Decision Day Looms: Where LeBron James Will Play Basketball Next Season
It is the million dollar question. The elephant in the room. Every team wants LeBron James' services on their team next season, but only one will come away as the winner.
Every team can make the case to have James. They have presented proposals and ideas marketing exactly why James should move to their city. The deadline is approaching, and honestly the only person that knows where he is going is James himself.
Wade and Bosh have made a pack to join forces in Miami. The Heat have the cap-space to get James, but I don't think this mega-three is going to happen. In my mind, it would diminish the King James brand even if he won two or three titles in South Beach.
That said, all kinds of rumors and speculation pointed to James wanting to team up with Bosh in Cleveland. Obviously, Bosh wasn't willing to go to the Cavaliers and now puts the spotlight on James.
The big players left in this sweepstakes has to be Chicago, New York and New Jersey. The front-runner has to be that he will stay in Cleveland as that it is where he grew up and has played his entire professional career so far.
The case for the Nets revolves around billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov and his attempt to make James a global icon. The Nets have a young nucleus that includes Lopez, Harris and Favors.
Minority owner Jay-Z is good friends with James, and there is talk of a move to Brooklyn only two years away. Personally, I think it would take a lot to get James to go to New Jersey.
Across the river are the New York Knicks. The Knicks already inked Amare Stoudemire into a max-contract in attempt to lure James to the city. This is a compelling argument, seeing as James would have the chance to capitalize in one of the world's largest markets, New York City.
Even more appealing is the idea that the Knicks could potentially have enough cap room to sign Carmelo Anthony next summer. Imagine a team consisting of Anthony, James, and Stoudemire. Now that's a winner.
Then there are the Chicago Bulls who cleared over $30 million in cap space, but now look to be on the outside looking in. Wade decided against going home, and both he and Bosh decided to skip out on the Bulls.
Sure the Bulls have Rose, Noah, Deng and Gibson, but they expected much bigger players to want to play in Chicago. All the market tactics and attempts to get James to come to Chicago as the next Jordan seems a little ridiculous to me.
Cleveland has to be cautiously optimistic right at this moment, but would James go on national television to announce he is staying home? Maybe for sponsor and marketing purposes, but if he wants to generate the buzz and excitement then he is leaving the state of Ohio.
I would love to see James in a New York Knicks uniform. It sounds appealing, but with the way this offseason has been it doesn't look like it is going to go that way. The news seems to change every hour, and all bets are off tomorrow night when James takes center stage.
That is when the real Fourth of July fireworks are set to begin.
Whatever the decision, it is sure to be entertaining. Finally the free-agents fall where they should and let the King James end the rumors and speculations once and for all.
July 8, 2010 9 p.m. Eastern Time. The basketball world will be focused on the center of the one and only LeBron James.
