LeBron's Choice

As a one-time journalism major, I have a soft spot in my heart for the movie All The President's Men. All wannabe journalists love this movie, because when you are starting out in college, you think this is what your career is going to be like - working sources behind the scenes to break a story that will change the face of the world as we know it. The reality is covering really bad Division 3 athletic program's games that are attended only by the players' parents and girlfriends or writing stories about how the cost of parking passes is about to go up. Anyway, early in the movie there is a scene where Robert Redford (as Woodward) goes up to Dustin Hoffman (as Bernstein) and scolds him for taking a story off his desk. He looks at him and says, "I don't mind what you did. I mind the way you did it." I couldn't help but keep thinking about this quote on Thursday night as I was watching LeBron James' hour-long special about where he was going to be playing next season. While I don't agree with James' decision to leave the Cavaliers for the Heat (we'll get to why in a second), I can at least understand it. What I just don't get is the need to have an hour-long prime-time special to announce the decision. This could have been 10-15 minutes and no one would have been upset (seriously, I bailed right after he said he was going to the Heat and I think most other people did as well). Really, neither I nor Cavalier fans needed the extra 45 minutes of hearing LeBron refer to himself in the third person or trying to milk this attention for all it was worth.

You know, for a guy that keeps saying he wants to be a global icon and a billionaire, James made a very curious marketing decision. After years of be hyped as the best basketball player, from now on he will been seen by basketball fans as a guy who knows he isn't good enough to win a championship as the lead dog. For example, I never want to here the phrase "King James" ever again. A King doesn't go to someone else's team to be their running mate - he has them come to him. Look, I don't like Kobe Bryant at all, but even I will admit that Kobe never makes this decision. Neither does Jordan, Bird, Magic and certainly not Russell. Those guys were too competitive to leave where they were to try and ride another players coattails to a championship. James supporters will tell you that it's all equal, because both Bosh and Wade are also giving up money. This is about more than the dollars. The fact remains that money is the only thing Wade is giving up while Bosh and James are now two of the more hated men in the NBA. James pretty much gave up his hometown in this move. If this was truly equal then James, Bosh and Wade would have ended up in a city like New Jersey, because that would mean each was risking the same amount. Instead James and Bosh went to Miami, which is Wade's city and will remain Wade's city.

Also, let's slow down all this talk of this team being pencilled in for the next 10 straight NBA titles. Bosh doesn't exactly have a strong playoff history and even if he did, you need 5 guys on a basketball team - the Heat currently have one other player under contract. Media pundits have been pointing to the '08 Celtics as proof that three superstars can coexist and win. They forget that team won not just because of Pierce, Allen and Garnett, but because of guys like Rondo, James Posey and PJ Brown. The Heat need some size, because Dwight Howard is still in the Eastern Conference and Bosh doesn't want to play center (again, that's going to turn out to be money well spent). People think that NBA players will be lining up to take less money for the right to play alongside these guys and normally I would agree, but with a looming lockout and a lot of teams with money left to burn that is not going to be as easy as it sounds. All those teams that cleared a ton of cap space to get Bosh, Wade or James now will be spending it on second, third and occasionally fourth-tiered free agents. It's great that the three stars took less money, but it was going from $18 million to $16 million - they aren't starving. Talking a guy who could make $3 million on a bad team into taking $500,000 for the right to win a championship is going to be harder. I'm not saying that the Heat aren't going to be a great team next season, but let's see how the rest of the offseason plays out before we start mapping out the parade route.

-But hey, at least Cleveland's owner is taking it well. Jees, Dan, come of the ledge a little. I get that you're mad - if I were you, I would be mad as well. With Mo Williams and Jamison as your best scorers, you are looking at 35 wins, tops. Your franchise lost a native son, its best player and about half its value in an hour-long narcissistic and public spectacle (though, you can't be shocked when a man who refers to himself as King and has "Chosen 1" tattooed on his back is a bit full of himself). It would be like getting left at the altar on national television. It wasn't for lack of trying on your part, either. With one or two minor exceptions (waiting to get Shaq in the summer of '09 instead of at the trading deadline in the middle of the season springs to mind), you did everything conceivable to make James happy and keep him in Cleveland. Also, as a man who achieved his wealth fairly early in life, I would assume you're not used to disappointment, so maybe you aren't fully aware of how to deal with this. That being said, you're the owner, you're supposed to be a little more rational than the fans. You should be above petty tactics such as reducing the price of a LeBron James Fathead from $99 to $17.79 in a reflection of the year Benedict Arnold jumped sides. [Sidebar: A Fathead costs a hundred bucks? Seriously? No wonder you weren't afraid of the luxury tax.] I've heard from several people that when you are emotionally hurt, writing to get out all the negative things festering inside of you can be a very healthy thing. But, you're not supposed to send it and you're really not supposed to put it on the team's official website. They say that a man's true character comes out when he's facing adversity. I have to say, Gilbert doesn't look great in all this.