Forget The Rest, Sign With The Best: LeBron James Should Start A Team With ESPN

With the constant coverage that ESPN has been giving LeBron James and his free agency, tonight at the podium James should stand up in front of the entire media to announce that he will in fact be signing, coaching, managing, and the only starter on the all new ESPN team out of Bristol, Connecticut "The Sports Centers" (SVP is waterboy). 

If you go on ESPN.com and search Lebron James, a total of 1,053 types of stories will come up. 

I know what you’re thinking, "that’s it?" 

No, that’s just for the past month stupid.

Meaning, for the last 30 days ESPN has been producing around 35 stories per day about LeBron James.

That’s about one and a half stories per hour, every day, for 30 days straight.

Or, if you want to look at LeBron’s official NBA seven day free agency period--as opposed to the unofficial ESPN version of two years--in the past week the network has produced 660 regarding LeBron James, which amounts to around four per hour.

Yet all of this came with no announcement, statement, or semblance of evidence from James as to where he might go.

One would think lacking any sort of evidence or actual news upon which to report, ESPN would be able to produce very few articles on the matter.

Ah, one would think.

But ESPN has the best reporters in the nation.

Unlike great reporters who find the story, ESPN’s reporters create one.

In the meantime, NBA stars like Ray Allen who have actually won an NBA championship (unlike LeBron), and Kevin Durant who is the current NBA scoring champion (unlike LeBron), have signed with their respective teams (unlike LeBron), with close to zero recognition from what is supposed to be the leader in sports journalism.

For a side-by-side comparison:

ESPN Coverage On NBA Players During The Past Seven Days For All Types Of Stories:

LeBron James: 660

Ray Allen: 67

Kevin Durant: 33

It has reached the point where President Obama may want to issue the Department of Homeland Security to take a look in to James’ records as tonight he plans on hijacking an entire news station for an hour in order to take 60 minutes to verbalize what took Durant 10 seconds to tweet.

Wait, what?

In the past 30 days there are 16 stories, one every other day, on Obama talking about LeBron?

Nevermind then.  

For those who can’t wait the next couple of hours in order to find out what team James will be signing with, ESPN, or what is becoming LBJN, has provided us with “LeBron Tracker”.

“LeBron Tracker ” is an entire section of ESPN’s website dedicated 100% to completely covering the LeBron James free agency.

The site has such features as a section entitled “LeBron’s Decision”, and “Decision Day”, and who could forget everybody’s favorite video “Details of LeBron’s ‘Decision’ fall into place”.

In case you get bored reading about LeBron’s decision though (and honestly, who could?), the website has games available too.

Put in your quarters and see what comes out in their “Free Agent Slot Machine” featuring LeBron, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh.

Gee, I wonder where Wade and Bosh will end up?

Or, if you want to become a little more cosmopolitan in your LeBron free agency connoisseurship, don’t limit yourself to the news that’s happening solely in your time-zone.

Only amateurs do that.

Check out ESPNChicago.com’s coverage of LeBron and compare it to ESPNNewYork.com’s coverage.

I know, I know, you’re thinking “What’s the difference?”

Let me tell you—a ton!

For example: on ESPNChicago.com the headline reads “Talking points for Bulls’ pitch”, as opposed to ESPNNewYork.com where the headline is titled “New York ready for the pitch”.

It’s like night and day.

Unfortunately though, when all is said and done LeBron’s free agency must, like all good things, come to an end.

In a couple of hours the star will make his inevitable decision.

Which begs the question, what will the network do next?

Clearly, by covering James 24/7, having a countdown once his season ended until his free agency began, and producing around a 100 stories a day on him, there is no other news in the world of sports worth talking about.

For the next two months sports fans will be saddened by the fact that James will not be covered as a free agent until three years before his next contract runs up, at the least.

It would be nice, if like during the year, we could count on “team” highlights from ESPN which show game recaps solely with clips of LeBron shooting the ball over and over again from what is somehow a Cavalier loss in a game which, according to the network's highlights, didn’t have the other team shoot once.

But, we don’t have that luxury.

How will sports fans ever be entertained with breaking news?

At least there’s Stephen Strasburg...