March 9, 2010 – Because they dress so bad and are recognized and revered in the streets and bars by fans who think PSLs are a bargain, sportswriters think of themselves as special. Just observe Mike Lupica for a few minutes. The truth is that most athletes don’t like them. That when writers fall over certain players it means they are in the inner circle and far outside the boundaries of objectivity.

Sportswriters relationships with sports figures are often fleeting. They maneuver their way in to hang close, become part of the entourage, gleen insider info and usually get kicked away when somehow bad news hits the press. Ask Tom McEwen of the Tampa Tribune who once upon a time hung close with George Steinbrenner. The opposite of course, is Bob Hammel, retired, from the Bloomington Herald-Times. He remains Bob Knight’s personal reporter. Only Bob Knight thinks Hummel is a hall-of-fame writer.

It’s surprising, no matter what your access or point of view, how these guys can be so often wrong. I just read a copy of The Sporting News, which projected landing points for NFL free agents. They got way less than 10% correct, even though they listed several teams interested in where the players were landing. For instance, the Bears weren’t listed for Julius Peppers, the Falcons weren’t there as a possible landing for Dunta Robinson, Nate Burleson was rated the 38th best free agent, but discussed as the best available wide reciever elsewhere. It’s called lazy reporting and making things up. The NFL draft and free agent season brims with reporting BS and the use of “anonymous” scouts as inside sources has spun out of control.

So what are we to think about LeBron James’ possibility of moving from Cleveland? Well the Knicks have $35 million to spend. The Bulls $20 million. The Clippers $18.5, the Kings $19 million and the Washington Wizards have $20 million. The lowly Nets are also in the picture somehow. To listen to the writers, the guys with pencils are the only ones with the inside story. They feed us that LeBron’s most important decision factor “is winning.” It plays well in the press, but LeBron would be stupid and we’d have to be stupid to believe it that the decision lies anywhere else than making a good ten-year business decision.

In the first place, if the Cavs finally win in Cleveland this year, they say LeBron will stay. Cavs owner Dan Gilbert has the right to match all offers and Cleveland/Akron is home. What the pundits don’t accent is that the money will be anywhere and other spots offer more exposure and outside financial opportunity.

The most obvious is New York. LeBron in the Garden will make Knick owner James Dolan a happy, born-with-a-spoon-in-his-mouth, bad-guitar-playing-slob-with-a-penchant-for-total-control. Probably the worse choice for a guy to go work for. Imagine having to hang out with James Dolan?

Of course, there’s Madison Avenue, which syncs up fine with LeBron’s desire to be a worldwide icon. There’s his favorite baseball team, the Yankees, and there’s the fact that NYC is the center of the social world…eat, dress, party, rub elbows and play your game in the Mecca in front of the world’s most intelligent, appreciative and drooling-for-a-winner fans.

Or listen to Jim Rome and his west coast bias. Just like they lost the east-coast/west-coast rap thing, LA always loses out to New York. Smog, traffic jams, star mental imbalance…why does everyone in LA only live there parttime? Sure it’s an industry town, but the chances of that underbite converting you into the next Van Damme are pretty far-fetched, Lebron. Sharing the marquee with Kobe ain’t the way to go. And trying to resurrect the Clips makes the Knicks look like NewOrleans and LA, Haiti.

Chicago? It was once-upon-a-time the center of pro basketball, but that’s been done. What’s so exciting of being compared to Michael Jordan for every move you make? And if Jerry Reinsdorf couldn’t hold the Bulls together when Michael lost a step, how’s he going to treat you?

Sacramento and Washington D.C. are outposts and very unlikely moves to those places would represent that LeBron has no business sense. These types of moves would put him in the sportswriter’s hall of fame as a putz, launching tirades about a guy who could have taken the controls but decided to go charitable. Even with the Malouf’s casinos and the power of Washington D.C. this ain’t happening.

As so what about the Nets? They have a new Russian owner who allegedly just forfeited over $50 million as a penalty fee, just to look at a sprawling French property, and decide against buying it. He’s moving the Nets to Brooklyn eventually. He has Jay Z and Beyonce in his courtside seats and the rapper as a part owner. He is an oligarch, a word that will have us scrambling for definition and finding John Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie as examples.

If you listen to the writers you will be wrong. LeBron is 25. He has years to build a winner. He needs resources. Something to do while he’s collecting a cast. Like building an empire in New York.