LeBron James: One Year After the Decision, Would He Do It Same Way If He Could?

It's amazing that LeBron James' infamous The Decision is already one year old today.

July 8, 2011 marks the anniversary date for LeBron's announcement that he'd be "taking his talents" to South Beach in order to join forces with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh and play for the Miami Heat.

James didn't promise just one title during his tenure, or even to play the best basketball possible.

Instead, he guaranteed the moon, the stars and everything in the entire galaxy for his new team.

Whoops.

Previous to James' televising his announcement as to where he'd be signing in free agency, we had never seen such a display from a professional athlete.

And while there have certainly been some that have been eccentric in how they've gone about their business, James' televised event was a must-see spectacle for all of the wrong reasons.

The media has collectively built up LeBron into a figure that is no longer human.

James is viewed, judged and criticized with higher standards and more intense rigor than anyone that has ever played before him, and it's doubtful that most of his counterparts that come long after him will ever draw the same lore from the public sphere.

As a result of his TV spectacle, James drew even more criticism and scrutiny than he had received up to that point in his career.

For a professional basketball player that we have collectively earmarked for greatness since long before his NBA career got underway, what else could we really expect?

But after everything that came out of his choice to televise his decision to bolt Cleveland and head to Miami, would James do everything the same way again?

Would he still do a live television show? Would he still sign in Miami?

What about the "welcome party" that looked more like the opening act to a hip-hop concert than anything that had to do with basketball?

While all these are certainly fair questions to ask, they're merely rhetorical and are meant to spark debate and questions within each reader's mind.

Everyone is going to have their own set of standards by which they view James, but how much of the criticism is deeply rooted in bias instead of performance?

What other basketball players receive similar stigma on the court for their perceived personality off of it?

There has never been a figure in the NBA like LeBron, and it's likely that there won't ever be anyone quite like him after.

Hindsight might be 20-20, but it's foresight that James needs to work on moving forward.