NBA Playoffs 2011: Is It Time to Forgive LeBron James?
It was a typical January day in Portland: The clouds covered almost every square inch of the city, the drizzle echoed off of every sidewalk and the sun was hidden, but the fans of the Portland Trailblazers had finally got what they wanted. The Blazers were playing the Miami Heat, which means they were playing LeBron James. LeBron was booed the whole game even though it seemed to motivate him into playing one of his best games of the year. It was one of the Heat's first wins over a team with a record over .500. Some analyst even said that this was the turning point for the Heat. It should have been a happy time for James, but he barely lifted his head after the game.
The LeBron James before 2011 had one of the biggest smiles in the NBA. This LeBron James was the LeBron who coordinated celebrations with his teammates, and who constantly cracked jokes while motivating his teammates to work hard during each practice. This LeBron was the probably the happiest man in the world of basketball.
The LeBron of 2011 sits in silence after one of his teams biggest wins with his head down like he actually did something wrong in leading his team to victory. One of LeBron's closest friends in the media came and sat next to him wondering if he could offer emotional support. LeBron finally looked up to this media member, almost shocked that someone was not ripping his character to shreds and muttered this:
"I just do not understand what I did to these people. I just do not understand why they are booing."
A lot of people would have said that they are booing because of what happened in July of last year. When LeBron had his hour of self-gratification that ESPN decided to call "The Decision," he became one of the most unlikable players in NBA history. With this decision, he single-handedly not only destroyed professional basketball in Cleveland, but paralyzed an economy that was already crippled. LeBron chose the beach over his hometown, and chose being a second fiddle over being a star. That LeBron, because of one hour, was suddenly everything we hate in a superstar.
As time goes on though, we have to realize that maybe we made a mistake with having such immediate and harsh reactions to "The Decision." Excerpts from the tell-all book on ESPN titled "Those Guys Have All The Fun," say that LeBron was kind of blindsided by the idea of this one-hour special, and it was not really his "decision" at all. Jim Gray came up with the idea and pitched it to LeBron's entourage (Maverick Carter) and ESPN backed it. All LeBron really knew was that he was having a press conference for charity and announcing where he wanted to play basketball next year.
If you want to be logically angry with anyone over "The Decision," then you should get mad at Jim Gray and ESPN. LeBron was not the person who decided to make "The Decision" such an atrocious hour of television. All LeBron did was announce his decision to "take his talents to South Beach," and earn millions of dollars for Boys and Girls Clubs. LeBron was used for ratings by ESPN—blindsided and used by the network—but everyone just blamed LeBron like he just made this whole thing happen himself. We even have enough proof that LeBron did not have enough power to veto the television program (I mean why would he if he could single-handedly earn millions of dollars for charity?), and he did not expect it to be this reputation ruining move. He expected it to be what he was told it was going to be—a press conference for charity.
In a country where we celebrate people changing and give trophies for people who can even raise $1,000 for charity, we bashed LeBron. We bashed a man that we maybe should have even celebrated for making this decision. What we know now for sure is that we took the blame that we should have placed on ESPN and Jim Gray, and placed it on LeBron James—that in itself was a bad "decision."
The other people will say that James quit on Cleveland. It must be easy for Cleveland fans to forget that James basically carried a cast with essentially no All-Stars deep in the playoffs just about every season. It must be easy to remember that LeBron made the Cleveland economy for seven years. It must be easy to forget that basketball in Cleveland was nothing without the King. We had more proof of what Cleveland would have been without LeBron this season when they were the worst team in basketball. LeBron basically meant forty to fifty wins a season to Cleveland and played with no supporting cast.
Yet, when he leaves to go play basketball for a better team, James is suddenly a traitor. So, when someone makes a logical career move, they are now a traitor? We would not get mad at someone for becoming a co-chairman of a Fortune 500 company, when the previous job they held was the manager of McDonald's. We would be happy for them because they are moving on with their life and becoming a more successful person. Cleveland fans are still convinced that James is the devil for leaving their atrocious team, his teammates that might have betrayed him and for ruining an economy that was only an economy because of him in the first place. After further review, it becomes clear that Cleveland fans should be thankful just to have had James for seven years, when he could have had the CEO job (being traded to a better team) after about three years.
LeBron James took a long time to apologize. It took him being happy for the first time since he was a Cavalier. It took him finally beating the Celtics, that had tortured him more than Isaiah's Pistons had tortured Jordan, for him to realize how much fun it was to play basketball again. After all of this James finally apologized for how all of this went down. But almost ten months later we have to ask ourselves- what is he exactly apologizing for?
