guy makes Rizzo look smart and unbiased.
One last: When LeBron was pulled at the end of Game 5 of the Finals a few weeks ago he had this look on his face on the bench. Saw some scrub teammate put his arm around him and was talking to him but LeBron gave zero reaction and held that look. Thought to myself: that’s the Boston Game 5 look, the detached look. I had no idea he’d be back here but honestly felt there was trouble ahead.
I think they probably knew a lot more about them. Surely Windhorst and Woj know that Kyrie and Wiggins are going to be better over the next couple years than Wade and Bosh. I think they had two basic problems.
1. They had oversold the superfriends narrative over the last few years.
2. They are genuinely uncomfortable with Lebron, who seems to transcend their classic athlete tropes.*
*I say this with a big caveat, since I just posted a screed about how we don’t really know the athletes we follow.
What indications this seems like a pretty general statement to make? And I’ll ask this again but does anyone know when the Cavaliers might be holding a press conference oh I don’t know say to maybe introduce their new players?
Moral dilema? Sheesh. Get over it. A figure in an entertainment business predicated on marketing and media may have made considered marketing and media in a decision he made. The horror… the horror… save the first world breast beating and faux indignation for something with a little more moral heft (e.g. West Bank, Boko Haram, etc.)
The Cleveland Consternation something positive happens and yet there are still issues. Please bring a title LeBron so this finally stops it’s gotten past the point of annoying already.
i think the bristol crowd is unable to break out of darren rovell mode and cannot fathom that family actually matters to this particular superstar. ‘home’ is an utterly foreign concept to them.
there was a pernicious cynicism in all the analysis that completely failed to recognize the pull of home. his home is in bath, he has 330 and akron tatts, his feature movie was about svsm, he just gave football unis and 1M to svsm. and his buchtel-grad pregnant wife and mother of his kids posted an instagram saying ‘akron: the countdown is on.’
he gets to come home AND play with 3 #1 overall picks. this is one of those things that you look back on and wonder why it was ever a question.
“Yes, Cleveland fans were the beneficiaries this time, but when Windy told me this week on our podcast that LeBron’s people were using mis-direction to protect the SI essay release on Friday, that seems pretty morally iffy.”
if getting a thoughtful, carefully crafted heartfelt essay down perfectly is merely ‘marketing’ then.. ok, i guess.
Because some might call it unnecessary and selfish.
” this is one of those things that you look back on and wonder why it was ever a question”
So true. Like you said on your site, all of five minutes on his website makes it pretty clear. It’s sort of silly in hindsight – so many writers spilled so much ink on analyzing cap space and possible moves and roster construction yadda yadda yadda. Nobody seemed to think about what a 29-year-old man with two small boys and strong ties to home would want.
Stugotz does make one very good point though: it would have cost LeBron nothing to thank the Miami fans for their support in his essay, and he chose not to do so. Everything else he said was wonderful and much appreciated by this Cleveland fan but all jokes re: Miami fans aside, he could have treated them better. Let’s not let our schadenfreude get in the way of seeing that he still has more than a touch of arrogance and selfishness in the way he deals with us mere fans.
I’m missing how that is morally iffy. Because it played on fan emotions? Maybe all those years in Catholic school have given me a flawed understanding of what constitutes a moral decision, but I seriously see no moral component to this.
I’ve been surprised how many scoff at the idea there is a base of young talent here. You can tell those who just (understandably) haven’t recently watched the team because they all recite the same cliches: 1) Kyrie is good because he plays well in all-star games; 2) Dion is a locker room problem. 3) Tristan has the same agent. 4) Bennett is a bust; 5) Rookie coach; 6) Everyone despises the owner. Heard a Miami podcast where no one seemed aware that Chris Grant is no longer the GM.
Yeah, this is what I meant by the second point (again with the caveat.) They can live with the simpler tropes like Jordan’s will to win or Duncan’s humility. But Lebron is more complicated and harder to get to. He seems to genuinely have many interests that would not go together at first glance. It will make a killer unauthorized biography one day. Or perhaps we’ll find out the truth that the NBA is desperate to hide.
Again, you may not care about the implications, but it seems to me that LeBron’s crew might have pushed Chris Broussard down the wrong path on Friday morning. Maybe he gets what he deserves in that regard, but there’s always a moral dilemma in lying on purpose. Maybe it’s not much of a dilemma, but I think it’s worth thinking about.
Free agency for any pro athlete could be called unnecessary and selfish. Do you consider what Andre Johnson is doing morally iffy?
I’m only partially aware of the situation, but I’d entertain the conversation for sure. NFL’s such a different beast though because it’s slanted against the players most. I support the occasional player holdout in the NFL. I admit that I have a sliding scale for a lot of this stuff.
Here, let me help you with that a bit
“if getting a highly-polished, carefully stated, PR-helping essay, that shows he learned what the wrong things were from the first Decision, is merely marketing”.
Make no mistake about this. That essay was about doing it the “right way” this time. But just about everything Lebron does is very well guided by PR.
“Now we were also a bunch of grouchy extras”
We were more than a bit grouchy. That narrative was well-earned.
“i refuse to get busy with miami types upset that lebron left them. it’s just not worth the time. truly beneath me/us.”
I wonder how we would react if someone said it was beneath them to care that we were upset when Lebron left the first time.
Or Chris Broussard’s “sources”, as they often seem to be, were absolutely flat out wrong.
“This is one of those things that you look back on and wonder why it was ever a question.”
Well, when you only look at the benefits of one side, of course it seems obvious.
The “obvious” reason he would go back to Miami is that it was a team that just made four straight trips to the NBA Finals, winning two, which is something Lebron cared deeply about, while the Cavs were still floundering out of the playoff picture thanks to more than a few poor decisions, including those top draft picks you mention. Referring to Anthony Bennett as simply a #1 pick intentionally obscures a large part of the picture. He was sub-replacement level last year. Waiters and Thompson have yet to play like top 4 picks. Even Irving has yet to truly dominate like we would hope a #1 overall would.
Hear, hear!
He explicitly stated he was going to take time to think about what he wanted to do. It seems reasonable that as interested as he might have been in returning to CLE, it took that assurance and discussion with Gilbert to push that over the edge into being something he was sure he wanted to do. Perhaps he then informed Miami of what he was leaning to do, and Riley asked to sit down and talk. That happened, and it was likely unconvincing enough (hence Sheppard’s immediate “he’s going to CLE” tweet). From there it took a day or so to get Jenkins to come out, write up a really incredible Letter, and then set it for publication. They said it was written up the evening before.
Holding onto that until the following noon isn’t some kind of cruelty – people need to chill out a bit. It’s a huge decision in someone’s life, let them take the time necessary to do it right.
“That time that he was ‘drawing it out’ may have actually been spent, you know, actually thinking about his choice.”
He got you this time with the oozing condescension. It’s like getting slimed at the Kid’s Choice Awards.
This is said mostly tongue-in-cheek, buuttt:
MIA fans should be thanking LeBron for his “process.” Sure it strung them along a tad, but at the end of the day, him leaving is the frustrating part, and anyway he did it would have made them upset. I listen to Lebetard, and even when it looked like he was going to CLE at certain points, they mostly chose to ignore and remain confident (which is exactly what we would have done/did).
By keeping his team and teammates in the dark, he saved they about 6-8 million. If He was transparent in his decision, is there really any way that DWade or UD opt out? I doubt it. They opted out thinking LeBron was coming back and they would be able to improve with restructured deals. As a fan, the financial flexibility has got to be more valuable than the perception that Dwyane Wade was hoodwinked.
So if I’m offered a job would it be a moral issue if I wait to take or not? Waiting could create real world consequences for the other applicants.
I don’t know…. I just reject the notion that these mundane decisions fall into the realm of morality. I think considering them so cheapens the whole concept of morality. Just because a decision is unnecessary or selfish doesn’t make it moral.
Morally iffy is a weird way to describe things.
What we have in LeBron is guy that is the NBA’s biggest draw and most important player who can never be paid like it due to the convoluted salary rules.
To me, this means that every NBA superstar should be fiercely protective of themselves, their decisions, and any options available to them.
Dude doesn’t “owe it” to Miami or Cleveland or either fan base to come out and say “hey, I’m not coming back so you may want to plan your draft accordingly.” I don’t see the greater responsibility to quell rampant speculation. And really, to suggest he is effing up the NBA free agency timeline is silly.
Just for clarification, I’m lukewarm on the guy. I mean, I’m thrilled that the best basketball player in the world has chosen to play for my favorite team, but all is not FOR6IVEN yet, either.
great comment.
I’d only add: LeBron has been under the intense media klieg lights since he was an early teen. He’s been surrounded by those wanting to ride his talent to their advantage. He has learned to manipulate things to his advantage, and who can blame him. He’s a great jock, but not someone personally responsible to make anyone’s life better. No one should depend on a jock for that.
In my point of view, controlling when you release that essay, especially with the content of it, is VERY important, because its coming with LeBron’s words and point of view. Could he have released it earlier? Yeah. Would that have saved a lot of headache and circus? Yeah, but if I’m LeBron, and Id like to control what little I can control, Im going to try and do it any way I can.
So if a reporter asks Terry Francona who the starter will be on Friday and he gives some stock “we’re not sure” answer even when he does know (aka lying on purpose) is that a moral issue? Down the rabbit hole we go.
It wasn’t so much about reasons for or against as how the very image conscious James presented himself. Family oriented, Akron Akron Akron, etc.
What about what the owners do?
“The person who plays Lebron should consider the people who love the character, when he makes his decisions. But Lebron James the person owes nothing to Pat Riley, Mickey Arison, or Stugotz”
Lebron should consider me when he makes his decisions, not the people I don’t care about.
But that’s just one aspect of Lebron’s highly polished PR image. There’s more angles and layers to the man than that, and we can’t ignore them because they don’t neatly fit the narrative we want.
The first time he left, Lebron made it very clear that Akron and Cleveland were two different things to him. It helped with his PR that he wasn’t really “leaving” his hometown. Now that he’s back, it’s all one big circle of love again.
That’s a good point and interesting thought experiment. If the NBA had true free agency, how much would Lebron be able to make?
That’s what politicians are for.
the only moral component I see is if he needed to let the Miami Heat know what he was doing before FA opened in order to more properly allow them to plan for his exit.
but, that implies he knew his decision, which he may not have. even LRMR running misdirection quotes at the media may have been merely giving them input to disagreements they were having because it’d keep the media happy (as going completely radio silent is not how you keep the media happy either).
regardless, even if I am not completely happy with his decision, he definitely acted in a much better fashion publicly this time around in doing it.
Such as?
I can accept that some labor related issues and the decisions involved enter the realm of morality. I cannot accept that all do.
Bravo.
Eye of the beholder I guess, but in the run up to the Decision II, I failed to see the imagery of Lebron embracing Miami. I did see the imagery of him doing so to NEO.
That’s what I’m saying. If we’re throwing this Lebron decision into the morality pile, I think we get back to some ideas Denny’s article about why he started caring about sports less and less.
If this bothers us, how are we going to handle what we see if we ever draw the curtain back? If this is just sports as another version of something to entertain us, then what’s the big deal?
Huh. I always thought his name was “Stu Gotz” and everyone just said his whole name. Never occurred to me that it was a single name.
NEO, or specifically his little locality that is mainly his family and friends? How much was from him, and how much was the narrative coming from other people looking to write a story? How much more closely are we, as Cleveland fans, looking for Lebron to embrace NEO compared to Miami?