LeBron's Rebuttle: An Open Letter To Dan Gilbert

Hey Dan.

It’s me, LeBron.

Eventually, your now-infamous "open letter" to Cleveland fans navigated its way through my normally impenetrable "narcissism" and into my sphere of awareness.

I read it.

It stung.

Now that I have had the chance to sleep on it, I realize I didn’t handle things as well as I should have. I was unprofessional. I was naïve. I helped engineer the hype machine and just keep chucking fuel into the swirling furnace of outrageous publicity.

I shouldn’t have.

In retrospect, I understand that I have unceremoniously spat in the face of the entire city of Cleveland. I did so slowly, cruelly, and as publicly as possible.

My bad.

That being said, I want to whole-heartedly thank you for "remarks".

I have come to the conclusion that I mistreated thousands of loyal Cleveland fans, but your letter also reassured me of something else:

Dan Gilbert is a fool; a whiny, incompetent, sniveling nincompoop.

This undeniable fact, more than anything else, is what pushed me out the Ohio door and after greener, or in this case sandier, pastures.

I hustled my heart and soul away for seven years in a Cavaliers uniform.

I ran and jumped and dished and dunked and swatted and smiled.

Fans “Oohhed” and “Aahhed”.

You sat back, happy and fat with revenue.

I said I wanted to win. I needed help.

You tried. You spent. The team wheeled, dealed and maneuvered; recruited, drafted and signed.

After seven years of tireless pursuit of greatness, of victory, I stepped back and looked around.

I saw Delonte West. Jamario Moon. Anderson Varejao.

Antawn Jamison. Mo Williams. Zydrunas Ilgauskus.

I’m supposed to be excited about this?

I played with old man Shaq, the player formally known as Ben Wallace, what’s his name Pavlovic,

Wally Fleeping Szczerbiak, a kid named Boobie, and hoards of other marginal NBA talent. 

I stewed in a sea of underwhelming support for the better part of a decade.

Seven years in Cleveland taught me one thing:

DAN GILBERT WILL NEVER BRING A CHAMPIONSHIP TO CLEVELAND!

For seven long painful years I watched the flailing incompetence of management as they desperately tried to stumble across some semblance of legitimate success.

You tried.

You failed.

I left.

You handled the news like a 12-year-old girl with a broken heart and a nasty temper.

I’m a jerk.

You’re a clown.

Get over it.

The only real curse Cleveland needs to worry about is the one that sits in your office, pompously pointing fingers and clumsily dodging blame.

The long-suffering fans of the city of Cleveland can add another line to their long list of misery:

The Shot. The Drive. The Fumble.  And now:

The Angry Dimwit.

Dan Gilbert, take a bow.

Sincerely,

King James

The Prince of South Beach.