On the day LeBron James returned to Cleveland to play for the first time against his former team, the Cavaliers, a woman in the city known as “the mistake by the lake,” looked fiercely into a camera and said, as if addressing the man himself, “LeBron, you are definitely the most hated man in Cleveland.”
Well, even if that comment were true, what exactly would it prevent LeBron from doing?
How would being “the most hated man in Cleveland” restrict his life or career options?
Just try convincing the people of Cleveland that life goes on after a basketball player decided to exercise his right to leave one team and sign with another as a free agent.
Clevelanders may never understand that the Cavaliers organization failed LeBron for seven years by not acquiring enough star talent to complement his unique and multifaceted skills.
Michael Jordan, brilliant as he was, won nothing in Chicago until the Bulls added future Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen to the “supporting cast.”
Together, Jordan and Pippen won six NBA championships.
The best player with whom LeBron played in Cleveland was an over-the-hill Shaquille O’Neal last season.
One more time, Cleveland: LeBron signed with the Miami Heat because he knew the Cavaliers’ organization would never make the moves necessary to give him the best chance to win an NBA championship.
LeBron is not in basketball just for the money. He has plenty of money. He yearns to do what Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, John Stockton and Elgin Baylor, among other NBA greats, could not—win at least one NBA championship.
Time will tell if LeBron’s partnership in Miami with Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and team president (and perhaps future head coach) Pat Riley produces that coveted league title.
But it is undeniably clear that LeBron’s chances of holding aloft the Lawrence O’Brien Trophy, presented yearly to the NBA champions, improved exponentially when he packed his bags and, in his words, “took his talents to South Beach.”
As the Heat bludgeoned the Cavs 118-90 on December 2, LeBron heard numerous insulting chants while scoring a game-high 38 points.
Just one of those insulting chants bears repeating here: “Who’s Your Daddy?”
Why repeat that one? It underscores how ugly and despicable “fans” can be when things don’t go their way. (LeBron was reared by a single mother in an Akron, Ohio, housing project after his father left the family.)
Obviously, those hateful people were never truly fans of LeBron. Instead, they thought they owned him. They saw LeBron as their own athletically gifted version of Dred Scott—the former slave who was ruled three-fifths of a man in the worst Supreme Court decision ever.
“We made him rich,” one visibly disgusted Cavalier fan was heard saying on ESPN.
So this dolt believes no other NBA team would have paid LeBron a King James ransom as the No. 1 overall pick in the 2003 draft?
Not the New Jersey Nets? Not the Los Angeles Clippers? Not the Toronto Raptors?
Only Cleveland?
Please.
Cleveland, a city that has not won a league championship in any sport since the 1964 Browns, was extremely lucky to have LeBron represent its city for seven years.
Problem is the Cavaliers never put championship-caliber talent around him—the way the Bulls did for Jordan, the way the Los Angeles Lakers did for Kobe Bryant, the way the San Antonio Spurs did for Tim Duncan.
And that, Cleveland, is why he left.
So brace yourselves for more beatings. LeBron will be visiting you twice every season.
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