Karl Malone was not an expensive whore, though. He did it for the vet minimum for one year after dedicating 17 years to Utah. I don't really begrudge him the ring chasing in the twilight of his career. The guy more than paid his dues. Bosh and LeBron had the perfect example of where their careers were headed just by looking at Kevin Garnett in Minnesota. Loyalty to an incompetent franchise just means you're willing to waste the peak years of your career losing when you shouldn't have to. Garnett would have as many rings as Tim Duncan if Minnesota were run as well as San Antonio. Instead he has one ring, and only that one because he finally abandoned that sinking ship.
Dan Gilbert was super-duper loyal to Mike Brown and Danny Ferry, wasn't he! First time in his life, I'm guessing, where this crybaby couldn't get what he wanted, and he has a meltdown once confronted with that reality.
Why would Gilbert be mad? Lebron just sang a little song, called "Cleveland Doesn't Know": [video=youtube;0Vyj1C8ogtE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Vyj1C8ogtE[/video]
You must be joking. Cleveland did everything possible to get LeBron a championship, including securing the services of Shaquille O'Neal. All their efforts resulted in several winning seasons, an Eastern Conference Championship, and an appearance in the NBA Finals.
The NBA Finals appearance was entirely James...his supporting cast was pathetic that year. Cleveland tried hard, I agree with that...but Minnesota tried hard to surround Garnett with enough talent. By and large, both teams failed. Garnett was labeled a "loser" for not winning much, and then magically became a winner when he joined the Celtics. Smart athletes (who care about that perception) can pretty easily see the lesson there.
This is all Gilbert's fault for being nice to the kid. The only way to make a dog loyal is to beat it and keep it half starved. Or not. Maybe Gilbert wanted to (gasp!) win...and he appreciated having one of the top 2 players in the league on his team. Maybe LBJ is just a selfish egotist who deserves to be taken to task for his "rub their nose in it" approach.
Quite correct. But from now on, smart athletes are not going to create hour-long espn specials to announce where they're going.
I don't doubt that this is true. The one-hour TV show to crush the sporting dreams in Cleveland was beyond cold. As I said in another thread, it broke the dial on obnoxiousness. James is an opportunist. He and his personal team (not sports team) are pretty creative in finding every marketing avenue. It's fairly clear to me that James wants to be the biggest sports star ever (at least, as far as US sports goes). He and his people are doing whatever it takes to accomplish that, no matter how ruthless. It doesn't bother me, because I long since stopped looking to athletes for people to admire personally. I enjoy watching them play their sport and that's the extent of my relationship to them. James may be a jerk, but it doesn't impact me at all.
lol. Yeah, Shaq was a real catch wasn't he. I notice you've never said, "We need Shaq on our team!" after his first season in Miami. Why? Because he's nothing but a role player at this point. A role player with a superstar ego. "All their efforts". LMAO. None of those Cleveland teams even sniff the playoffs without LeBron James. None of them. Not one. It's a pathetic joke to suggest that Cleveland put him in the best possible position to win a championship. Name one teammate in seven seasons he's had in Cleveland with a PER over 18. (I can't think of any.) Hakeem was the last guy to win a championship with no teammates with a PER over 18, and he only pulled it off once (and while Jordan was retired). By comparison, the Blazers had four different players with PER's over 18 last year! Yeah, LeBron got paid in Cleveland. But he earned every penny. Looking over all those mediocre rosters, how can anyone honestly say the owner and the GM earned their paychecks too?
Thank you for injecting some sense into this thread. The LeBron hatred is so blinding apparently, that some can't see that Dan Gilbert in one crazy sob. I guess he doesn't care about reputation. I guess he doesn't realize that stupid unprofessional shit done YEARS ago is likely why the Bulls - who though in many ways were best postioned to nab LeBron - didn't get it done.
I had to look it up, and it does look like Boozer and Ilgauskas were right above my threshold, and Gooden was for one season. All of their peaks were right in LeBron's first few years when he was still coming into form. Gooden was also good for one season. So three scoring big men with mediocre-to-laughable defense. Taking that trip down memory lane reminds me of how badly Cleveland management fucked up the Boozer re-signing. That doozy six years ago is probably why LeBron is no longer a Cav today.
I can't fathom how you come to that conclusion. LeBron is a Star. The talent. He is 25 years old. His job is to think about himself and his career. Gilbert is an owner/management. He is supposed to build teams and do that by luring talent. He lucked into LeBron, one of the biggest stars, and failed to build a good enough team so that WITH LeBron they had a good chance to win. NO national commentator said that LeBron would have the best chance of winning a ring if he stayed in Cleveland. LeBron leaves. Make of that which you will. Call his right to shop teams and leave Cleveland "unprofessional" if you like, despite that being a bizarre attitude. Gilbert, the executive, the owner, the adult, the professional, goes off. That will help him to build a winning team how? That will help him attract talent in the future how? I think it is abundantly clear who is the unprofessional one here. I also think we all now have some insight into previously hidden data as to why LeBron HAD TO leave. Ownership was a problem.
Yes, he was. Many NBA commentators at the time believed that getting Shaq would put Cleveland over the top. The idea of James and O'Neal on the same team was discussed ad nauseum, and everyone seemed to think that it made Cleveland a true contender for the title. And you think Portland would sniff the playoffs without Brandon Roy?? Or Miami without Wade? Or Phoenix without Nash? The fact is, you subtract a great player from almost any team, and that team is going to struggle. Chicago without Michael Jordan didn't have a chance at a title. And yet James was ecstatic to get Mo Williams and Shaq on his team. Go figure! I guess LeBron knows nothing about talent . . .
Because those people were reacting to Shaq's famous name, rather than his declining production and defensive presence.
One can do that without being totally classless . . . James didn't. James botched this thing in a lot of ways, and everybody is saying so. You don't leave your team of 7 years, which has made you rich beyond your wildest dreams, by having "a friend" call the team owner and break the news to him. That's totally bush league, and everyone knows it. Oh, yeah, "ownership" was the problem, alright. They pampered James in every way possible for 7 years, and treated him like a true king. I wouldn't be surprised if they sent someone over to his house every night to wipe his butt. For that kind of royal treatment, they deserve everything they get!!!
I didn't make an assertion as to the level of professionalism of LeBron in my post. I am concedeing the issue, and maintaining that the "talent", be in sports star, singer, actor, whatever, often do act "unprofessionally". It is common. Not particularly remarkable in fact. Not really news. Dog bites man. BFD. My post was about the unprofessionalism and "crazy" of Dan Gilbert. Your comment about the Cavs "making James rich beyond his wildest dreams" is a fundamental misunderstanding and misreading of the situation, and is possibly why you come to such indefensible conclusions. James would be rich in any of the NBA cities where he might have been employed. James would have been MUCH richer at this point if he had been drafted by the Knicks or by a team in Texas or Florida with no state income tax. James would have been rich if he had played in Europe. James is the star talent. He was going to be rich regardless. It is only because of the draft that Cleveland was showered with an extremely lucky windfall that netted them hundreds of millions of dollars in value. THEY were the lucky ones.
Ummm, you changed your post. Ok. Again - so what? What is remarkable about management "pampering" the star talent? Are you implying that the Knicks or Mavericks or whatever team wouldn't have been pampering LeBron's ass this entire time if they had had him? Is that your contention? That LeBron was better off being a star in Cleveland than elsewhere? Is your contention that stars, like say, Tom Cruise is never "pampered" by management? Or, is it really your constant moaning about the fact that some people don't "deserve" that which they are given?
