Farewell to the King

I don't write about sports all that often here but something about LeBron James' decision to bolt the Cleveland Cavaliers for the Miami Heat struck a nerve.

I used to be crazy obsessed with the NBA. Back in the Jordan era it wasn't unusual for me to cancel a date to stay in and watch the Bulls play a regular season game. After M.J. retired [For the second time] I gradually became disenchanted with the "Generation Next" that were the Air's heir apparents. In the last five years I'd say I've watched fewer than ten full NBA games, playoffs included.

So why should I care about whether LeBron James, the latest would be contender/pretender to the throne, goes to Miami or the moon for that matter? It's the principle [And I'm not talking about that late 80's Jim Belushi movie].

I'm a strong advocate of free agency. If a player has fulfilled his contract, I believe he has the right to test his value and get his value on the open market. For that reason I've become increasingly reluctant to get attached to players. I root for the uniform.

But the story of LeBron James is different. This is no ordinary free agent. This is the league's premiere player, playing for his home town team. A team, and a city, that is synonymous with losing. From "The Drive" to "The Fumble", from "The "Shot" to the 1997 World series, Cleveland sports teams have found ways to lose on the biggest stages in the most heartbreaking ways. Add in the fact that the city hasn't had a championship pro team since the Browns in '64 and you can see why Cleveland was named the most tortured sports city in America by ESPN.

The Cavaliers have sort of been the forgotten member of the Cleveland sports family. While passion still runs deep for the ever rebuilding Browns and the up and down Indians, the Cavaliers were always "Oh, yeah. The Cavs". Other than a nice run under coach Lenny Wilkens in the late 80's and early 90's, the Cavs haven't done much to distinguish themselves since they joined the NBA in 1970. That is until the hometown kid, "The Natural", fell into their laps in 2003.

LeBron James. King James. The kid from Akron with the winning smile and the winning style. The Chosen One who would lead Cleveland sports out of the wilderness. And he did... for a while.

Tonight, at approximately 9:30 Eastern time, LeBron James drove a stake through the heart of not only Cleveland sports, but the city of Cleveland itself. After two weeks of increasingly shameless self indulgence, James and his group of sycophantic agents, handlers and High school buddies whose job it is to be King James' subjects, arranged a one hour special on ESPN [Who while criticizing James out of one side of their mouth, talked incessantly about his future plans from the other]. Here James would announce to the world where he would take his once in a generation game. In the end, it was Miami.

So this takes me back to my original question. Why do I care? James earned the right to be a free agent. This I don't deny. And in a league that has had it's share of image problems over the years James has avoided the pitfalls of fame that beset so many young athletes away from the court. But James' situation was unique. He knew what he meant to the city, to the franchise. If he left, the value of the Cavaliers would plummets tens of millions of dollars. The economy of the city, which is already in dire straights, would also take a hit. He would effectively rip the still beating heart from the chest of Cleveland and toss it into the garbage.

But what's done is done. The King is in exile. Off to Miami to join Dewayne Wade and fellow new Heat member Chris Bosh to form a super-trio the likes of which the world hasn't seen since "Rush". They may win several championships together, but LeBron's legacy is forever tarnished. Tarnished for leaving a job unfinished in Cleveland. Tarnished for the way he handled his exit.

To quote the John Lennon song "And so dear friends/You just have to carry on/The dream is over."