LeBron James: "I'm Happy in Cleveland"

It’s the same story we’ve heard before.

Guarded, carefully rehearsed with a publicist.

“I think I’m happy in Cleveland,” LeBron James said on the Dan Patrick Show on Thursday. “I have no plans on going anywhere and playing the game of basketball.”

It’s exactly what Cleveland fans want to hear, and exactly what New York fans don’t want. At the same time, though, the words are carefully chosen and he doesn’t rule out a move.

“And these fans…they’ve done everything to support me in my career here. You know, I’m excited about being here.”

It’s a familiar thing now, a tradition started by the greatest player to play the game, Michael Jordan—complete neutrality.

Jordan had an empire to protect—a massive conglomeration of endorsement deals, worth tens of millions of dollars at any one time, that would all come crashing down if he stepped out of line. Jordan was the first to completely master the PR game as a professional athlete.

The fact that he didn’t run his mouth makes him even more golden now.

And now it’s LeBron, who signed a $90 million deal with Nike before he’d played a single game in the NBA.

He didn’t actually reveal , in the interview, what he wants to do. To say he doesn’t have plans to leave Cleveland doesn’t preclude making plans in the future.

And telling a member of the press candidly how he actually feels about it would cause panic—there are endorsements, championships, and a whole lot of money riding on where LeBron goes (or doesn’t go) in the summer of 2010.

So he stays away from it.

As much as we want to hear him stay that he's absolutely staying in Cleveland, or that he'd rather blow the roof off The Big Apple. As much as he might feel strongly one way or the other. And as much as we, as fans, just want to know what's going to happen.

Nor is the final outcome totally in his hands. There are no contracts on the table yet, nor do we know how many teams will enter the bidding war. If Cleveland wins the championship this year, will he stay?

How about next year?

Plus, LeBron's legacy—much like Jordan's—has nothing to do with money.

Instead it has everything to do with legend. The number of championships. The stories people will tell. And the perhaps, inevitability of being lifted up on a pedestal and crowned, a king among kings, as the greatest to ever play the game.

And that's why everything he says is exactly true, minus the controversy we crave so badly. He tells it like it is.

“I’m excited, man. I love Cleveland.”

And I believe him.