Cleveland Cavaliers: They Finally Woke Up and Remembered They Were Cleveland

Poor Cleveland. The city that spawned the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Drew Carey and the recently passed George Steinbrenner just can’t seem to catch a break. I am of course referring to the recent LeBron James fiasco.

A quick recap for those unaware: from 1970 to 2003, the Cleveland Cavaliers were the doormats of the NBA. The closest the Cavs ever came to greatness happened in the late 80s and early 90s only to have their dreams ripped away by a young man named Michael Jordan, who made a name for himself as quite the basketball player in the not too distant past. In the 1989 playoffs, Jordan crushed their hopes in such dramatic fashion with a jump shot as time expired that of all the shots ever taken in basketball, that is the one known as “The Shot”. In 2003, after yet another abysmal season, the Cavs won the NBA’s draft lottery and selected high school phenom LeBron James. James came into town and immediately turned the lovable losers into a basketball force to be reckoned with. The city that claims the Browns in football and the Indians in baseball, finally had a sports franchise they could be proud of. The people of Cleveland couldn’t have revered him more if they had three wise men present gold, frankincense and myrrh at his contract signing. But alas, it wasn’t meant to be and Miami stepped in as Pontius Pilate and ripped away Ohio’s messiah. Last week, on a televised special on ESPN, LeBron James announced he would be leaving Cleveland for the warm Florida sun and a Miami Heat uniform.

Players leave teams all the time and in the age of free agency, it is rare for a player to stay with a team during the entire tenure of his career. What made this one sting and stand out was the way in which it went down. There are moments when it’s just time to go. This one reminded me of a bad breakup where the girl realizes she can do a lot better than the guy she’s with and decides to expand her horizons.

But it was much worse.

Cleveland was the scrawny, nerdy, dirty loser who decided to take a shower one day and developed a sense of confidence and asked out the hottest girl in the school. The shocked girl (LeBron), knowing she could make a man out of any loser in the school, took him up on his offer and for a while it worked. She was everything he ever wanted and he never dreamed that he could be so lucky. One day, she started realizing that there were a lot of other desirable courters in school. She informed her man that although she really cared about him, she would like to “talk to other people”. That didn’t mean that he didn’t always have her heart, it just meant she wanted to keep her options open. So she let him know that she would make a decision in a few weeks about whether or not she would like to remain with him or take her hotness elsewhere. On the inside she already knew she would leave him for another, more handsome man, but she led him on for a while and gave him false hope. One day she decided at a school pep rally, with the entire student body watching, that she would no longer be able to date her converted nerd and was going to start dating the new Spanish exchange student. This of course is heartbreak that a person never recovers from. I suppose it’s true that no matter how clean you are, you can never wash away the stench of failure…..and you definitely can’t wash off the Cleveland.

LeBron James did not need to go out of his way to humiliate the people of Cleveland. These are people who invested their hard earned money to allow him to be the millionaire he is today for excelling in a sport. Because of LeBron James, empty restaurants were packed, baron hotels were full and the city that always sleeps alone finally had lover they could be proud to show in public. He didn’t owe them a new contract. He didn’t even owe them an explanation of leaving. What he did owe them is respect and he showed none in staging an ESPN love fest to make his announcement as if this was the tearing down of the Berlin Wall.

This brings us to an interesting moment. LeBron James has gone from national hero to nationally despised as if he were some crazy professional wrestling story line where the good guy turns on his fans all of a sudden and gets booed everywhere he goes. Sometimes the moment works the opposite way as in the departure of Tony Dungy from the Buccaneers. It seemed so dirty at the time that one couldn’t help but root for Dungy to be able to come back and vindicate himself as a winner just to stick it in the face of the Tampa ownership who discarded him so heartlessly. This is the opposite. I can’t picture a moment that I will ever root for LeBron. But what it has done for me is make Cleveland a sympathetic hero. A Dungy, if you will. Cleveland’s owner has already declared LeBron a coward and promised his fans that the Cleveland Cavaliers would win an NBA title before James does. I don’t know how this could ever happen, after all, they are Cleveland, but wouldn’t it be something?