OT -- Dan Gilbert = Slave Master according to Jesse Jackson

Submitted by king_kerridge on

I don't know if this breaks the rule of no politics on mgblog, but whatever. 

 "His feelings of betrayal personify a slave master mentality. He sees LeBron as a runaway slave. This is an owner employee relationship -- between business partners -- and LeBron honored his contract."

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=5372266

I'll admit that Dan Gilbert has acted like a child (some would say like a little brother), but I would argue Jesse Jackson should take it easy and not talk for a little while.

BiSB

July 11th, 2010 at 9:02 PM ^

to see who can one-up the last jackass.  Lebron bailed on Cleveland.  Dan Gilbert said, "I'll see your jackass move and I raise you a 3rd grade tantrum."  Jesse Jackson responded, "sure, you were a petulant child, but did you drop the race card? No? Amateur..."

The real question is: who can trump Jackson?  The early money would be on Mark Cuban, though Al Davis is also due....

clarkiefromcanada

July 12th, 2010 at 12:47 AM ^

...in the "love child" department. Apparently, his penis and Jesse Jackson's thalamus have a "master and slave" relationship. So I suppose he is familiar with such a concept and feels he can comment meaningfully here.

Maybe Jesse Jackson should keep his own house clean before he starts going on about matters involving a) judgment, b) morality, c) race/gender relations and/or d) values.

The credibility bus left town a while ago; playing the race card over a pissing contest between exorbitantly rich guys is, at best, uncomfortable and at worst pandering.

K2

July 11th, 2010 at 9:10 PM ^

To me Jessy Jackson lost his credibility the day he refused to apologize to the Duke lacrosse team after the charges against them were proven false. The man had a incredible impact on the civil rights movement but now has succeeded in tarnishing his legacy by failing to realize few actions are motivated by racial bigotry anymore.

K2

July 11th, 2010 at 9:48 PM ^

Probably true, but being younger than many members here the Duke lacrosse scandal was the first time that I personally saw Jessy Jackson make a fool out of himself. The remainder of my knowledge about him comes from high school history class where they neglected to mention any of the previous obnoxious comments he had made.

Sven_Da_M

July 11th, 2010 at 9:35 PM ^

... that Team LeBron did not ask for this.  The less said about J2 the better.

Dan Gilbert doesn't deserve these remarks, but he does deserve a lot of scrutiny and condemnation for what he wrote and said.  He made a personal "guarantee" that the Cavs will win a championship before the Heat?

Great, all those season ticket holders who were forced to renew for 2010-11 can seek a refund when the Cavs go under .500 and the Heat raise a banner.

Clearly Gilbert is not used to seeking any input from anyone.  What appears macho the night of the great reveal now is seen like an arrogant owner who realizes why Gordon Gund sold him the Cavs majority interest in 2005.  The Cavs without LeBron are worth way less (by some reports, >$100,000,000 less). 

The icing on this upside down cake for me was the word on Friday that Gilbert did a sign-and-trade for LeBron with the Heat, acquiring four draft picks(two first and two second-round), and having one year to use a $14.5 million trade exception to land a big ticket player.  So, technically, LeBron didn't leave, Gilbert traded him.  

Tom Izzo dodged a major league bullet and now knows it. 

The program

July 11th, 2010 at 9:38 PM ^

First Jesse has not had anything productive to say in 20 years.  

Dan Gilbert – maybe Lebron would have stayed if you had been willing to give up JJ Hickson to get Amare Stoudemire instead of settling for Jamison, a 33 year old with a huge contract who has never won in the NBA.  Maybe Lebron stays in you are willing to pay the Luxury tax to keep Carlos Boozer.

The Impaler

July 11th, 2010 at 9:43 PM ^

I think that Gilbert and Jackson were both out of line with their comments, but I don't have a problem with what Lebron did.  Lebron is marketing himself like any other superstar would and should (we do live in a capitalist society).  How can you blame him for taking his image to the next level.  As far as the move to the Heat, it was a pure business and competition move.  Any Cavs fan that is complaining about that is ridiculous.  If a Cav fan is crying that there hometown hero betrayed them, then they must have never been told by their parents that life is not fair.  If they want to blame anyone for their misery it should be the front office of the Cavs and the low market value of Cleveland.

The Impaler

July 11th, 2010 at 9:58 PM ^

Ya I still don't understand the immature thing.  He was able to raise $70,000 for the Boys and Girls Club of America.  He marketed a never before seen event on ESPN, the leading sports network.  I am guessing you were already a Lebron Hater beforehand, but if not you talk about his immaturity as if it is unique.

Zone Left

July 11th, 2010 at 10:35 PM ^

Is $70,000 even a single game check for him?  He could give several million without batting an eye.  Maybe he already does...

I'm indifferent to the personalities of sports starts in general, and I don't actively follow the NBA.  This is different because every "news" organization, from ESPN to ABC, CNN, and Fox were spending lots of time discussing it.  The past couple of weeks basically came off as a gigantic football commitment for a top recruit.  They can get away with it because they're 17-18 years old.  LeBron wants to market himself in the same vein as Michael Jordan, not Terrelle Pryor or Seantrel Henderson.  He would have come off better with a simple press conference discussing the great times he had in Cleveland, but that he felt it was time to move on.

jmblue

July 11th, 2010 at 10:42 PM ^

"Never before seen event?" He made everyone watch an hourlong lovefest to himself to find out where he was going as a free agent. Yeah, he raised money for the Boys and Girls Club (for all the kids from the mean streets of Greenwich!), but it wasn't necessary to go through with all that. He could have just cut them a check.

This whole affair has just been ridiculous, and everyone associated with it - ESPN, LeBron, Gilbert, now Jesse Jackson - looks worse for it.

HermosaBlue

July 11th, 2010 at 11:35 PM ^

http://nymag.com/daily/sports/2010/07/lebron_react_never_has_being_a.ht…

"The worst moment of a night full of bad moments tonight came at the end, after most disgusted fans had turned ESPN off, bile still sloshing in their gums, when LeBron James, 45 minutes after announcing he would play for the Miami Heat, returned to the camera with Jim Gray and the head of the Apollo Group, which owns and runs the University of Phoenix, one of the primary sponsors of the evening's festivities. At this point, we had seen the pain of the Cleveland Cavaliers fans, who had been so cruelly toyed with for weeks now, and we had seen Gray and Michael Wilbon, shockingly, so inept and seemingly disinterested in anything resembling a follow-up question. Fans of teams in the LeBron Derby were disappointed — though no one as much as Cavs fans — but mostly they were flabbergasted by the tone deafness of the whole enterprise. LeBron James was a man breaking hearts across the country, and there he was, with an old bald white man peddling for-profit online education, and a short smug onetime sportscaster now just happy to be on TV. There they all were, trying to sell us something. After that. It was hawking souvenirs before the wake was over. And no one onscreen seemed to find this wrong."

Red_Lee

July 11th, 2010 at 9:55 PM ^

*licks piece of paper and slaps it on forehead without reading name printed on front*

-Am I famous

+Yes

-Is my ancestry American

+No

-Did I shock a major city?

+Yes!

-Am I black?

+Yes!

-Did I leave that city in ruins?

+Yes!

-Could I be considered a slave?

+Yes!

-Am I King Kong

+No...

-Have I won a championship?

+No...

-Then I must be the story of LeBron James. 

Steve Lorenz

July 11th, 2010 at 9:56 PM ^

Jesse Jackson is nothing more than a roadblock standing in the way of social progress. It's sad that there are people who continue to take him seriously. 

Dr. BSD

July 11th, 2010 at 10:12 PM ^

Someone needed to say what Jackson said. Lebron has recieved way to much criticism for the way he conducted himself. The NBA is a bussiness and like all bussinesses it is the art of exploiting and anyone who thinks otherwise is ignorant. People should be complaing about the extent players have become commodities. I know they make millions but that doesn't dismiss the exploitation done by big bussinesses. A  player makes his own decision and is ridiculed for disrespecting the team he played for. When did deciding to cut ties from a bussiness become disrespectful? when did it become wrong to not want your secret to become known globaly when you chose it to be? People act like lebron is owned by the media, the people of ohio and the Cavs. Its nuts, and someone needed to point it out. Almost all Bussiness high ups act like slavemasters and if you think otherwise go listen to immortal technique.

wolverine1987

July 11th, 2010 at 11:24 PM ^

Players are becoming commodities on purpose. They are TRYING to become a commodity, because that's where the money is. They are CLAMORING to be "exploited" by big business, they are dreaming about it. Your big business rant sounds like the work of freshman humanities student.

Almost no one that has criticized LeBron has done so because he left Cleveland (other than Cleveland fans of course), they have criticized the way he did so: not giving the fans and management the courtesy of giving them the news face to face, having management hear the news on TV, never even trying to pretend the decision was difficult or praising the Cleveland fans in his farce of a stage managed program, opening up a twitter account where he calls himself "King James," and placing children around the set as if this was a special, momentous occasion.

He has every right to leave, and I have no problem with him leaving. I have a problem with guys that demonstrate no class and no grace in doing so.

MGoObes

July 11th, 2010 at 10:26 PM ^

in the extreme minority on this issue, but i actually thought JJ was accurate in what he said and gilbert definitely deserved JJ's remarks. 

El Jeffe

July 12th, 2010 at 12:16 AM ^

Believe me, no one thinks Dan Gilbert deserves to be run out of town on a rail more than I. I thought his comments were bitchy, whiny, and totally self-emasculating to boot. They were the unedited snivelings of a spoiled 12 year-old.

That said, the slavery thing is idiotic on many levels, not the least of which is how awful a metaphor it was. If the metaphor has Gilbert as slave owner and LeBron as escaped slave, then we would have seen some legalistic Dred Scott shit from Gilbert.

The truth is that slave owners weren't whiny bitches. They were ruthless, cold-blooded, rational businessmen. And, after this summer, where Gilbert's best pitch to keep LeBron was, apparently, hiring Tom Fucking Izzo, you'd have to say that Gilbert is about as far from those things as you can get.

CWoodson

July 11th, 2010 at 10:38 PM ^

In the world where Gilbert, who owns an NBA team (as opposed to, say, a hockey team) is actually a racist and not just a huge baby, Jackson's comments are still 100% self-promotion aimed at lining his pockets.

JJ is as big a fraud as Sharpton but sadly is not nearly as funny.

GOBLUE88

July 11th, 2010 at 10:37 PM ^

you my friend are ignorant. people do not care that he left cleveland. sure cleveland fans would be upset about it for awhile but it is the way he handled the process, going through the motions with teams he knew he wasnt going to sign with, hosting an hour long show, telling cleveland fans they should be grateful for him instead of thanking them for 7 years. It is people like you and jesse jackson that are slowing us down. People wouldn't ridicule him if he acted like a man, called dan gilvert up and told him thanks but no thanks. He didnt even grant him that minor courtesy. lebron is a grade a douchebag

Don

July 12th, 2010 at 12:37 AM ^

I guess I must have slept through the part of my American history class that covered the period when slaves made tens of millions of dollars for playing a game, had entire cities competing with each other for their services, had gigantic billboards of their likenesses on downtown buildings, and had thousands of oppressive white people following if not cheering their every move.