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Now that the utter ridiculousness of the LeBron James 60 minute ESPN special to make his :04 second announcement is over, I figured I’d go ahead and give my take on the whole thing.  I guess I sort of hinted at it there in the open, didn’t I?

I can’t be the only one that thinks this decision to take his talents to South Beach wasn’t already made months ago and maybe even years ago by James.  So my big question is, why put Cleveland, New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Los Angeles and the rest of the basketball world through this unnecessary circus?  It wasn’t that long ago that NBA action was “fan-tastic”.  Remember that?  I don’t know of too many fans who thought this was very good for the league.  And especially not the way he went about making his “decision” known.

As great and as exciting as he is on the floor, the king (lower case, mine) is simply not bigger than the game.  No one is.  The ESPN special seemed to be ego gone wild, and the latest glaring example of how this me-first, entitled-to-everything younger generation acts when they get their chance.

Look, I’m not a old crusty curmudgeon here…although it sort of sounds like it…but I’m thinking this whole ordeal was really just sort of sickening.

The ensuing fireworks form the “Here’s the key to every door in the city of Miami” ceremony was equally as nauseating.

And as long as I’m on a roll, from the pure sports world perspective, it seemed to be the ultimate “in your face” move aimed at the city of Cleveland.  And that part was completely shameful.  Boys and Girls Clubs charity event or not…

Now from a personal perspective, James was really just taking advantage of an opportunity and doing something he really wanted to do.  And none of us should  blame him for that.  We all only live once, and he certainly has the freedom to choose how he takes his journey.  In a strange way, that part of it is pretty cool.

Back to the sports angle…

He has definitely taken himself out of the “best ever” conversation.  And he should never be mentioned with Michael, Magic, Russell, Bird, Abdul-Jabbar or even Kobe again.  Ever.

I mean can you imagine the absurdity of Larry Bird packing up and heading west to play with Magic, instead of being a ferocious competitor and wanting to go out and beat him?

I have heard some otherwise wise people say that they think it’s an okay move because it just shows he wants to win.  And no player ever wins a championship by themselves.  They say, “Magic had Kareem and Worthy,  Bird had McHale and Parish, and even Kobe had Shaq and now has Gasol!  Plus, the Celtics did it with the Three Amigos a couple of years ago, and almost did it again this season.”

Here is my retort to those points:

First, of course no one wins a championship by themselves in basketball.  But this is the first time an A-List player has abandoned a team that he was obviously making better and molding into a championship contender to go play with a couple of guys that he really has no business playing with.

Magic made Worthy into the player he was.  And remember, the Lakers already had Kareem and were a fifth seed in the West the year before the Michigan State rookie came to town and led them to 60 regular season wins and the NBA Title.  (Winning game six almost by himself, with Kareem out due to injury).

Bird unquestionable made McHale a household name.

I’m not suggesting that Worthy and McHale wouldn’t have been good, solid performers in the NBA for their entire careers.  But Magic and Bird were the type of players that could take the cast around them and turn them into absolute over achievers.

Perhaps nobody was a better example of this principle than Michael.

If you had 1,000 people list their all-time NBA teams (not just the starters), how many of them would have anybody (besides Jordan) from the Chicago Bulls teams that won six championships?  Maybe a couple of die hard Bulls fans would have Pippen coming off of their all-time bench, but they would be reaching.

Steve Kerr, John Paxson, Luc Longley, Bill Wennington, Stacey King or Jud Buechler just aren’t the names you associate with the kind of brass the Bulls are housing now because of MJ.  He turned them all into Champions.

The sad thing is that LeBron was in the midst of doing the same thing!  The guy was following the blueprint to the T!  And then he walked…

I mean, listen, how many of you think the Cleveland Cavaliers will ever have the best regular season record in the league again?  I mean besides their owner Dan Gilbert, who has of course has also guaranteed a championship win before Miami’s next one.  There’s NO WAY they’ll have the best record!  Cleveland ONLY had that kind of success because James was there.  He was knocking on the door.  For crying out loud, he had already taken them to one Championship Final!

Now, as far as all stars teaming up goes…

Yes, Karl Malone and Gary Payton joined the Lakers to chase a championship as they rode off into the sunset, and Ray Allen and KG did the same with Boston.  The difference between what James has done and what the guys in each of those situations did is that The Mailman, The Glove, Ray Ray and The Big Ticket were all in the latter parts of their playing careers.  They had done everything within their mortal powers to take the Jazz, the Sonics, and the T-Wolves to the promised land.  It didn’t happen and they wanted to give it one last run before they hung up the sneakers.  Barkley did the same thing in Phoenix.

But NONE of those guys would have looked at themselves in the mirror at age 25 and said, “I need to team up with a couple of all stars and start winning titles.  I can’t do this on my own”.  They were far too fierce as competitors and top level Alpha Dogs, committed to winning it on their own terms and for their own teams to have even considered such a pansy move.  Yeah, I said it.

Any way I dissect this thing, I see it as a terrible PR move for James, one that tarnishes his image as a winner, makes him seem even more childish than we already thought he was and it just isn’t something that’s good for the game.  It does give the NBA a team that everyone can hate now.

Sometimes it isn’t so good to be the king.

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