July 11th, 2010 admin Posted in Cleveland, cavaliers, cavs No Comments »

LeBron James

A lot has been said and written about LeBron James and “The Decision”. These are my notes for posterity’s sake.

Everyone knew that this time would come. Ever since LeBron signed the three year extension on his contract with the Cavaliers, there was going to be a major announcement involving where he would go three years later. I guess the surprise came in the spectacle that “the decision” evolved to.

In happier times… the picture above was taken after LeBron was presented the MVP trophy in the 2008-2009 season. They lit up the WITNESS billboard. Representatives from the lighting company stood behind Erika and I and got a photo of us taking a photo of the billboard. The photo was also on the Wieden + Kennedy blog (the ad firm that does all of the LeBron Nike advertising).

In the weeks leading up to the decision, I had been ok with whatever decision he would make. After all, how can you blame someone for what they want to do with their lives? I was resigned to the fact that he would probably move on… Chicago or Miami. Hey, I am not the biggest Cavs fan and have only seen him play live twice. He would move on and we all would get on with our lives.

About a week or so before the decision, billboards started popping up around town trying to get Lebron to stay. “HOME” was one of the themes used by morethanaplayer.org. There were flash mobs, an LBJ Appreciation Day and many more efforts to try to appeal to the superstar. The desperation was disgusting.

Then, it was announced that there would be a one-hour special to announce his decision. Can we really blame LeBron for treating us like we are his minions when you look at how high we placed him on a pedestal? At first I thought that it was ridiculous and that I wouldn’t even watch it. But I was sucked in like everyone else. This is when my opinion went from not caring to anger.

I knew that it was a no win situation for Cleveland, the city. If he left not only would it be another chapter in the history of the misery of Cleveland sports culture but it would also fuel the nation’s perception of how destitute my home city is. “God Bless those people”, Stuart Scott. – Thanks Stu, but we don’t need your sympathy.

If he had decided to stay in Cleveland, this whole ego-trip and backlash that is happening in the national media would be tied to our city. Either way, Cleveland was going to be cast in a bad light.

We all should have seen this coming. After all, he wanted to be a global icon not the mayor of Cleveland. He said on more than one occasion that he is from Akron, not Cleveland.

Side note – Jim freaking Gray? Really?

And then there is Dan Gilbert. Even without the Comic Sans, his open letter to the media was a disgrace.

TV crews were all over the city: at bars, in front of the Q, in front of the WITNESS billboard. They were just waiting for something to happen. I am glad to see the city held it together pretty well except for one riled up fan. Burning jerseys is not really my thing either. I think grown men in sports stars’ jerseys look ridiculous to start. Burning them you look doubly so.

So the conversation has turned to who will be the next Cleveland Icon. “Great” ideas have been spawned including putting Josh Cribbs on the Witness Billboard. It is funny how people claim he is so loyal and quickly forget how he whined and cried to get more money with a year left on his current contract. Let’s not try to crown the new king. Don’t you see how well the first one turned out?

I think the majority of the city was more angered by the circus around the decision and not so much the decision itself.