While We’re Waiting… Art and Artists, NCAA Polls and Pollsters, and Cleveland’s Character
July 13, 2010Indians All Star Break Analysis – The Infield
July 13, 2010Cavaliers majority owner Dan Gilbert’s now-infamous letter to Cleveland fans was all of 421 words. Less than one week later, each of those words will cost the passionate and zealous Gilbert approximately $250 as NBA Commissioner David Stern has informed the team that they will be fined $100,000 for the late Thursday night dissemination.
Following LeBron James’ nationally televised Decision to “take his talents to South Beach,” Gilbert called the former Cavalier’s actions a “shocking act of disloyalty,” deeming the 25-year-old’s proceedings the exact opposite of what one would want to exemplify for his or her child. In turn, Stern described Gilbert’s actions as “a little bit extreme.”
But at least he understood.
“I think that remarks by Dan Gilbert, the owner of the Cavaliers, catalyzed as they may have been by hurt with respect to the manner and the fact for himself, his team, and particularly for the people of Cleveland, though understandable, were ill-advised and imprudent,” said Stern.
Gilbert’s written tirade received plenty of attention for its content as well as the delivery due to his use of the font type comic sans combined with various use of caps lock and quotation marks. Not helping matters was the reaction to the reaction by noted activist Rev. Jesse Jackson, who claimed Gilbert saw James as a “runaway slave,” saying that the Cavaliers owner has a “slave master mentality.”
Naturally, Gilbert fired off a reply to Jackson, though kept it very brief by stating that the owner firmly disagreed and would not engage in a dialogue on the topic. Stern would also address Jackson’s comments, calling them “equally imprudent” for unnecessarily turning the 2010 NBA free agency into a racial issue.
Completing the trifecta of things that Stern disagreed with, the NBA commissioner also stated that he felt James as a player received poor advice in the way he handled his departure from Cleveland. It can be argued that had Stern stepped in front of the nationally televised broadcast – invariably taking millions of eyes away from his product – that none of the follow-up incidents would have occurred. Yes, James would have still opted to bail on the town that unequivocally embraced him, but had James made his move via a press release, the backlash would not have been nearly as grave due to the would-be altered medium of diffusion.
Gilbert stated that more information would be disseminated to fans in the coming weeks. As of Tuesday morning, very little information has been conveyed. In what could be a change of heart, the Cavaliers organization has strictly focused on the future rather than dwelling on the past.
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(AP Photo/Tony Dejak)
28 Comments
it nice to know that only bad thing stern can say bad about LeQuit is that he received bad advice.
Gilbert can just bide his time and then leak the dirt on LeBron off-the-record and the league won’t be able to touch him.
It’s pretty sad that you get fined for speaking the truth.
So when players talk trash on the court, can they get fined? Why can’t the owner say what he wants about a player?
@3 Because it’s David Stern’s corruptable world.
Dan Gilbert deserved to be fined. I have no problem with it really. I also have no problem with Gilbert writing the letter.
Lastly, before you all jump all over David Stern, I think Stern was as harsh as he could be with LeBron. He is never going to be overly brash, but Stern said in no uncertain terms that LeBron mishandled the entire thing and was advised stupidly by any number of people. You have to read between the lines a bit, but Stern was in no way defending anything that LeBron did other than departing Cleveland.
Additionally, unless the Cavs or Raptors wished to pursue the issue (which they didn’t) then it really isn’t up for discussion in public. Stern’s responsibility will be in responding via the new collective bargaining agreement. I know that doesn’t help the Cavs with what went down with LeBron, but the sooner we all come to grips with the fact that NOTHING can help with that situation, the better we all are.
LeBron had every right to leave. He acted like the biggest jerk on earth. Hopefully the NBA adopts new rules including a “franchise tag” that will continue to make the NBA fairer than MLB and even closer to the NFL.
@5 – I’m with you…as commish he can’t just come out and say…wow you were an idiot. He had to handle that whole situation with major kiddie gloves so saying what he said is about as brash as he could allow himself to be (regardless of how he really feels about the situation).
Also, your right, Gilbert had to know he’d get some sort of fine for the letter when it was released…I think that was the last thing Gilbert cared about at that point. 100k is pocket change for him anyways.
While I typically don’t like Stern…
1) Sten is right. While understandable, Gilbert’s letter was imprudent. But, as we all know, Gilbert’s letter was actually “$100k well spent to rally a disheartened fan base.”
2) Stern is in an odd place re: LBJ. For 7 years, you have more or less championed him as the face of your multi-billion dollar organization. Now, that same guy has acted like an absolute jerk. You have to criticize him b/c he was a jerk. But you can’t “throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
I applaud him for taking a stance on it, even though it was wishy-washy. And as Craig said yesterday, the real problem with LBJ leaving wasn’t his deciding to join the Heat, it was how he went about his business.
3) The “Reverend” Jesse Jackson is an idiot. He and sports writers like him (Kevin Blackistone comes to mind) could find racism at an NAACP meeting.
tl;dr
1) Fine is appropriate.
2) Criticizing LeBron is hard for Stern to do.
3) Jackson is dumb,
crap – craig beat me to like every single point.
triple post. sorry.
It would be funny to just keep slapping the franchise tag on LeBron (assuming you can keep doing it indefinitely) and making him play on one-year deals or get a nice compensation package if he did leave for another team (although two first round picks wouldn’t quite cut it in the NBA).
We need to disuss the “elephant” in the room. What has been revealed in the last week certainly raises serious questions about the Boston series and game 5. I mentioned that Lebron’s performance was completely out of character. However, no one knew why. Now that he as stated that his main reason for leaving is to get a ring, perhaps he realized that if he won a ring with the Cavs this year it would ruin his reason for joining up with his buddies in Miami. I hope that some journalist will look into this. If Lebron actually tanked game 5 in order to make it easeir to leave, this affects the very integrity of the game. I don’t think Stern wants any part of this, and his recent words are an attempt to close this door.
@11, it’s a little conspiracy-theory-esque, but I agree that it’s worth looking into, and thankfully I think that’s what Brian Windhorst is doing. If a player of LeBron’s caliber WERE to try to sabotage his teams chances to win the finals, I think he would do it exactly as things happened for the Cavs. Win the first round series against an obviously lesser team, then claim a mysterious elbow injury that seemed to affect him only when it was detrimental to the team so his team would lose in the second round to a decent opponent. I mean, I feel a little silly writing it, but man it fits better than OJ’s glove.
I agree with TSM @11
While I don’t think it warrants an investigation, the way the Cavs stomped all over the Celtics in Boston in Game 3 – only to lay down for 3 straight games has to constitute a mark on the team’s legacy… and yes, that includes King James.
What I’m most disappointed in was the fact that we, as Ohioans, fell into the trap that the media set up for us. Watching footage of the “please stay Lebron” video, fans telling cameras “good riddance” only 3 minutes after crossing their fingers hoping that he would stay, and fans burning jerseys… this is NOT the community I grew up in. We’re supposed to be better than this.
Time to prove it by embracing our team, owned by someone who clearly cares about the caliber of the group that takes the floor each night.
I’m going to take a step further into that conspiracy theory because it’s something that I keep coming back to:
we all know something happened before game5. we all know that something in the locker room disrupted the team so everyone came out flat and disinterested and we would have been better served letting one of Cleveland’s better HS Bball teams take the floor that night.
Shaq seemed to be at the center of some rift in the locker room from BW’s cryptic messages at the time.
Could it have been that Shaq saw what LeBron was doing with the elbow and in games 2 and 4 when he didn’t seem to be playing nearly as well (but magically was in game3)? Could Shaq have called him on it and said that MJ/Kobe would never pull this crud?
Knowing that Shaq and Kobe are competing for ring totals, if Shaq saw LeBron possibly costing him a chance at getting a leg up (yes, it’s LeBron’s back he was riding in the first place), then he absolutely would have called him on it.
If Shaq called LeBron on it, there definitely would have been a locker room disturbance and the way LeBron gets moody, I could see him pouting through the game (to show Shaq just how it looks when he really doesn’t try)
Just a scenario. One that seems most viable to me.
Craig, I like your idea of a franchise tag in basketball. Already Chris Paul is already “joking” about another dream team in NY. The owners need to put this kind of crap to bed and quick.
The NFL has a few problems but this entire fiasco and has reminded me again how much there is to learn by MLB and the NBA if they’d just pay attention.
@14 – This has been the most quiet Shaq has ever been. Strange. Agreed, its viable, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say what happened, as we have no idea… yet
Oh, I agree. I have no inside info or actual knowledge here.
that is just spaghetti on the wall. But, I’ve been racking my brain on plausible scenarios and that one is the one that makes the most sense to me, so I thought I would share.
Yes, because if Stern says something bad about LeBron he’ll leave to play for that other professional basketball league… LeBron needs Stern and the NBA as much as they need him. What would LQJ be worth today without professional sports?
I’m so glad I’m missing the majority of all this drama. Catching up on my 10″ netbook from the terrace of a southern European country villa. Vineyards as far as the eye can see, and working on my second bottle of chianti.
Ah, perspective.
Ciao
i wonder if dan gilbert, cough cough brian windhorst, will still get more info out about lebron’s fake elbow injury. i sure hope so. that would certainly wreck his legacy more than anything else. nothing worse as a pro athlete to fake an injury at a critical time.
@11 – I mentioned this a couple days ago in a different thread. If the Cavs win the Celtics series and advance to the ECF or the NBA finals, it becomes very difficult for LeBron to justify leaving so he would have a better chance of winning. Until there is some evidence that he threw the game, it will be nothing but conspiracy theory…but in my opinion, there is enough smoke here to question LeBron’s bizarre, erratic play and mysterious “elbow injury” that seemed to come and go as he wished it to.
I have never seen anything like what I saw in game 5 from someone with his talent. It’s fairly obvious that he quit, but the reason why he would do that has been a mystery. Dare I say that now it’s starting to make sense…
@14 – I heard (through a friend so take it with a grain of salt) that the locker room rift came when Mo Williams called Lebron out on his play during half time of game 5 at the Q and things nearly exploded as Q security was brought in to separate the two. Shaq apparently defended Mo and the rift was on. I guess this guy heard it from someone who was working security at the Q but no idea if that’s legit or not. Seems to make sense though.
/unverified source’d
Remember when we all thought that it was odd that a dude with 8,000 tattoos claimed to be scared of needles when it came to helping his elbow?
Good time.
@14 – LeBron and Mike Brown were to nose-to-nose arguing at halftime. Shaq pulled them apart and chastised LeBron to handle it behind closed doors.
stin4u and jj – thanks for the info. glad to see plausible might meet actual (at least a little).
now I’m really hoping that Shaq has too much to drink one night and goes on a twitter rampage on this stuff.
mgbode… that much drink might not exist, man’s a behemoth.
It looks like you guys are stuck in stage two of the grieving process.
haha. i think i skipped through all the steps. i still enjoy the time we had lebron and you won’t find me on here demonizing him.
but, i’d still like to know what happened and it’s a fun barstool debate to hypothosize theories.
[…] brings us to Acceptance. As Scott mentioned earlier today, it appears Gilbert is moving on the Cavaliers are now focusing on the future. I’ve seen one unverified report on Twitter that Dan Gilbert is planning a public apology to […]