So Lebron James is going to have a press conference Thursday evening at 9:00 on ESPN to let us know where he’ll be playing next season. As a lifelong Cavs fan I can confidently say, “Who fucking cares.” I can’t even begin to tell you how sick of this story I am.
For MONTHS now I’ve been subject to hearing about this story every single day. Every day since he and the rest of the Cavs choked away their chance at a championship that is. Every day since LeBron simply stopped playing.
Is he a great basketball player? Sure he is but he’s won exactly the same amount of NBA championships as I have… ZERO. Am I bitter? Sure I’m bitter. I’m a Cleveland fan who’s been fucked over so many times by the sports Gods that I’m sick of it.
- The Drive
- The Fumble
- The Jordan Shot Over Ehlo
- The 95 Indians
- The 97 Indians
- Art Modell Moving The Browns
Prime Time Press Conference
Need I go on? Needless to say I’m sick and tired of being on the short end of the sports spectrum. So I see this going down in one of two ways.
- LeBron gets to the end of his ego-inflating TV time and tells the world that he’s decided that even though he loves Cleveland/Akron, he’s decided to do, “What’s best for him, his family and his career” and go play with [Insert Team Here].
- LeBron gets to the end of his ego-inflating TV time and tells the world that he’s decided that he love “home” so much he’s going to stay in a Cleveland uniform.
Quite honestly, I’ve got huge issues with either.
In scenario #1, he instantly becomes the biggest dick in sports history by essentially “breaking up” with a city on national TV. Come on dude… even Tiger Woods has more class than that. And I’m not just talking Cleveland fans here. Sure we’ll be pissed, but let’s face it, we can handle it. I’m thinking this is the kind of stuff that the whole sports world will look at and be like, “What a dick move that was.” Art Modell is PRAYING for this to happen. He’ll no longer be the most hated dude in C-Town.
In scenario #2, he instantly (again) becomes the biggest legend in Cleveland sports. But he cements (at least in my mind) the fact that he’s got the biggest ego that I’ve ever seen. Again… I’m not calling into question how good he is as a basketball player. He’s awesome. In fact, he’s the second best player I’ve ever seen play (behind Jordan). And therein lies the problem. I don’t recall Michael Jordon, Larry Bird, Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson, etc. EVER holding an hour long, prime time event just to tell the world what his decision is. Hell, in Kobe’s case, it took RAPE for people to care this much. But at least Kobe’s a winner… LeBron can’t say that much yet.
So… I spose I’ve come this far, I might as well make a prediction. I’m thinking at the end of it all, LeBron is going to stay. Based on the fact that his ego is just SO damn big I can’t see him taking the kind of publicity hit that scenario #1 would induce. If he’s going to leave Cleveland, I’m guessing he would have done it nice and quietly and then moved on to other things.
I had a co-worker bring up an interesting (though I think pretty far-fetched) theory. Maybe… just maybe, LeBron is going onto TV to tell the world just how damn great Cleveland is and he thinks the rest of the world should stop making “Mistake By The Lake” references and reminding us that our river caught on fire. Yeah… like I said… pretty far fetched.
In all fairness, the one GOOD thing that I see coming out of all of this is the Boys and Girls Club of America is getting all the proceeds from any advertising dollars spent during LeBron’s hour on ESPN. That’s a good thing. One more way to enforce on our young children that ego pays.
