Let's Not All Pile On LeBron James For His Decision

I cannot believe how poorly the city of Cleveland and Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert is acting about LeBron James leaving. They man didn’t quit on you or your city, but it is now more than obvious that you have quit on him. He has always said how much he loved Cleveland and how his decision would be based solely on winning and not about the money.

He took the best chance to win. LeBron isn’t even close to the A-Rod that you think he is. A-Rod took the money and knew he wouldn’t sniff a championship in Texas.

That is where the big difference lies between the two. LeBron couldn’t win a championship in Cleveland. Kobe couldn’t even win a championship with Mo Williams as the second best player on the team. Why vilify LeBron for trying to win a championship? He still lists Akron as his home and still says Cleveland has a special place in his heart.

Were Karl Malone jerseys burned in Salt Lake City burned after he left to go to the Lakers to try and win a championship? No, they were not.

The people of Utah understood that they Jazz were going to be going through a slight rebuild and Malone had a right to go out and try to get his ring. Charles Barkley did the same thing twice, with no real backlash from Philadelphia or Phoenix. Both cities wished him luck and apologized for not being able to help him win a championship.

Michael Jordan had no apologies for denying both of them rings.

My favorite part of the Dan Gilbert letter was him saying that the Cavs would win a championship before the Heat. My first thought was how? My second thought was is this guy serious? My third thought was could Cleveland even win 25 games without LeBron?

After sleeping on the questions I know for a fact that Gilbert is 100 percent serious and thinks that Cleveland is probably going to compete for a title next year with Mo Williams as the team’s best player. Maybe he should call Milwaukee and find out how many playoff games the Bucks won with Mo Williams as their best player.

Cleveland, you should just be happy if the Cavs make the playoffs in the next decade.

Let LeBron be, he did everything he possibly could in Cleveland to help end the fifty plus year title drought. The man isn’t Jose Mesa, he didn’t cost you a title. Your management cost you the title. They couldn’t get the right pieces around him.

They needed a good point guard and never got one. They needed a solid big man, they got a passable one. LeBron was surrounded by a bunch of role players who would only get limited minutes for an actual championship team. 

LeBron needed a Pippen to his Jordan, his McHale to his Bird, or a Byner to his Kosar.

What, too soon?

I also don’t get the overreaction to this either. I’ve seen a lot of tweets and even heard some guys on sports talk radio from Cleveland who stated that they would have helped LeBron pack his bags and drive his U-Haul to Miami if it meant the Browns would win a Super Bowl.

If this is how you feel, why burn his jerseys, why spit on his legacy, why threaten his family’s and his life?

LeBron did everything he possibly could to win a championship in Cleveland, but as I said before management kept bungling move after move and never got him proper teammates. LeBron was easily worth more than forty or so wins for the Cavs, but when the playoffs came around teams would focus everything on him and force the other Cavs to carry the team.

We all know the results of that.

Look at the Lakers now.

Kobe went 6-24 from the field in probably the worst game by a superstar in Game Seven of an NBA Finals. The difference was that he was holding a trophy at the end of the night and not disappointedly stripping his jersey off and walking back to the locker room. Kobe had the right teammates around him, and in that game, they carried him to the title. Especially Pau, as without Pau, Kobe doesn’t have ring number five.

I can understand being upset over the one hour special on ESPN and how you can say it was basically LeBron being a snake oil salesman, but the cause was good. He raised over $2 million for the Boys & Girls Club and I can’t really view that as an overly selfish act.

I do wish the announcement was more like Kevin Durant’s. Nice and quiet with only a four paragraph story on the ESPN homepage. He didn’t need an hour long special, hours upon hours of television time dedicated to where he was going (though if he didn’t extend his contract there would have been a lot of TV dedicated to him after the lockout ended).

Lay off LeBron though. This was an extremely tough decision for him. If Chris Bosh had agreed to the sign and trade with Cleveland, LeBron would still be there right now and this whole thing wouldn’t really even be an issue.

Except with those unrealistic Knicks fans.

Just be thankful you only lost LeBron, the people of Seattle lost Kevin Durant and the team.