Cleveland Cavaliers: A Letter of Response to Dan Gilbert
Just hours after LeBron James’ ESPN special, many fans, myself included, became a “Witness” to perhaps the most embarrassing act of immaturity that I have ever seen related to sports.
It came from Cleveland Cavaliers majority owner, Dan Gilbert, who wrote a letter to the fans of his team following the departure of their iconic superstar.
Despite my being what I’d classify as a casual NBA observer at best, the LeBron James hysteria was one of the few NBA-related events that has actually drawn my fullest attention. But what drew it even more was this letter from Dan Gilbert.
Never in my life have I seen a franchise owner make a bigger fool of himself in the public eye. Mark Cuban could’ve run onto the court and punched Dwyane Wade in the face during the NBA Finals a few years back and I would’ve been less disgusted with him than I am with Dan Gilbert.
So what I decided to do was take a cue from Mr. Gilbert and write a letter back to him, from the eyes of a person who is not an NBA fan, has no favorite NBA team, and has no pre-existing biases regarding the league.
My comments come purely as an observer of the disrespectful, shameful, and hypocritical way in which Dan Gilbert presented himself following the exit of LeBron James from Cleveland.
Dear Dan Gilbert,
Thank you for the letter! After changing the font to something that doesn’t resemble a crayon, I finally understand the depth of your disgust and distaste for anyone who doesn’t contribute to the fattening of your wallet.
It is because of this that I must apologize in advance, for your hatred of me must be immense. I have never purchased a piece of Cleveland Cavaliers merchandise, I refuse to spend $100 on a Fathead sticker for my wall, I have perfect vision so I don’t need contacts, and I have found Quicken to be far less convenient than other forms of tax filing.
I can only hope you can look past my faults and find a way to look at my response to your original letter without vomiting all over your Armani suit in the process. If you are unable to hold down your lunch, and you do end up ruining your suit, don’t worry—you can just increase the price of Fathead stickers by a dollar or two. No one will notice. It can be our little secret.
Throughout his time in Cleveland, LeBron James has been a model citizen and helped the community tremendously. He never publicly asked to be traded, never complained about a lack of a supporting cast despite an obvious need for more, he won an MVP award, brought his team to the playoffs, and did everything he could to win a championship.
Many people regard "King" James as the best basketball player on the planet. What more do you want from him? You can't surround him with enough talent to win a championship, and the organization is in a similar stalemate situation to what Minnesota was in when Kevin Garnett left—a consistent playoff team, but not in a position to actually contend for a championship.
The front office in Cleveland has had seven years to surround James with the talent to win a title, but you have failed to do so. He realized that Cleveland is not the place for him to win a championship.
After an NBA-worst 17-65 record, the Cavaliers were lucky enough to win the NBA draft lottery prior to the 2003-2004 season. Any team that won the NBA draft lottery had a no-brainer decision to select a guy who would ultimately lead them to becoming one of the Association's most powerful franchises over the next seven seasons.
There was no decision to be made, there was no scouting to be done—LeBron was that guy. Even though there were numerous other highly talented players in that draft class who had the college experience which he lacked, LeBron was still the guy.
LeBron was entering a team which lacked any true supporting cast and hadn’t made it out of the first round of the playoffs in over a decade, yet he didn't complain. He didn't pull a Ricky Rubio and refuse to play for a god-awful team in a small-to-midsized market. He walked in there, made the place his own, got people excited, won games, and most importantly to you—he sold tickets.
In the year before drafting LeBron James, the Cavaliers averaged 11,497 fans in attendance for home games. After drafting LeBron James, that number shot up to a staggering 18,288 the very next year. That attendance number now holds steady at over 20,000 fans in attendance.
This means that since LeBron has come to the team, the ticket sales have nearly doubled. If that's not making money and inspiring a city to care about a team that no one seemed to notice before, I don't know what is.
But I can understand where your anger is coming from, Dan. When the Cavaliers fail to reach the .500 mark in 2010-2011, those numbers will start to fall back down. With that, the value of the team will also plummet. You know that fans don’t care about anyone wearing a Cleveland Cavaliers jersey who is not named LeBron James.
I’m sure it’ll be tough for you to realize that you didn't make this team, LeBron James did—you were just lucky enough to be along for the ride.
So why does LeBron James owe the Cleveland area anything? This mentality matches that of the fans who think that Joe Mauer owes a great debt to the state of Minnesota for "making him who he is." Joe doesn't, and neither does LeBron. Joe decided to stick it out in Minnesota. Good for him—that's his decision.
But don't fault LeBron for deciding to look at his situation, disregard what the media thinks, and try to do what so many people say he "can't" do—win a championship.
It's amazing how everyone wants to use "winning championships" as the deciding factor on whether a player is an all-time great, or just "pretty good." But as soon as that player goes out and tries to do it by surrounding himself with other players and coaches who have a similar desire, suddenly he's a sell-out. Somehow that's looked upon unfavorably.
You can't have it both ways.
If team championships are used as a reference point for greatness, then we cannot be surprised or upset when players leave these mediocre teams and go try to win a championship elsewhere.
Your team sucks, Dan. Get over it.
Even a non-basketball fan can see that this team is in shambles without LeBron James. The Cavaliers won't make the playoffs this year and will likely struggle to do so for quite a few years.
Even if LeBron and the Miami Heat don’t win a title in 2010-2011, they are still significantly closer than the Cavaliers.
Who are you trying to fool in saying that the Cavaliers will be winning a championship anytime soon? The only chance this team has of winning a championship is being terrible enough to win another draft lottery. Then you might get lucky enough to be given another chance at a player like LeBron James, where you can start all over again.
But I think the most shocking and outrageous part of your letter was when you made reference to a lack of loyalty which LeBron has shown to the Cleveland community and how it is the, “exact opposite lesson of what we would want our children to learn.”
LeBron has gone out of his way to give back to the community. In fact, all of the profits from his ESPN special were donated to charity. He has stayed out of trouble and been an excellent role model to the people of Cleveland and basketball fans everywhere.
When rumors were flying around that Chris Bosh might be headed to Cleveland to join LeBron and the Cavaliers, I didn’t see you going on television or writing letters about how “disloyal” Bosh was being to Toronto.
It’s a comical exhibition of hypocrisy that you’re willing to bring in Chris Bosh, but you’re not willing to let LeBron James leave without acting like a baby.
On top of it all, the Cavaliers organization is now worth significantly more than when you bought it back in 2004. This is largely due to the merchandise sales, playoff ticket sales, attendance spikes, and other extra revenue generated primarily by the presence of LeBron James.
You’re upset that he had a television special to announce where he was going. I get it—it's okay for LeBron to advertise himself as long as you’re making money off of him, too. Otherwise he's a no-good, dirty, rotten traitor.
Maybe you can set an example of loyalty over the next decade. Go out there and prove to everyone how loyal you are to the city of Cleveland.
The ticket sales will drop in 2010-2011, and with that, I’m sure you’ll lower the prices a few dollars—or maybe you’ll do what you did last season and “freeze” the prices of tickets for a year. That’s always a brilliant business plan and a way to show that you’re loyal, right? You don’t really lose anything, but you make people think that they’re not getting completely ripped off. It’s brilliant, really.
Instead of charging people $80 per ticket to see a 20-win team, why don’t you go out right now and drop the prices by $20 per ticket? One dollar dropped off of the price of admission for every win!
And when the team value drops along with attendance and the team’s record, prove your loyalty again. Don’t sell the team, don’t threaten to move them to a bigger market. Just sit there and take your losses like a man. Be that example that you thought LeBron wasn’t being for kids. Prove to the kids how good of a person you are while you charge their parents $100 for a sticker to put on the kid’s wall.
But you won’t do that, will you, Dan? It’s all about the money in the end, and I can’t say I blame you. I just would expect that you’re a bit more reluctant to point a finger at someone else for trying to better their own situation.
Enjoy being LeBron-less, you arrogant jerk.
Sincerely,
Nick Caron
