OT: Lebron: "Who wants half my sandwich?" Excellent dissection of James.
I know there have been a few posts on James and his decision, but I thought this article, in the L.A. Times entertainment business blog, was worthy of linking. The writer had spent some time interviewing James and commented on his large entourage as follows:
"When someone brought a tray of sandwiches for everyone to snack on before LeBron did an interview with Jay Leno, LeBron eyed the sandwiches, deciding he only wanted half of one. "Who wants half of my sandwich?" he asked. Everyone's hand went up. Apparently his entire posse was positively craving half a sandwich. I suspect if LeBron had asked if anyone wanted to dump a bucket of Gatorade over Jay Leno's head, just as many hands would've shot up."
Entitled "Did Lebron James just Jump the Shark?" (scroll down a bit on the linked page) it makes some valid points regarding what IME, was the freak show we saw on ESPN the other night.
Totally agree. You simply cannot win an NBA championship without at least two very strong players, two excellent role players, and a decent 5th guy/bench. Maybe you never could, but definitely not now.
And the fact is that the Cavs failed for 7 years to get the #2 to LBJ's #1. What the fuck were they even doing in the offseason this year? I'm not sure of the causal order here, but if I'm LeBron and I ask Gilbert, "so, uh, what're we doing this offseason?" and Gilbert answers, "Izzo!!!" I'm just fucking gone at that point.
I have no idea what went on in the playoffs, and I have no idea who told whom what when, and I damn sure know The Decision was a total clusterfuck from the very beginning (although I'm pretty sure that 100% of the sportswriters who crapped on LeBron for "hiding behind" the charitable donations to the Boys & Girls Club are not underprivileged children who might actually appreciate the money).
Despite all that, there were only two options here: the Bulls or the Heat. LBJ, Wade, and Bosh became mates in Beijing, so he went with that. Anyone who faults him for doing this on basketball grounds is a fucking moron in my opinion. Anyone who faults him for doing this on loyalty grounds better be from Cleveland or Akron, or else STFU (I'm looking at you, Bill Simmons). Anyone who faults him for the optics of his Decision, I'm right there with you.
i'm not sure we know the whole story. maybe stuff will leak out in the coming days/months.
i, like most people, wish he would have stayed in cleveland - his home town team. but there must be some undercurrents there that we don't know about. danny ferry is a well-respected GM. why couldn't he get that #2 guy? was the owner a cheap greedy bastard not willing to spend the money? but then he's willing to spend countless millions to lure izzo. i just don't get it.
people do forget, though, that cleveland had the best record in the nba the past two years. so, imo, he had a good a chance to win there as anywhere.
now he's in miami where 3 guys take up $50mil of the $58mil cap. $8mil to sign the other 9 players. it will be interesting to see if the 3 kings can win surrounded by a bunch of commoners.
i think back to the bad boys where the bench was as good as a lot of teams starters. my prediction is that miami's bench is going to cost them a lot of games. i don't think you can win titles with 3 max contract guys unless the other role players take huge paycuts in order to try to win the title.
is far from guaranteed. It's also possible that there is less here than meets the eye and he--gasp--looked at this from a personal point of view and felt like he wanted to try things out in a new city with his friends. It's more or less what he said, if maladroitly. I wouldn't fault him for that.
I won't root for them, either.
I agree moving was James' best choice from a championship standpoint. Jordan couldn't win without Pippen, et al, and James' Pippen wasn't on the horizon. I just thought the manner was really pathetic and probably set him back from a marketing perspective.
LJ is just a reflection of what the nba has become - a dramatic reality show. more and more players look to get the spotlight.
and it's not just the players anymore. what about the owners. a generation ago, you rarely heard about or saw the owners. now you see them courtside berating refs or making unprofessional rants about a player who left via free agency.
the days of the larry birds who worked hard and won are gone. and the days of great owners like bill davidson are also gone.
How can LeBron afford a sandwich?? He had to take less money to go to the Heats!
why neg the guy. it's at least a little funny.
LeBron may of actually spurned me to voluntarily watch a NBA game (at-least the first 5min of it)
Miami @ Cleveland--- Date: TBA
It will be Cleveland's revenge....Ron Artest / MSU football style.
...a whole crap sandwich to feast on.
that he might win in Miami, as I would for championships he might have won in Cleveland, or even New York. The fact that he joined his biggest rival in order to win a title will forever differentiate him from the Kobe's and MJ's of the world in my opinion.
MJ? Totally agree. Kobe? Please.
First of all, how many championships did he win pre-Shaq? Then, after Shaq left and Kobe returned to his pattern of not winning, he was on the verge of bolting for... wait for it...
THE LOSANGELESMOTHERFUCKINGCLIPPERS!!!
until, apparently, somebody from Kobe's posse found Jerry West with a dead girl or a live boy in his bed and West shipped Gasol to LA for a bag of cheesy puffs and the corpse of Kwame Brown.
There are two differences between what Kobe didn't do and what LeBron did:
- LeBron didn't run his teammates and his organization down and generally act like a little bitch (point for LBJ, IMO); and
- Kobe didn't pull his shenanigans on a TV show (point for Kobe, IMO).
Meant to hit "reply" to Beantown.
