Diving into the Buckeye makeup heading down the stretch
February 16, 2015Nike announces release date for the Kyrie 1 “Flytrap”
February 16, 2015Does anyone know where the NBA All-Star game was held? I couldn’t figure it out, what with the thirty-seven different songs about New York warbling out of the mouth of an ever-voluptuous Christina Aguilera. Concrete jungle never sleeps where dreams are made of you can make it anywhere state of mind. We get it. New York is a great city. New York is probably the country’s greatest city in so many ways. It’s easy to get caught up and think that everything should revolve around New York and that they should get everything that’s worth having from restaurants and stores to attractions and entertainers. That’s why I’m sure it’s easy to want to continually write about LeBron James and how he “should” make a stop in New York before his career finishes as Ian O’Connor did at ESPN the morning after the All-Star game.
I do get it. It’s easy to romanticize New York and imagine LeBron lighting up Broadway in that storied “gym,” Madison Square Garden. I love the reductive reverse psychology of calling MSG a “gym” by the way. It’s like purposefully and cartoonishly minimizing something in order to pump it up to epic proportions. It’s like calling “Comfortably Numb” “just a little number by a couple of British boys named Roger Waters and David Gilmour.” It’s easy to understand why these things continue to be said and written. New York is a great city and LeBron is free with the praise for New York every single time he is there.
“It don’t get no better, man, than to be playing in the Garden in front of these fans,” James said. “They know the game of basketball, and to be able to go out and represent my team and represent this league at the highest level, it means everything.”
I know better than to ever rule anything out with LeBron James. It could absolutely happen that LeBron finds his way to New York for a year or so. Nobody ever saw Michael Jordan playing his final years as a Washington Wizard, or even Shaq as a Sun, Cavalier, or Celtic.
And Ian O’Connor is far from rude about coveting LeBron James in a Knick uniform. He continually speaks of LeBron’s obligation to Cleveland and making “Cleveland whole” from “The Decision” by winning a couple of rings. He doesn’t use his New York praise as a way to blow out the Cleveland candle, which is certainly appreciated. It just seems odd that LeBron would need to take his praise of New York to the level of signing a deal there to play out the string of his Hall of Fame career.
It’s possible, but it’s wholly unnecessary. LeBron doesn’t have to actually play in a Knicks uniform to pay homage to that “gym.” He doesn’t have to cash James Dolan’s checks and high five Spike Lee to somehow fulfill his destiny as a fan of New York City.
I do know what it would mean to New York. The desperation and entitlement of that city for championships isn’t dissimilar to the entitlement Browns fans feel for a competitive football team that never seems to show up. The difference is where Browns fans are sad and needy, New York fans feel more entitled because they’re used to having the biggest, brightest, and best of everything. In a lot of ways, outside of the Yankees payroll, sports have been the great equalizer putting New York in its place, as seen with this horrific title drought. In the NBA, it’s simply unacceptable to have only three playoff appearances in the past decade as the Knicks have.
And maybe LeBron will find his way to Phil Jackson for a year or two as he tidies up his career. With the way pieces move in the NBA and the complexities of contracts, absolutely anything is possible. I just can’t help shaking the feeling that New York is a little bit confused about what LeBron says when he comes to New York. Is he flirting with coming to New York, or does he just like to visit from time to time? Is he really professing his love for those fans or is he part of a touring rock band that throws superlatives out after a song to pump up the crowd. “There’s no other audience in the world as loud as New York!” (Thunderous applause.)
Obviously we’ll have a chance to see if it all plays out that way, and maybe Ian O’Connor will prove to be prophetic with his words about LeBron paying the ultimate homage to the “The Mecca.” It just seems to me after all these years and after all these ideas that LeBron would have to play there or in Brooklyn with his buddy Jay-Z, or where his marketing prowess will be unmatched in the world’s ultimate marketing machine—the last thing you want to do is try to figure what LeBron James is going to do. It’s tough for New Yorkers to stomach, but it’s especially problematic to figure out in a salary-capped world like the NBA.
Ultimately, I do understand it though. It’s all part of a romantic notion about New York that LeBron feeds into and that has been perpetuated over the years time and again in movies and songs and in every other fashion. LeBron was willing to play into the romanticized version of home when he came back to the Cleveland area this year as well. I just don’t know if that translates into LeBron James playing every night in that little gym over there in New York.
21 Comments
The NY fan hater in me would love it if he completed his career there as an earthbound Yoda, a savvy deft passer taking shots he no longer should consider taking, spinning in weird layups like Phil Hubbard while waxing on like the old sage for the reporters in the post-game locker room. Because if Dolan is still the owner they’d still suck and this time the joke would be on Knick fans: enjoy those sloppy fourths, you obnoxious, entitled boors.
I’m sure LeBron loves NY but sounded mostly like he’s hiking up his skirt and showing some leg again, once again the incorrigible flirt in any big city he visits.
Hmm, how many times has he passed them up now?
Not one, not two… Okay, it’s only two.
As an aside, what kind of LeBron James does O’Connor think WOULD be coming to the Knicks?
We’ve already seen what the effects of NBA HGH testing aging has done to LeBron this year in Cleveland.
New Yorkers buy shoes too
Hiking skirts? Look at you working blue, Harv! I kid, I kid.
Got the green light, baby, prepare for untapped comedy gold.
Actually, now I think I unconsciously stole that skirt line from someone else, maybe something Scott Raab wrote. Joy at newfound freedom quickly swallowed by self-loathing. Better stay in my lane.
http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17mm4vg1hqmnbgif/original.gif
Prurient and Loathing in Cleveland.
Chewing with mouth open? I’m writing you up. Again.
I was actually listening to Comfortably Numb when I read that line about Waters and Gilmour. High fives for awesome music!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCmuATH2yzo
Serendipity.
All Star game over… nothing to write about… hmm… recycle LeBron to NYC story? Sure. Thats all this one is.
I continue to find it odd that New Yorkers still believe the Knicks are some kind of paradise in the NBA world and a franchise that is somehow a proving ground for everyone who steps foot in the NBA. Especially since the Knicks have exactly two more championships than the Cavs since Cleveland entered the NBA and just as many as the Cavs have won since 1973.
I know the moderators on this site prefer to keep everything family safe, so I’ll try my best to toe the line. With that said, I say this: F**k New York.
I get it. It’s New York. It’s the bright lights, the Big Apple, the concrete jungle, and all the romanticized folklore garbage that comes with it. But dammit, they don’t get to monopolize the romance. They don’t get to ascend to some ridiculous level of self-perpetuating success, simply because “they’re New York.” F**k New York.
It’s like the Lakers. The Lakers can sit and languish for the next 100 years for all I care. To want them, or any team for that matter, to succeed simply because they always have is putting the cart before the horse. F**k New York.
You know what I want to see? I want to see downtown Cleveland up in lights. I want to see rings. I want to see banners. I want to see a legendary career come to a close in the same place it began. I want to see my city to develop it’s own romanticism.
F**k New York.
true, but in fairness it’s LeBron himself who was portraying the dump that is MSG a place he’d like to play 82 games a year and their fans so knowledgeable. He was either pandering (again) or believes it himself.
Lebron’s had his last bon voyage. He’s older, he had one NBA encircling moment when he was able to control the fortunes and futures of every other league player and owner. At 30, and with gunners the shoot out in Golden State, Memphis, New Orleans and other locales not associated with Lebron, his window is now and it’s narrowing. Perhaps an end of career career-salute to the magical game of basketball with NYK, but he’s he in C-town till his real work is over.
I don’t think New Yorkers feel that way at all. In fact, I think most New Yorkers are embarrassed at the product that the Knicks put on the floor. Their daily sportswriters also don’t let the fans or the ownership/management forget that fact, either.
The truth is, while New York was once the mecca of basketball – point guards, especially – it’s no longer a tree that bears as much fruit. The way the school systems are set up incentivizes poorly educated kids to enroll across the river in academically less challenging schools.
Here’s a great article from the Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/19/sports/basketball/new-york-basketball-players-crossover-move-to-new-jersey.html
I’m a Cleveland guy with Cleveland roots that run deep. I root for the Browns, Indians, Cavs, and Buckeyes. I went to 20 Tribe games in 1991, when they went 57-105. There is a store on Carnegie Ave that bears my last name. I love Cleveland.
But your remark about New York undermines your first words, which were, “I get it.” No, sir, I’m sorry. You don’t.
New York isn’t a city that feels entitled just because it has been the most important city in the western hemisphere since the days of the American Revolution, or because it’s the modern center of art and commerce, or because, up to very recently, they have won sports championships.
No….the thing is, New Yorkers don’t feel ENTITLED – they feel driven; in the same way an honor student feels driven to get straight A’s, because anything less means they didn’t try hard enough. Because New Yorkers expect the very BEST out of their teams, just as they expect the same out of themselves.
New York – and thus New Yorkers – “ascend to some ridiculous level of self-perpetuating success,” because New Yorkers work as hard as any people anywhere – including Clevelanders (who certainly work no less hard). The reason the city never sleeps is because there are men and women out there willing to work any job, any time to make ends meet. You call it “romanticized folklore”, but most in the 5 boroughs would just call it, “life.”
I, too, would love to see Cleveland up in lights. And I like it when the KC’s of the world get to play in the World Series. But don’t misconstrue media creationism with actual fan sentiment, lest you be labelled a “stupid midwesterner” in much the same way you label New Yorkers as arrogant.
Craig – I am assuming you’ve been to The Garden? It really is an awesome place. And, much like Cameron Indoor, it really evokes the feeling of being just a “gym,” minus the costs, of course. There’s not a bad seat in the house, and it is one of those old-time places that bring fans closer together, regardless of income disparity, because there are just not enough seats for everyone to get in. You can go to so many other arenas and basically see the income segregation/inequality dripping from the loges.
He should just stay in Cleveland
Love the passion