Cleveland, like some other cities with pro sports teams, has its arenas in relatively close proximity to each other. Browns stadium sits right downtown on the shore of Lake Erie. About a half-mile up Ontario Street from Browns Stadium sits Jacobs--er, I mean, Progressive Field, where the Indians allegedly play Major League baseball. And practically butting up against the outfield is Quicken Loans Arena, a.k.a. The Q, home of the Cavaliers. Directly across the street from The Q and The Jake sits a large, urban downtown building that since I've moved here has had a giant picture covering its side. It's a 3- or 4-story tall picture of LeBron James. His eyes are closed and his head reared back, facing skyward. His arms are outstretched, showing off his wingspan. I've always told out of towners that it's not by accident that they made him look like Jesus.
Obviously if the owners of that building want to avoid possible arson, they're now in the process of removing that picture. As everyone not living in a Tibetan cave now knows, LeBron James is no longer a Cleveland Cavalier. And to say that people here are angry doesn't begin to cover it. I just can't help thinking that he handled this whole thing unbelievably badly. One could say that in the space of 11 seconds, the time it actually took him after all the hype to announce his decision, he went in most places not Miami from being one of the NBA's favorite players to the guy you most love to hate. And in his home town, he went from Jesus to Judas almost instantly.
Except that at least here, it really wasn't instant. It started in the playoffs, frankly. LeBron looked, by his outsized standards, bad. He looked vulnerable late in the series against the Bulls. For the most part the Celtics took his (and everybody else's) lunch money. He looked outclassed and overmatched. And particularly in the critical Game 5, it really looked to everyone watching like the guy just quit. To this day, nobody really knows why, though of course the locals' favorite rumor is that it was because he found out before that game that teammate Delonte West had sex with his (LeBron's) mother. But for whatever reason, the superstar choked. And when your superstar chokes, the rest of the team loses its way--or, the rest of this team did anyway. The championship we were finally supposed to win, the one that has eluded the city since 1965 (the year after the Browns won), evaporated in front of us. And a lot of people grumbled that it was in no small part LeBron's fault.
And then everything really went down the crapper. He did that weird interview with Larry King during the NBA finals, which even a lot of local LeBron lovers felt was a pretty bush league, transparent attempt to turn the spotlight from Kobe back onto himself, since he wasn't going to get the chance to do it on the court where it should have happened. And once the finals were over, the three-ring circus started in earnest. There was the ridiculous business with Tom Izzo, whose phone calls LeBron wouldn't even return when he was trying to decide whether to take the Cavs' coaching job. And then, good Lord, July 1 hit and free agency became official. He summoned all the teams in the running to his lair to kiss his ring, and the streets lined with diehard Cleveland fans begging their superstar to stay as he surely knew they would. The fans did this even though they also knew he was playing all these teams--they just hoped hard that the teams he was playing were the Knicks, Nets, Clippers, Bulls, and Heat.
Then the cherry on top of the bull___t sundae was that ridiculous, overhyped, fake-drama ESPN special. When it was first announced, most people around here thought the same thing that people everywhere else thought: A one-hour special? Really? What the hell are you going to do for an hour? But then, that made nervous Cleveland fans take heart. He's the home town boy. He KNOWS what he means to this place and how bad it will be if he goes. The only reason to do this is to add some admittedly unnecessary drama to his decision to stay right here and win us some championships. He cannot possibly be setting up a whole one-hour special to give the finger to the place that loves him more than any other place possibly could, with a desperation unknown anywhere else. Obviously, the fans were wrong. And beyond that, it's become clear that before the special started, he didn't let teams where he wasn't going know his decision. They got to find out on national TV along with all of his fans. This hurt Cleveland in particular, because with their bloated payroll they weren't in a position to start looking around for other people until after they knew what LeBron was doing. But, that wasn't important to LeBron. And the resulting vitriol around here is jaw-dropping.
Owner Dan Gilbert posted a well publicized open letter to the fans calling out his former superstar in no uncertain terms. Local sports radio this morning has an anger on the air that is unbelievable. It's tempting to say that it approaches what I remember hearing on the air after 9/11; this of course isn't 9/11 and I don't want to draw a potentially offensive comparison, but in terms of the on-air reaction right now anyway, the fierce and fearsome anger does almost approach it.
A refrain I'm hearing a lot is, "I'm not mad he's leaving, I'm mad about the way he did it." It's patently absurd for Cavs Fan/Local Sports Announcer to say that you're not mad he's leaving--of course you are. You'd be angry and disappointed that he's leaving even if he'd handled himself in a more circumspect, mature, businesslike fashion, just as you'd forgive this dog and pony show he put on if at the end of it he'd decided to stay. But the fact is that the dog and pony show has added a layer of serious, kind of frightening hatred to it, that honestly might not be there if he'd just behaved better. I said before that if he was going to break up with the city, he should do it quickly and not string everybody along. We now feel not only like he broke up with us, but did it at the prom in front of the entire school and then laughed at us. So now, we hate him and I think it's permanent.
It will be sort of interesting to see how this plays out. He undoubtedly has a better chance of winning a championship, or several, now. He did have a strong supporting cast here--a cast that owner Dan Gilbert spent hand over fist trying to assemble to his specifications, leaving the team with its aforementioned bloated payroll. But Mo Williams and Antawn Jamison are indisputably not Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh. And maybe he can make The Heat into His Team--but I doubt it. It's Dwayne Wade's team. His numbers aren't going to be what they were here, and assuming he does win some rings it's going to be because he ran to where the other superstars were. As I said before: Have fun being D-Wade's little brother, the guy whose total number of rings will always be Wade's Minus One. And have fun being the most hated guy in the history of the hometown you supposedly love and understand. You can't come back here. You can't bring your family back here. You can't.
A fond little video goodbye to close out what should for my sanity be my last sports rant for a little while.
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