Some thoughts after LeBronaggedon last night:
- Regardless of what side you're on (I would say about 90% of people are anti-LeBron right now), people are taking this way too seriously. An excerpt from an emailer in Bill Simmons' column: "Sports as we know it ended tonight." Seriously? Just stop. Players change teams all the time. When Scott Rolen forced a trade out of Philadelphia, we were pretty upset about it, but Phillies fans didn't vow to stop watching baseball. I know Rolen isn't on the same level as LeBron, but frankly, some of the reactions are just ridiculous.
I cried once over sports, when I was seven years old and Joe Carter hit the home run off of Mitch Williams as the Blue Jays beat the Phillies in the World Series. To see grown women, and probably a few men, crying over a player leaving their team is borderline insane.
- Speaking of overblown reactions, the person who looks worse coming out of all of this is Cavs owner Dan Gilbert. Instead of taking the high road and saying, "Hey, we're disappointed, but we'll move on," Gilbert said this. That's a good way to represent your franchise, Dan. By the way, there's no way the Cavs will win a title before LeBron does, so good luck with that.
- To everyone calling LeBron selfish, he left $30 million on the table by signing with the Heat instead of the Cavs. $30 million isn't chump change, even to someone like LeBron. Usually, we criticize athletes for just going wherever the money is. But now, a guy just goes to a place where he thinks he has a better chance of winning, and we get all over him for that.
- I don't blame LeBron one bit for going to Miami. He wasn't going to get it done with the roster in Cleveland. His second best player was Antwan Jamison, and he was terrible in the playoffs last season. He went to Miami simply because he feels he has the best chance of winning a title with Wade and Bosh as teammates.
To people saying, "Well this proves he can't win a title by himself," guess what, no one wins a title by themselves. Jordan had Pippen, Kobe had Shaq and now Gasol, Odom, and Artest, Wade had Shaq when they won a title. All of those supporting casts are better than anything LeBron has ever had, and he even got that team to an NBA Final. No great player has ever won a title on his own.
- Everyone is saying LeBron turned his back on his hometown. Cleveland is not his hometown, Akron is. It's like if I played for the Nets in Newark, and I left them and everyone said I turned on my hometown. Newark is just a city in the state I live in, not my hometown. Get over it Cleveland.
I never thought I would say this, but after all of this, LeBron, I hope you get your title next year.
