After taking some time to think about LeBron James’s basketball version of The Bachelor this past Thursday night, one thing has remained constant for me:
I’m saddened by the fact that I will no longer be able to watch James and Dwyane Wade try to kill each other on the basketball court.
Back in April when James spoke regretfully of how guys in the league didn’t hate each other anymore, like how they did in the great rivalries of yesteryear, I was rather enthusiastic about his future. I believed we were seeing a young man transform into a fierce competitor, that this was an extension of the mentality we witnessed at the end of the ‘09 playoffs when he didn’t shake hands with the Orlando Magic. I was hoping he would help lead a sea change amongst his peers, that I’d never ever have to hear about Chris Paul eating dinner with Tony Parker the night before a Hornets-Spurs playoff game like I did in 2008.
Competitive zeal is, in my mind, a critical component of sports, and one of the major reasons I enjoy watching them so much.
So never did I think it would come to this. To James teaming up with his two buddies from the Olympic team, so they could hold hands while they chase after rings, wearing matching suits and playing for the franchise that tanked its last two seasons and retired the jersey of a competitor. But I suppose after watching James play a completely angst-less, mentally absent, series against the Boston Celtics in the second round of this year’s playoffs, I shouldn’t have been surprised.
At the same time, in a way, James has also fulfilled the promise of his post-game comments: he’s made the Miami Heat the most hated team in the NBA. The tragic part about this, however, is that he didn’t do it by creating rivalries on the court, he did it by acting narcissistic and completely unaware in front of the entire world on a ridiculous TV show that was then exacerbated by a pro wrestling style introduction in Miami the following day.
I, for one, will always associate the impact of “The Decision” itself with the children in the audience who gasped in horror when James said he was going to “take [his] talents to South Beach.”
And this is certainly how much of Cleveland felt - or would have felt if James’s image as a competitor and teammate loving fun guy hadn’t already been chipped away at during, and especially after, the aforementioned Boston series. Ironically, James and the Cavaliers now have the potential to create one of the biggest rivalries in league history - Miami versus Cleveland.
As soon as the Cavaliers can get back to being championship caliber competitive, and let’s all hope it’s before James’s career is over, a Miami-Cleveland playoff series might just be the most dramatic storyline/ hatred-filled group of games anyone could ever dream up. You thought Brett Favre versus the Packers was something? You thought Derek Fisher took heat in Utah after he left to play for the Lakers? Shaq versus Kobe? Forget it. This would really be LeBron James versus Cleveland and, by extension, the rest of the world.
In fact, this could be the kind of thing that actually galvanized the city, and the perception of the city from afar, in a positive direction.
And as a side note, let’s not forget that the Cavs gave the Heat the worst drubbing in NBA history.
As for this coming season, I’ll do my best to not feel completely out of whack. It will be very strange to finding myself rooting for teams that play Miami that I normally despise, teams like the Magic and the Lakers.
Noted: I have one more LBJ column to write, for Thursday, about the confusing psychology of his decision and the reason it’s so hard for people in Cleveland to understand, and then I will have officially moved on.
In the meantime, the Cavs will compete in a summer league game in Las Vegas tonight at 6 PM Eastern. Christian Eyenga, Danny “DDR” Green, and JJ “Glitch” Hickson are the key players. In my mind, it’s a glitch that JJ still needs to play in the summer league, since this will be his third season in the NBA.
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