The worst part about “The Decision” wasn’t that LeBron James decided to take his talents to … well, you know. He was free to sign with any team in 2010, same as in 2014. Had he done it differently back then, had he told the citizenry of Cleveland in a simple news conference, “I’m really sorry to be leaving, but I have to do what’s best for me and my family and my career,” those folks wouldn’t have liked it, but wouldn’t have run around burning his jersey. But a man who had been regarded only warmly since coming to prominence as a teenager allowed himself to sit for an hour of televised ego-gratification and made himself seem Bigger Than The Game.
Which made him, albeit briefly, a villain.
Which did not, however, make him wrong.
We just saw again that LeBron James is indeed Bigger Than The Game. The NBA essentially shut down while waiting for him to choose a team. Now as in 2010, he’s the best player in the world. This time, though, he got it dead-solid perfect.
There was no self-produced TV show, no fawning “interview” with Jim Gray. There was only an as-told-to-Lee-Jenkins essay posted on SI.com, which was deliciously old-school. (In the summer of 1969, the great Bill Russell used Sports Illustrated and Frank Deford to announce his retirement.) With 10,000 reporters scurrying to break the summer’s big story — 9,500 of them working for ESPN, which aired “The Decision” and was, as is its wont, quoting “sources” left and right yet again — LeBron wrong-footed everyone and broke it himself.
That he chose to return to Cleveland has an undeniable poignancy. Not many people choose to migrate from Cleveland to Miami and then back to Cleveland. That’s almost always a one-way journey. LeBron James made it a round trip. “My relationship with Northeast Ohio is bigger than basketball,” he wrote (via Jenkins). “I didn’t realize that four years ago. I do now.”
Raging cynic though I am, I take the man at his word. He grew up in Akron. He played at St. Vincent-St. Mary. He was drafted by the Cavaliers and led them to their first NBA finals appearance. He almost brought that city its first professional championship since the Browns upset the Baltimore Colts for the 1964 title, but he couldn’t quite. That he left to band with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh for the express purpose of winning it all prompted spurned Cavs owner Dan Gilbert to call him, in a letter removed from the team’s web site only this week, “a coward.”
To be fair, it did seem LeBron had chosen the path of least resistance. But give him credit: He accomplished his Miami mission. The Heat won two titles in his four years there, reaching the NBA finals every time. Nobody can say he did wrong by South Beach. Now he’s trying to do right by those in Cuyahoga County.
LeBron James ceased being a pariah, except to Clevelanders, about the time he and his Heat super friends were humbled by Dallas in 2011 NBA finals. It wasn’t going to be as easy as the Big Three thought, was it? Well, no. But they soon got what they wanted, twice over. They won by playing team basketball — LeBron has never been World B. Free — and became a popular champion. (This just in: We mortals like our stars.) The masses came to accept LeBron’s greatness and forgive him for the one-shot excess of “The Decision.” Only one segment of his constituency remained unmoved, and that segment conferred blanket amnesty shortly after noon Friday.
Nobody can hate this decision, lower-case, made for the right reasons. Cleveland has tailored its roster to suit LeBron’s eyes-on-the-prize purposes. (That was his chief gripe four years ago, not that Danny Ferry, then Cleveland’s general manager, didn’t move heaven and earth in the attempt.) The Cavs wanted him back. He wanted to be back. Cleveland sees the return of its King. The NBA gets its warmest/fuzziest feel-good story ever. The Hawks, Ferry’s new team, now find themselves in the position of being Southeast Division co-favorites with Washington.
I thought I wouldn’t much care where LeBron landed this time. (Like a lot of NBA-watchers, I figured he would wind up back in Miami.) Turns out I was wrong, and not just about Miami. This was, hearts-and-minds-wise, the best move he’ll ever make. He went off and won his titles. Now he’s headed home to tend to unfinished business. There should be dancing and rejoicing, and not just in Cleveland.
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