You guys are ridiculous. Before this each of you were calling him selfish and arrogant and ego-maniacs. So he shows everybody that he actually DOES care more about team and winning a ring than earning the most money he can (Knicks) while garnering the most attention he can, and you call him a b****.
Why does more respect come if you beg to be traded and your team gets you Pau Gasol...as opposed to you being a free agent and choosing to go play with Pau Gasol (or convincing him to come play with you, like Lebron tried to do)? I just don't see the difference.
And is that the correct way to run a franchise? If Kobe Bryant had his way, Andrew Bynum would've been shipped out for Jason Kidd 3 years ago and that massive Lakers frontline wouldn't be so formidable. There's a reason why teams hire a GM to run and manage the team - asking your 20-something superstar to do so is irresponsible and not the way to build a champion.
There pretty much is none. The players are trying to better their situation and win either way, it's just that a lot of fans have this idea that the concept of team loyalty still exists in the mind of players.
This might be the most interesting part of this. What we are learning from this free agency period (not just Lebron) is that there's a growing disparity between the haves and have-nots. The league has to explore how to make cities like Toronto and Cleveland more capable of building and maintaining success. Since you can't force players to go to unattractive places, I would almost consider a free agency plan that lets free agents choose from two options: Opt A: A "max" contract similar to now (based on salary cap, etc) of maybe $10MM per year. The numbers here are just made up as examples. But you pick your team, etc. Opt B: You put yourself up for bidding - highest bidder gets you and you can't choose your team. In this scenario, the max contract would be, say, $13MM per year. If you choose to not play for that team, your contract is voided, you're not allowed to play in the NBA for a year, and the team gets its cap space back. Get rid of sign & trades, which only give people a roundabout way of making more money but still get to choose where they go. So now you have a two tier free agency - players that really want to pick a place, or players that want to make more money. The players that pick B could more easily be sucked up by the unattractive franchises. Of course, those teams now have a bigger cap problem because they have to pay more for free agents, but it might be better than now where they can never get those guys.
I'm not trying to be a jackass..but you seriously don't see the difference in staying with your team and asking for improvements.... and jumping ship? Can you understand how fans of that team...how hardcore LeBron/Cavs fans who've rooted for their hometown guy from his high school days through his image painted all over their downtown skyline might see the difference?
No. He isn't. LeBron James is more pampered than any professional athlete since....well....Tiger Woods.... ....and James loves attention just as much, if not more than, he loves his own kid, I'd imagine..... ...but I just can't bring myself to think, say or feel that somehow, Lebron James won't be seen as a great player, because he chose to team with other players who were proven, and were willing to share as much of, if not more of, the team's responsibility to win as he would. I watched this little dramedy unfold for the past couple of weeks like everybody else on the planet. I can't remember seeing anything so silly in regards to the fortunes of a team and pro sports league as this free agency period. As much as LeBron James and his "team" caused this type of Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey circus atmosphere (for upwards of two seasons), there was as much pomp and circumstance paid to virtually every other free agent available this offseason, by the media and anybody with a camera phone and a Twitter account. I'm not actually disgusted by how this all transpired. Norman Rockwell saw this type of thing coming 60 years ago, so I was half-prepared to deal with it. 15 minutes of fame in this day and age hardly qualifies as self-aggrandizing, to me. Just part of the digital age, and the me-first, last, and always nature of a great many of our lives. What I am is surprised. But after I gave myself time to think about the actual meat of this move by LeBron James, I had to take notice of some things. In spite of anybody's assertions that James will somehow be something other than one of the top two or three players in the entire league despite the nature of the triumvirate of Wade, Bosh and himself, James will be the Miami Heat's best player from the moment that he signs his contract. The fact that James chose to go to a team with a player of Dwayne Wade's caliber already on board with the attitude of being a PIECE of the puzzle, a PART of a winning formula, says what people need to understand about James' decision: for all of his talent and marketing, LeBron James cannot win an NBA championship by himself. Especially when he chooses not to take 10 or more NBA seasons to find that out definitively. What surprises me is that this sentiment by James is exactly how he has approached playing the game in his time in the league. Nothing that he's ever said about himself, or has been said about him by others, has led me to believe that he ever wanted to be THE GUY on a championship team. As talented as he is, James is very much a team player, as opposed to the type of whip-cracking, hard-charging self-absorbed type of "leader" we expect from a guy who's concerned with his global marketing "brand". I personally don't think less of him as a player for not sticking it out in Cleveland and trying to win there, and being eventually forced to leave because he got older and started to get injured and the team and city soured on him and he still hadn't delivered...like what happens to a lot of hall of fame players who try to win themselves, and back out of the league as bit players on other teams trying to chase a title that they were going to need teammates in order to win anyway. As long as LeBron was going to be the unequivocable best player on his team, the team's shortcomings would be his and his alone. I don't think James could handle that type of criticism. He couldn't when there were whispers of his lack of fortitude and primadonna-ishness this past postseason. He's got all-world talent guided by a role-player mentality. James is forceful, but not relentless. He's dedicated, but not driven. He's motivated, but not committed. He's focused, but not maniacal. He is who he is. James is elite. But he still has a way to go to be great. And strangely, this may be the best way for him to get to that greatness. Because you can only be who you are at the end of the day. Remember Hakeem Olajuwon, everyone? Forget , if you can, how impossibly good the Dream was from 1993-1995, even having forged a hall of fame career prior to those years. Try to remember (and I know it's hard) how well the guys he played with performed during that time—Vernon Maxwell and Carl Herrera and Scott Brooks and Chris Jent and Earl Cureton and Chucky Brown, just to name a few—played with a confidence and a consistency that defied their modest pedigrees. None of those guys were supposed to be good enough to win. Nobody would have blamed any of those guys if the Rockets had not managed to be two-time NBA champions. Olajuwon was there for that. Remember (and this is hard for some of us, too, I know) how much praise Olajuwon heaped on his teammates when they were able to win. Olajuwon was the engine, undoubtedly. But so many others took turns driving that bus. They all got where they were going, and they got there together. Not once did Olajuwon suggest that he made his teammates BETTER. He made their jobs easier to do. There's the difference in perception that most of us go blind trying to follow. At his very best, Olajuwon gave the Rockets a chance to win almost every possession of every game. But Olajuwon had done those things several times before with several different teammates and couldn't win a free chicken dinner. The pedigree of the teammates doesn't matter nearly as much as the productivity. Nothing's won in the press or on the sports channel or in the media machine. It's won on the court. James would still be in Cleveland if some other Cavaliers had responded when they were challenged by the Celtics. LeBron James let his frustration get the better of him, and it cost the team a great deal (the closest parallel I can think of is Scottie Pippen's "migrane headache" game against the Pistons, or his mature handling of having some teammate other than himself take the game-winning shot in a playoff game). But they lost because Boston was a better TEAM. Very little would have been different for the Cavaliers even if Lebron had played up to his considerable talent every game. Nobody believes it, but it's true. As for James' public divorce from Cleveland....I've seen train wrecks handled more delicately. But it was perhaps inevitable, even if somewhat premature. What would have happened was that Cleveland would have let LeBron be the only real chance the Cavaliers had to win for too long, not really strengthening the team, just cut-and-paste-type players, until James was completely burned out and sent uncerimoniously packing into the NBA ether. The only thing James can do at this point is to do what he said he left to join Miami to do...and that's to win. He will be the team's facilitator. He will make everybody better. He wants to win. Now all he has to do is learn to do the winning first, and leave all the spectacle to the other three-card monty players.....
A point you failed to address. You want to paint a picture that LeBron is hitching a ride on a championship team that Wade built on his own. Anyone with a clue can see that's not accurate. The Heat will be an elite, championship-contending team next year because LeBron agreed to join them. Wade knew this, and that's why he begged for LeBron to join him. You want to fixate on the fact that its LeBron moving to Wade's house, and not the other way around. This being a "very raw" basketball thread, I guess its ok to only look at the surface of it and ignore the fact that Miami was the one with the cap space and the far more attractive free agent destination. That has zero to do with Dwyane Wade being "the man" and LeBron being "the follower". Is this meant to be taken seriously? Yeah, Kobe grew into a situation playing alongside the best player in the league. He really toughed it out. I don't have a problem with calling out LeBron for the manner in which he departed Cleveland. But there is nothing wrong with him choosing to leave to play alongside a future HOFer. Not everyone is as fortunate as Kobe Bryant to have been granted that privilege from the start of their career.
wait...neither Tracy nor Francis were hyped like this. nowhere close. No King....no Chosen One...no Witnesses. and....neither were stabbing their hometown in the throat with a punk ass hour long press conference, either. McGrady wasn't in the GOAT discussion...he was on a team he could barely get to the playoffs on. Not the team with the best record in the NBA over the previous 2 seasons. He was a scorer...the end. It's funny...because I've always rooted for LeBron. Especially at the expense of Kobe. All that switched in about a week's time. It's not just what he did...it's how he did it that turns so many people off.
I actually think he would have won a championship in Cleveland eventually, and as I said it would have meant much more. That's why I'm disappointed that he left. This will diminish him. However, I don't buy this notion that he left Cleveland because he couldn't handle pressure. He's just put more pressure on himself to win, in fact. In Cleveland, he always had the excuse that he's carrying a team that just wasn't good enough. The media won't grant him that anymore if he's getting eliminated playing alongside Wade and Bosh. Surely, he recognized that but decided to go for it anyway.
oh so now its about the hype? is that his fault? he could have declined the offer to a show, but this has been building for over a year
when you tattoo "chosen one" on your back, you're kinda complicit, yeah. and you limited my entire response down to only the hype issue. no one was comparing T-Mac to Jordan or the GOAT's. no one serious, anyway. this is nowhere near the vicinity of a T-Mac situation, pgabriel. no where near. the people who have a problem with the way this was handled and the choice made don't have a problem with free agency, generally....just a problem with this instance.
