LeBron James Arrives in New York for First Unofficial Recruiting Visit

Like a high school senior arriving on campus, LeBron James will walk into Madison Square Garden tonight for his first unofficial recruiting visit.

Although the Knicks have made little secret of their intention to pursue James and other high profile free agents aggressively during the upcoming off-season, James has remained tight lipped.

That being said, he is a free agent after this season and the Knicks have all but handed him a massive contract and a fancy pen.  

Perhaps LeBron will evaluate his opponents a little closer than usual this evening.  

Perhaps he’ll be silently comparing Knicks fans to Cavaliers fans.

Maybe he’ll look at the streets of New York a little differently on his way to the Garden and ponder whether he wants to live in a city that’s very large, extremely over-crowded, yet constantly oozes an exciting energy, or in a city that’s small and quiet, but worships him more than any other athlete on the face of the planet. 

Maybe he’ll even rent a car and take a discrete day trip with a real estate agent out to some of New York’s prestigious suburbs.

What he’ll see in his evaluation of the city is, well, New York.  You either love it, hate it, or like most of its inhabitants, you just deal with it because that’s where the opportunities lie.

When James evaluates the Knicks, however, he’ll see a poor basketball team that’s been even more poorly run.

In recent years, Knicks owner James Dolan has literally run the team into the ground.  Last year, marked the Knicks’ seventh consecutive losing season.

Large contracts being given to poor players with even worse attitudes has led to a rare sight at Madison Square Garden; empty seats and lots of them.

Although the highly competent Donnie Walsh was brought in last year to serve as the team’s president, it will take him years to clean up the colossal mess created by Isaiah Thomas and the Dolans.

If history has shown us anything, it’s that no matter how dominant one player is, he can’t win without a solid supporting cast.

Michael Jordan endured years of losing seasons before the Chicago Bulls finally brought in Bill Cartwright, Horace Grant, and Scottie Pippen.

LeBron should know this little piece of history better than anyone.  He’s been arguably the most dominant player in the league over the past few years, yet he’s been unable to carry an entire team upon his back nor win an NBA title.

Does he really think he’ll be able to carry both the riff-raff in Knicks uniforms and the incompetent men in suits who preside over them all the way to the NBA Finals?

LeBron’s a tremendous basketball player, but this is one challenge that not even the perpetual gambler, Michael Jordan, would have taken on during his prime.

That is unless Donnie Walsh approaches James and explains to him how much he’s learned from the New York Yankees management and the Knicks will be looking to purchase their own championship in 2010-2011.