July 9, 2010 – Twice they play in Cleveland, so Dan Gilbert can count on two sellouts next season whem Miami visits the Cavaliers. A warm welcome I wouldn’t expect, but LeBron James shouldn’t expect a lot of warmth anywhere outside South Beach. With all the hoopla, all the advisors, and all the King’s men, LeBron didn’t make a smart choice. The deliberate, ego-gratifying hoopla was only a hint of what you get with this guy. Maybe a few great dunks and some powder throwing. I doubt if he can get the team to ham it for the camera anymore. At least two other guys won’t cooperate.

He already bites his nails and has proven to be a bit of a nancy when it comes to arm injuries and who his mom dates. What’s he going to do with everyone expecting a championship and he doesn’t deliver? Blame the coach? Ask Pat Riley to get him some players?

This move looks good on paper. Cold Cleveland to Sunny South Beach.
A nice supporting cast if Pat Riley can find nine other players. But it smacks of messing with the temple that is the “inner athlete” who has grown accustomed to home and warm praise from everywhere. Ask Tiger Woods what its like to lose his comfort zone. Ask Tiger what its like to have Thanksgiving dinner and wake up the next day with 75% who loved you yesterday, not there anymore. Ask Tiger’s sponsors how much money he lost.

LeBron admits he can’t do it alone. Kind of wimpy. There have been great trios before – Chamberlain, Baylor and West, Jabbar, Robertson and Bob Dandridge?, Jordan, Pippen and Grant; Johnson, Jabbar and Worthy; Bird, McHale and name him; Kobe, Shaq and name him – so we guess that’s his thinking. But Kobe won alone and Michael won alone and this move shows that LeBron admits he can’t. It also puts him down the list “as the greatest ever.”

Once again we were affirmed that ESPN is a sellout. No need to defend the fact that they put the show on. Anyone in network TV would have. It was as newsworthy as Geraldo opening up Al Capone’s safe. Jim Gray was the wrong choice. Penetrating questions like, “Where’s the tie?” “So what’s new?” “(Since you missed out on college) did you enjoy the recruiting process?” “Do you want more time to sleep on it?” Where was “Do you think Pete Rose bet on baseball?” Gray has an expiration date that has long passed. You’d think if ESPN wanted to class it up, they would have gone with someone who has class. Trouble is, ESPN doesn’t have that guy on their entire roster.

Michael Wilbon praised fellow panel mate Chris Broussard for his “contacts” which is all Chris has, having worked the Cavaliers beat. He certainly doesn’t have broadcast talent. He correctly predicted Miami in the first minutes of the broadcast. Wilbon couldn’t really get off on a Chicago spin but he tried. Speaking of spinning, he followed Broussard’s prediction after months of telling us it was Cleveland or (hoping) Chicago. Oh, and Stuart Scott got his evil eye in there by asking “buddy-buddy” LeBron to be his coach next time he plays one-on-one with “buddy-buddy” Barack Obama. Good God he’s cool! This was an hour of fluff, of puff and commercials that benefitted LeBron’s charitable work with the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. Which we were clubbed with over and over during the hour broadcast with not even five minutes of real content. They promoted that “The Decision” would be announced in the first 10 minutes, instead it took until nearly 9:30.

And finally, David Stern has thrown parity to the wind and set up a problem where teams will sandbag and cut salary to have plenty of cap room for future “The Decisions.” The NBA is screwed up with more than half its teams losing money and LeBron and Chris Bosh going to Miami for nothing in return to Cleveland and Toronto will only serve to further destroy the league.