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.
The biggest fallout, it now seems, of the entire Summer of Money, may be the impact it has had on Chris Bosh’s ego.
Let’s be honest: Chris Bosh is not in Dwyane Wade or LeBron James’s league.
Here are the advanced stats:
Adjusted Plus Minus
Bosh: +6.97 James: +16.92 Wade: +20.07
Wins Produced Per 48 Minutes
Bosh: .225 James: .401 Wade: .291
PER
Bosh: 25.0 James: 31.1 Wade: 28.0
This looks even worse if we keep in mind that last year was, by most measures, Bosh’s best season in the NBA.
Which is the kind of thing that tends to happen in contract years in professional sports.
Somehow though, by the fact that James pulled Bosh into this whole “Sign for 3 years with a player option for the 4th” gambit, three summers ago, to get a new deal in front of the new CBA while creating a marketing extravaganza at the same time, Bosh has decided that he’s a superstar, so much so that he appears to be refusing to come to Cleveland in a sign and trade.
Why would Bosh do this?
Is it because he’d have to take less money? Nah. Is it because he wouldn’t have a chance o win a championship? Nah. Is it because he’s a bad fit alongside LeBron? Nah.
Then what is it?
Cleveland’s not a big enough market.
Bosh wants to play for a team in a bigger market because, he seems to believe, it will provide more endorsement opportunities. Having lived in New York and Los Angeles, I can tell you about the kinds of endorsement opportunities playing in those markets can provide…
Nobody Beats the Wiz (or similar local electronics store)
Car Dealership
Pizza Shop
And if you’re really f’ing lucky, a guest spot on NCIS, like Pau Gasol.
So Chris is either endlessly fascinated with piling up stupid endorsement deals, hocking pizza and cars, or he’s seriously misinformed. Mikhail Prokhorov apparently hinted at this misunderstanding in a private conference call, that was ostensibly leaked to ESPN in order to publicly gas the egos of LeBron and his inner circle.
What Bosh doesn’t seem to understand is that he is neither the player nor the personality that James and Wade are. Now I don’t think Wade has much charisma either, and he certainly has a terrible stylist, but his campaign with T-Mobile must be successful enough for them to continually renew it (although there’s probably also a reason that they pulled Charles Barkley in). Bosh though is far worse. And if you don’t believe me, read his tweets.
The stats and Bosh’s success with the Raptors solidify my point. He will not win championships “on his own.” Houston is an intriguing possibility, but I’m still not convinced Yao Ming will ever stay healthy or that Aaron Brooks is the creator that team needs on the perimeter. Further more, playing with James would let Bosh walk through endorsement doors that were already open. James and the Cavaliers are poking their nose into China with the help of Kenny Huang - with a championship, they get all the way in.
Even if Bosh doesn’t want to live in the city of Cleveland or its surrounding suburbs in Northeast Ohio - which, we all have our preferences, and I can (obviously) understand why someone might choose to live somewhere else, doesn’t this seem like something you get past for the sake of your career, especially when every other part of “the job” makes so much sense? Sure, Bosh may feel he has a similar opportunity in Miami, if Toronto decides draft picks and a trade exception are truly that valuable, but Miami’s roster is not Cleveland’s, and Wade is both older than James and the owner of a far worse injury history.
Ultimately, James is the better match for Bosh than Wade is. But Bosh won’t come to Cleveland because he believes he’s some kind of star, who needs to live amongst the glitz and glamor of a bigger market.
Okay, fair enough. We all believe certain things. And I will choose to believe this - Chris Bosh is in over his head, and the best thing he can ever do for Cleveland is bring his girlfriend (ex-girlfriend?) to the first game his new team plays against the Cavaliers. And have that chick chew LeBron out.
By the time anyone reads this article, LeBron’s second day of free agency meetings will have begun. He’s scheduled to hold court with the Clippers and Heat today, then the Bulls and Cavs Saturday. But Thursday was all about the NY/NJ metropolitan area—and shockingly, all sources from inside the Knicks and Nets indicate the meetings went “extremely well.”
Pardon me if I’m not sweating yet. And pardon me again if I go on to say that none of you Cavs fans reading this post should be sweating either.
As we here at Mesa have pointed out multiple times over the course of the past few weeks (via Twitter and in columns), generating excitement about a business prospect during a meeting falls somewhere between “producing saliva” and “crapping” on the scale of difficulty. I’m not even denying that the excitement in the room for the Nets and Knicks was genuine. But the reality is that unless one of these other teams walk out of the LRMR offices with a verbal commitment from James, the emotion in the room during a presentation is irrelevant.
Let’s also not forget that the pundits reporting about yesterday’s meetings were entirely basing their opinions on sources within the Nets and Knicks, most of whom probably weren’t even at the meetings in question. As a result, reporters and beat writers end up gushing in print about how great their chances of landing LeBron are—like this, for example. (Caveat: kudos to Rod Thorn for sounding like the voice of reasonable expectation in the midst of this blowjob of a report.)
Examining this situation rationally for a moment, consider this: what else are these partisan sources going to say? “You know, I gotta be honest, I thought our presentation sorta sucked”? “I’ll tell ya, LeBron seemed really disinterested”? “We couldn’t even get a meeting with Amar’e earlier than Monday and Rudy Gay already re-signed with Memphis. Why the hell would we have any chance at signing LeBron”? Something tells me that’s not going to fly if you want to remain employed by either of those organizations.
Second, what about any of LeBron’s media appearances since he was 16 would lead anyone to believe that he wouldn’t portray interest and enthusiasm in these meetings? Not only was the first of them led by one of his best friends and biggest role models, but this is a guy who declared that at one time or another he’s dreamed about playing for every team in the league, and that he’s been looking forward to this day (free agency) for four years. This is a mega-holiday for him. I’m convinced that today’s teams could give their presentations entirely in Korean, and LeBron would still be giddy.
Third, thanks to the information that’s out in the public realm about the Knicks’ presentation, I can say with knowledge that it was laughable. For starters, one of the supposed ringers the NYK brain trust brought in for the meeting was…Allan Houston, a guy whose greatest legacy in the league is as arguably the worst return on a max contract investment in NBA history. Houston missed a combined 94 regular season games in the 3rd and 4th seasons of that contract and retired before the start of the fifth. For that, the Knicks paid him over $20M per. My sources tell me that Donnie Walsh followed up his decision to include Houston in the meeting by flying to New Orleans to pitch the Saints’ brass on selling the Super Dome’s naming rights jointly to BP and FEMA.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Forbes got a hold of an actual piece of the Knicks’ presentation—a slideshow by a marketing consultant called Interbrand that claims LeBron has the potential to gross $2 Billion (yes, that’s a ‘B’) by playing the rest of his career with the Knicks. At the very worst, his signature on a Knicks’ contract would give him a 48.6% chance of grossing at least $1 Billion.
As Forbes’s Steven Bertoni points out in the article, “the report is light on the details of its methodology.” Having gone through the slideshow personally, I concur. The results seem to be based on…well, nothing tangible, other than the fact that James Dolan cut them a check to come to a specific conclusion. Interbrand claims that the findings were determined via a battery of computers running career projections based on a variety of factors, but the overall vagueness of the presentation creates the distinct impression of junk science (or technically, junk math. I wouldn’t want to confuse my junk).
Even funnier, the unintended take-away from this preposterous slideshow is that staying in Cleveland is actually a much more profitable decision for LeBron than anyone would have ever anticipated. Interbrand’s “study” shows that James’s maximum lifetime value in Cleveland is $1.176B, his lifetime average value is $699M, and his chance at making a billion dollars stands at 1.3%. By comparison among the other non-Knicks franchises included in the model (Chicago and Miami), Chicago would offer him a slightly higher maximum lifetime value ($1.233B), but a lower average value ($689M) and lower probability of grossing his first billion (1.0%). Miami is a distant fourth in all categories. In short, Cleveland is pretty clearly his second-best option behind the bumbling carnival side show that is the Knicks.
Considering that Dolan paid for this presentation, he may have wanted to suggest that Interbrand skew the findings even further than they’re already skewed. Telling LeBron he has any chance of grossing over a billion dollars by staying in his hometown, which is widely acknowledged by now to be neck-and-neck with Chicago as his chosen destination, isn’t necessarily a tactic I’d have recommended. But then again, this is why the Knicks have been an NBA afterthought for most of the past decade.
I also love the fact that the Interbrand “study” finds that LeBron has a 0% chance of making a bill in Miami because of “lack of fan avidity,” i.e. because no one living in Miami gives a shit about the Heat. I think it may be the only nugget of truth in the entire slide show. But that’s neither here nor there.
My final point as to why Cavs fans should remain calm: Pat Riley’s grand plan for wooing LeBron is going down in flames. According to reliable sources (and common sense, my favorite of all sources), Riley’s strategy hinged on getting verbal commitments from both Wade and Bosh to come to Miami before meeting with LeBron. As of now, that has not happened. Considering that Wade met with the Bulls today, and Bosh has been tweeting like a jackass about his meetings with Houston and New Jersey (with other meetings scheduled), it seems highly unlikely that King Slickback will be able to make that pitch as planned. Without commitments from those two players, the Heat have to try to sell James on living at South Beach with Mario Chalmers and Michael “Every GM in the League Thinks I Might As Well Be Made of Uranium” Beasley. Not exactly a strong hand, especially considering that if past history is any indication, the Heat might just retire James’s jersey even if he never plays for them.
In short, I still believe that the Cavs’ faithful have nothing to fear from the tri-state area, and all signs point to Miami and the Clippers being non-factors. Which means it will all come down to Saturday. Chicago Vs. Cleveland. Only time will tell if Dan Gilbert comes out of that match-up as the ownership equivalent to Craig Ehlo. But for today, at least, I believe we can all rest easy.
Plenty of scenarios have been bandied about. A super trio in Miami. A renewed legacy in Chicago. A date with the rapper and the Russian in New Jersey.
Now we get to see what actually transpires.
News earlier today that the Hawks were preparing to offer Joe Johnson a full max deal, threw the teams with cap space into a tailspin, most notably the Knicks. But this, I assume, is only a preview of what’s to come. That is, players deciding to sign wherever they can get the most money.
Which means that if anybody’s moving to a different team, it’s almost undoubtedly through a sign and trade. If true, this is not a positive revelation for Miami, which I have a hard time believing will be very good, even if they get two max players (Dwyane Wade and Carlos Boozer, Chris Bosh, or Amar’e Stoudemire). As a result, Pat Riley really has all of his cards in one basket - getting LeBron, Bosh, and Wade.
The probability of that happening, in my opinion, is very small. And I also think it would be lousy for the players, the fans, and the league. Basketball is a competitive sport. Watching legitimate stars play together isn’t as enjoyable as watching them try to kill one another.
What I believe LeBron, Bosh, and Wade should be trying to do then, instead of joining the same team, is trying to figure out how to create as many fierce rivalries as possible.
This is why I wouldn’t even have been mad if LeBron had gone to a David Geffen-owned Los Angeles Clippers team, creating the ultimate in-city rivalry. I would have loved to watch LeBron and the Clippers try to take down Kobe and the Lakers, not only destroying their hopes for a 3-peat, but also destroying their dominance in one of the biggest bandwagon towns known to man.
It would’ve been interesting just to see how many people in LA immediately became Clippers fans.
LeBron to the Clips under Geffen was a fantastic idea by Maverick Carter, if we’re to believe the published reports. It’s the kind of big idea, big picture thinking the world needs more of.
And not just the world. Also, the cities of Cleveland and Akron.
Which is why, with the Clippers out of the running, LeBron needs to shift his focus. Forget Miami and the super trio. Forget the easy way out in Chicago. Forget New York City and the Knicks’ executives’ lies about marketing dollars making up for non-max contracts.
If Wade can try to recruit Bosh to Miami, why can’t LeBron try to recruit Bosh to Cleveland?
He can.
Especially if we’re willing to listen to what history tells us and acknowledge that no player - not LeBron, not Joe Johnson, not Bosh, not Wade, nobody - wants to take less money than a full, Bird Rights max contract will give them.
Not ever. Not now. Particularly when a new CBA is coming.
That means a sign and trade. That means all 30 teams - well, at least those who didn’t give up all of their assets trying to clear cap space - are in play.
That means the Cavaliers are in play.
It would take Anderson Varejao, JJ Hickson, Delonte West, Jamario Moon, and Danny Green to match salaries (unless Toronto wants Mo Williams or Antawn Jamison, in which case … thank you God). And losing Varejao would be a big time blow - he’d be the perfect complement to Bosh at the 5 - but in this case, with the immediate future of the franchise at stake, you do what you have to do.
Go get Bosh, Bron. Keep the power in your pocket. Bring the prestige to your hometown, where it may not be easy, but it does pay better than anywhere else.
If what Ian Thomsen is reporting is accurate, forget it. LeBron will not be going to New York.
As Windhorst tweeted earlier today, this idea that endorsements in NYC will make up the difference between a non-max deal and a max deal, or even a max deal and a Bird Rights max deal, is ridiculous.
In fact, if I were the Knicks’ owner, and Donnie Walsh came in and told me this was the best idea he could come up with after two years of non-competitive play, I would be livid.
