Hah, what a clever title! It's a double entendre in honor of it being the day after Bastille Day but also relevant because of the villainization of a 'King'.
LeBron James recently captivated a nation--dare I say, the world--with his free agency Decision (ESPN's lawyers will crucify me if I don't capitalize that word) to join Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh with the Miami Heat.
So the jerk proved me wrong but now he's consensually hated by pretty much everybody outside of South Beach so I'm still going to chalk up the victory to me.
Which brings us to why exactly LeBron is hated now. Like Louis XVI, James was given a raw deal from the start.
War-happy Louis XV basically bankrupted France and left the people poor and hungry. Then he tossed the reigns to Louis XVI and said, "Good luck, sucker!" Naturally, the most reasonable course was revolution and Louis XVI soon found himself without a head.
Was that necessarily his fault? Of course not. The people need to find somebody to hate when their lives suck and that person is usually the one who has it so much better than everybody else.
Enter LeBron James. James, the most talented basketball player, maybe ever, was sent to toil away in Cleveland for seven years with the likes of Damon Jones, Eric Snow, and some guy named Sasha Pavlovic. Sasha, for crying out loud!
Then having paid his dues and fulfilling his contract, and also realizing that it's impossible to win a championship by your own damn self when nobody else in the NBA is having to do it by their own damn selves, he's martyred for leaving for a new team.
Words like 'traitor' and 'coward' were thrown out there from people who were singing his praises just the night before the Decision.
Why haven't we heard reports out of Toronto of people burning Chris Bosh jerseys and calling him a coward? Because the people of Toronto know that he made the right decision!
Cleveland, you have been duped yet again. LeBron isn't the villain, it's the complete lack of intelligence on the part of ownership and management to not deliver help for James. The Cavaliers for the last seven years gave Lebron the reigns and said, "Good luck, sucker!"
Louis XVI wasn't the real villain of France, it was Louis XV! Yet, Louis XVI is the one who gets his head lopped off.
Dan Gilbert, the owner of the Cavs, did a marvelous job of what we call in the 'biz' of creating a smokescreen. He releases a letter (which contains one of the best temper tantrums I have ever seen) blasting James credibility and distracting us all from who is really to blame in this whole mess.
The result? Riots in the streets, the burning of jerseys, and a security threat to LeBron James.
Viva le resistance!
I’m sick of LeBron and the media circus, but I fully respect his right to make whatever decision he liked. Still, he went about it without class in regard to Cleveland and the Clippers. He should have told the former that unless they got Bosh he was outta there so they should plan accordingly, which would have saved them from humiliating themselves. he should never have had the Clippers fly to see him when he had absolutely no interest in going there. I am convinced that was a very poor attempt to build his “brand” in LA’s huge media market.
ReplyDeleteOh, and the New York commentators claiming LeBron “chickened out” by not coming to New York should get a life. He had one thing in mind: win championships. He concluded New York wasn’t his best bet. Get over it. Don’t be so parochial.
Is this kid a narcissist who played the entire country to build his “brand”? Probably. Is he looking to make as much money as he can by parlaying multiple championships as fast as he can to wider world-wide fame? Sure. Did each of the owners want him because it would make them more money? Absolutely. Are they hypocrites for now criticizing him if they didn’t get the decision they wanted? Definitely.
Right now Lebron James isn’t even in the conversation about the best player of the past decade, much less ever. He is a branded, media-created, NBA-marketed young man who is a phenomenal athlete but not yet a really well-rounded player and not one who can always carry his team when needed.
Is he in Michael Jordan’s class? In Magic Johnson’s? In Oscar Robertson’s? Hell, in Walt Frazier’s, or Kobe Bryant’s. Don’t make me laugh. He may develop into an all-time great, but he has a long way to go.
Right now it’s all smoke-and-mirrors.
I’m getting more embarrassed for this country by the day. People were hanging on every gesture of a 25-year old who hasn’t proved a thing yet. They were organizing campaigns, including with public money, to attract him. They were prostrating themselves at his feet. Are they now embittered and acting like absolute juveniles? God yes. But don’t worry, by next week they’ll be more interested in what Lindsay Lohan said to her cellmate that day and what the latest twitter is from that Stewart girl who thinks her fans might assassinate her because she’s so popular.
Oh yeah, while all this really critical stuff was getting three hundred hours of air time the fact that many thousands of moderate Muslims in Pakistan are starting to arm themselves and pledge to go after the radical militants since the feckless government and military cannot protect them got a brief mention on a news program or two and a few columns in the Times. But who cares? When you’ve got the LeBron Decision only a week or so old, why would anyone care about that stuff?