LeBron James: LBJ Scores One Over Classless Cleveland

LeBron James once again proved that he is the best basketball player on the planet on Thursday night in his return to his former hometown, a place that would like him to change his official state of residency ASAP.

The worst sports city in North America, that is. That is you, Cleveland.

Cleveland is best known for the Drew Carey Show and the name of the main character on the FOX Family Guy spin-off “The Cleveland Show.”

Show me statistics or rings that prove otherwise.

What is that I hear? Crickets.

Chirp, chirp. All night long. Just like the chorus of boos that greeted James in his return to Cleveland went away to a dead silence after Benedict King James the Fourth just dropped 38 on you and only needed three quarters to do it in a 118-90 blowout in front of 20,000 screaming babies having a temper tantrum.

No other player in the NBA would handle the pressure as well as LeBron did on Thursday night. James was motivated by the hateful words of fans that were just downright disgraceful.

LeBron James can only be guilty of being human. For all the great memories he produced in Cleveland, he deserved to be cheered loudly by the 20,000 fans in attendance. Except we forget, this is classless Cleveland.

Eighty percent of the people in the building would have never even thought about attending a basketball game in Cleveland pre-LeBron. Most of them probably had never had prior to arrival.

The Cavaliers are a crap franchise, always have been, and were very lucky to win the so-called NBA Draft “Lottery” to get the King in the first place. Yes, Cleveland, you will refer to him as the King.

Guess what? If the Cavs cannot win the title with the best player in the world ever according to this writer (leave the NBA championship rings debate out of it for the sake of this one instance, please), they sure will never win one without the homegrown prodigy. Overnight, the Cavs are a crap franchise with no hope yet again.

That’s what happens when you put 11 mediocre players at best along with the best player in the world. If you remove the one player you had that was worth a damn, all you have are leftovers.

You could probably pick out four players on Cleveland’s roster and have an honest debate on whether these players even belong in the league. That’s another discussion for another day.

LeBron had Shaq, like the players he is measured against such as Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade, but a Shaq who, let’s face it, plays like his has had two broken ankles for about five years now. The Shaq in 2010 was a mere aging stunt-double to the Shaq of the past.

LeBron has always been different. In high school, he was treated differently. So how could we expect him to do this normally?

No other athlete in history was scrutinized like LeBron James was coming out of high school in Akron, Ohio. Nobody had seen ink like that on a prep before and it started a different era on how America views the high school athlete.

All he did was become the first ever high school sophomore to garner USA Today First-Team All-American honors.

From the word go, even as a pimple-faced child in his first NBA season, it took merely three minutes into his first NBA game to realize he belonged with the best talent in the basketball world.

If there has ever been an athlete who passed the eye test, it is none other than LeBron James.

James is so good that people don’t even really realize his size. James is every single bit of 6’8” and according to a radio show in Oklahoma City back in the Hornets days, weighs around 275 to 280 pounds.

Yet, he is one of the top ten in basketball in every single category other than rebounding. He’s not Michael Jordan, though LeBron never wanted to be Michael Jordan.

LeBron James has gone out of his way to make sure the comparisons between he and Jordan were hardly made. Case in point, he even changed his jersey number from 23 to 6 for his move to Miami.

Obviously in 10 years, the subject will come up depending on how many rings James has. Kobe Bryant does a lot of things exactly the same way as Michael Jordan.

Kobe is lambasted for some of the things he does in today's NBA when Michael made a living doing the same thing back in his day. Some of the things Kobe says and does are ridiculously modeled after Jordan.

Leading the charge on the anti-LeBron basting is the network always at the scene of every sports crime, ESPN.

ESPN could have respectfully passed on LeBron’s “The Decision” special. Instead, it saw a quick buck and went along for the ride with him. And now Bristol is running a big yellow bus over LeBron at every pass unlike any other athlete in our lifetime.

LeBron is being mentioned in the same breath as cheaters like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens when all he did was the same thing thousands of other NBA players have done in free agency.

That’s the name of the game. Don’t run a franchise like a business and then turn around and blast somebody for making a business decision.

ESPN has also claimed that local businesses in Cleveland have suffered a 10 percent drop in sales around Quicken Loans Arena because of James’ departure to South Beach.

Thursday night’s game marked Cleveland’s 93rd consecutive sellout crowd.

Where is the link between James and the economy? You mean to tell me that it is LeBron’s fault that Cleveland’s businesses are suffering a decline?

Ever think that the rotten American economy might have something to do with the drop in business? Not possible?

The NBA already robbed fans blind with ticket prices. You drop $400 for not-so-good seats at an NBA game for a family of four these days.

Why in the world would you want to spend $100 at least additionally with overpriced concessions, then go drop another $100 just to eat somewhere downtown?

Doesn’t make any sense, does it? In this economy, it’s just not realistic thinking.

Cleveland got what it deserved twice now. Art Modell made the smartest move in NFL history leaving Cleveland for a Super Bowl title in Baltimore. Stings, doesn’t it?

You would think Cleveland fans would learn from the first time when the Browns left not to react the same way.

Cleveland fans are classless and need to pick an identity to hold onto after this process. Hate to be really basic here, but you suck, get over it.

His handling of the situation was terrible, no denying that. His choice, though, is admirable. It had to be the toughest thing in the world for LeBron to do.

So tough that he was afraid to tell Cavs owner and resident backstabber Dan Gilbert that he was heading to Miami. Gilbert’s rage is financially driven because his slot machine of money abruptly ended.

What came out in the media days after The Decision was made would have been tame compared to what he would have heard on the end of the other line if James and Gilbert had that conversation. Why go through that conversation if you don’t have to?

LeBron James doesn’t owe anybody from Cleveland a damn thing. How many Cleveland jerseys did you ever seen being worn around prior to LeBron’s arrival? Do you ever remember when they were light blue?

Obviously if he knew how rotten and bitter his backstabbing fans in Cleveland were, he probably would have done a few things differently. Maybe he sensed it being from the area and really wanted it to sting when he left.

Cleveland fans are simply bitter because their teams are crap. It happens when you have brown uniforms and you make the NFL leave the name Browns in a certain city. Baltimore wouldn’t have touched that Hershey squirt of a name anyway.

LeBron 1, Cleveland 0. Cleveland isn’t going to catch up, so just concede defeat and show some class for once.

Game. Set. Match.

Shout out to the dawg pound. Wuf-wuf.