Wed Jul 28 11:00am PDT
LeBron James' Vegas vacation was very LeBron James-ish
By Trey Kerby
As we know, LeBron James(notes) partied hard in Las Vegas over the weekend. We know he was Mr. Cool Cakes and we know he was wearing sunglasses at night for a lot of the time. We know Chris Paul(notes), Rajon Rondo(notes), Larry Hughes(notes) and a few other NBA players were there, and we know that LeBron videotaped a bunch of fans chanting his name. Other than that, we don't know a lot of the details of LeBron's weekend.
However, on Wednesday morning, ESPN's Arash Markazi posted (note: link is dead, but that's where the story lived) his first-person account of LeBron James' weekend. The column was quickly taken down with no explanation, but thankfully Sam Rigby captured it in all its glory. You can read the whole thing right here, and it's highly recommended you do. But the whole gist of the story is that Markazi, a former Sports Illustrated and Los Angeles Times contributor, somehow got to spend a few days with James' entourage and the results are both surprising and totally expected.
Yes, you'd expect LeBron James to be coddled and have a tenuous grasp on normalcy, but you wouldn't necessarily that to express itself in the way Markazi describes. Get ready for a blockquote festival, because there's some serious (alleged) hilarity going on here.
Five security guards are stationed around [James], one at each corner of the table he's about to sit at and another roving around with him, watching his every move. Anyone who takes two steps towards James is stopped and must have James' approval to come closer.
The waiter bringing him his cup of green tea with a spoonful of honey and a dash of lemon juice makes the cut, as does the scantily clad brunette with a tattoo of a heart on her right shoulder.
She wants to take a picture with him. "I can't right now," says James. "Maybe later, upstairs, I'll remember you're the one with the tattoo."
James will host a party later in the upstairs nightclub at Tao, but he is currently hosting a dinner for his friends and family in the downstairs restaurant.
Priorities, man. Tea, then dinner, then pictures in the club with tattooed ladies. Standard operating procedure. Also nice of LeBron to give future picture-seekers a hint for how to get noticed by an athlete — a notable tattoo is a great way to ensure a superstar will remember you. It also doesn't hurt to be a scantily clad lady.
We're just getting started.
The truth is, in James' dream world, the duo he would love to play with for the next decade would be [Dwyane] Wade and [Chris] Paul, his two closest friends in the NBA.
Tough break, Chris Bosh(notes). Though I guess being LeBron James' third-best friend in the NBA isn't so bad. At the very least, now that Bosh knows how James really feels, he can spend some more time working on a documentary.
James and Paul are fairly quiet at the center of the table as they take in the scene around them. As family style plates of miso-glazed Chilean sea bass and crispy lobster and shrimp dumplings are brought to the table, James effortlessly picks up the food with his chopsticks and occasionally raises his cup of green tea to passersby as they raise their martinis and mojitos in his direction before being helped along by security guards.
LeBron James' DER (dinner efficiency rating) is off-the-charts. We haven't seen someone handle chopsticks this well since Michael Jordan's legendary 1988 dinner at Benihana.
About a dozen security guards, moving their flash lights, direct us to a roped off section on the dance floor of Tao next to a couple of apparently nude women in a bathtub full of water and rose petals. [...]
Carter, LeBron's' childhood friend and manager, begins dancing around James like Puff Daddy in a Notorious B.I.G video. A giant red crown-shaped cake is brought over to James while go-go dancers dressed in skimpy red and black outfits raise four lettered placards that spell out, "KING." Carter grabs a bottle of Grey Goose and pours a quarter of it on the floor and raises it up before passing it off.
Naked ladies in bathtubs, Diddy dancing and dumping a bunch of vodka on the floor — typical club stuff, really. Try it at your local this weekend. It should go over really well.
James' infamous one-hour special, "The Decision," was reportedly the brainchild of Carter, a 28-year-old who has never managed anyone outside of his friend James. This three-day party marathon in Vegas (which James is being paid six figures to host) is also Carter's idea.
Hey, getting paid of hundreds of thousands of dollars to party in Las Vegas is a pretty good gig, if you can get it. Just ask Wayne Newton.
Bottle after bottle of "Ace of Spades" champagne is delivered to the table by a waiter flying down from above the dance floor like some overgrown Peter Pan on a wire. One time he's dressed like a King, another time like Indiana Jones and another in an a replica of James' No. 6 Miami Heat jersey.
James, who can hardly see the flying figure through his tinted glasses, almost gets kicked in the head on the waiter's last trip down. He looks at the girls around him and says, "I wish they'd have one of these girls with no panties do that instead of the guy."
Nice. I've got a feeling that "I wish they'd have one of these girls with no panties on do that instead of the guy" will go down as a legendarily bad NBA quote. Very Charles Barkley. Very hetero. Very cool.
Towards the end of the night, Boston Celtics center Glen Davis(notes) walks past James' party and looks at the scene up and down several times like a painting in a museum, soaking in the images of the go-go dancers, the "King" sign and the costumed man delivering bottles of champagne.
Davis shakes his head and walks on.
As people have noted, when a guy who goes by "Big Baby" and "Shrek" thinks you're ridiculous, then you're very ridiculous. Like, the most ridiculous anyone could imagine. But like so many things LeBron James does, he took that up a notch as well.
Soon after arriving at Lavo, a restaurant and nightclub at the Palazzo, a scene straight out of "West Side Story" breaks out when James and Lamar Odom(notes), seated at a nearby table, engage in an impromptu dance-off to California Swag District's "Teach Me How To Dougie."
Odom, smoking a cigar, can't quite keep up. James celebrates by crossing himself and taking a shot of Patron.
Well, at least that explains all those sideline dance practices with Danny Green(notes). LeBron was just getting ready in case he ever had to have a dance off in the club. Once again, being prepared pays dividends.
As I mentioned, the column was pulled almost immediately after hitting the Internet. Emails to ESPN for comment or explanation have gone unreturned thus far, so we have no idea why this was taken down. It could be totally made-up, it could be LeBron's people not wanting all this stuff out in the public, or it could be something else entirely. But for now, we get a chance to see how 20-something multi-millionaires (allegedly) live.
It's not terribly surprisingly, actually. I mean, I'm a 20-something thousandaire and I fake dunk on just about every overhang I encounter. Why wouldn't LeBron do the same? That being said, maybe having a reporter follow and document all the immature but understandable things James is doing wasn't the best move. It surely won't win very many lost LeBron fans back to his side.
UPDATE: ESPN's response to pulling the story:
"The story should have never been published. The draft was inadvertently put on the server before going through the usual editorial process. We are in the midst of looking into the matter."
For your background, as Darren Rovell tweeted, LeBron's business team had nothing to do with the story being removed. The decision was not influenced by anyone other than the ESPN.com editorial staff for the reasons expressed above.
End of story? Not likely. BDL's Dan Devine asked an ESPN rep if the story would be re-posted after "the usual editorial process," and they responded "We are looking into all aspects of the matter."
Hope to see you again soon, missing story.
Friday, July 30, 2010
ESPN.com explains why it took LeBron James story off its website
ESPN.com explains why it took LeBron James story off its website
Published: Thursday, July 29, 2010, 6:48 PM Updated: Friday, July 30, 2010, 10:23 AM
Associated Press sports staff
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Courtesy: ESPNESPN continues to answer questions in the wake of airing 'The Decision' special on July 8.
NEW YORK - ESPN.com removed an article chronicling Lebron James' activities during a weekend in Las Vegas.
ESPN said the article, by ESPNLosAngeles.com reporter Arash Markazi, was available for about 9½ hours on its server Wednesday. It described the new Miami Heat star drinking at nightclubs and receiving a cake from go-go dancers in a VIP section.
Rob King, editor in chief of ESPN Digital Media, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press on Thursday that the story was posted before it had been cleared by senior editors and that Markazi didn't identify himself as a reporter in gathering the information used to report the story.
"I made the call," King said. "I just plainly felt it was wrong to gather information in this way, so we would not publish the information in any fashion."
ESPN has been criticized by some for turning over air time to James for his July 8 announcement that he was leaving Cleveland to sign with Miami.
The network issued a statement from Markazi saying he understood the decision not to run his story.
"It is important to note that I stand by the accuracy of the story in its entirety, but should have been clearer in representing my intent to write about the events I observed," he said.
Vince Doria, ESPN's senior vice president and director of news, was quoted by ESPN.com on July 21 as saying the network's news gathering operation was not part of the decision to air James' show and that the decision by the company's business department "ultimately had a damaging impact on our reputation as journalists."
"You can't justify paying for news. There are no excuses here," Doria said. "The hope is that we learned something from this, that we won't repeat the error, and that we can restore any lost confidence in our ability to objectively report and present the news."
Related topics: espn, lebron james, the decision
Published: Thursday, July 29, 2010, 6:48 PM Updated: Friday, July 30, 2010, 10:23 AM
Associated Press sports staff
Follow Share this story
Story tools
Courtesy: ESPNESPN continues to answer questions in the wake of airing 'The Decision' special on July 8.
NEW YORK - ESPN.com removed an article chronicling Lebron James' activities during a weekend in Las Vegas.
ESPN said the article, by ESPNLosAngeles.com reporter Arash Markazi, was available for about 9½ hours on its server Wednesday. It described the new Miami Heat star drinking at nightclubs and receiving a cake from go-go dancers in a VIP section.
Rob King, editor in chief of ESPN Digital Media, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press on Thursday that the story was posted before it had been cleared by senior editors and that Markazi didn't identify himself as a reporter in gathering the information used to report the story.
"I made the call," King said. "I just plainly felt it was wrong to gather information in this way, so we would not publish the information in any fashion."
ESPN has been criticized by some for turning over air time to James for his July 8 announcement that he was leaving Cleveland to sign with Miami.
The network issued a statement from Markazi saying he understood the decision not to run his story.
"It is important to note that I stand by the accuracy of the story in its entirety, but should have been clearer in representing my intent to write about the events I observed," he said.
Vince Doria, ESPN's senior vice president and director of news, was quoted by ESPN.com on July 21 as saying the network's news gathering operation was not part of the decision to air James' show and that the decision by the company's business department "ultimately had a damaging impact on our reputation as journalists."
"You can't justify paying for news. There are no excuses here," Doria said. "The hope is that we learned something from this, that we won't repeat the error, and that we can restore any lost confidence in our ability to objectively report and present the news."
Related topics: espn, lebron james, the decision
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Fan in LeBron's Heat jersey draws ire in Cleveland
Fan in LeBron's Heat jersey draws ire in Cleveland
POSTED: 08:29 a.m. EDT, Jul 29, 2010
CLEVELAND (AP) — A fan wearing a Miami Heat jersey of LeBron James drew the ire of the crowd at a Cleveland Indians game and was escorted out of the ballpark.
Fans in the left-field bleachers chanted obscenities and pointed at the man Wednesday night during the sixth inning of the game between the Indians and New York Yankees. Hundreds of fans joined in before security led the man out of Progressive Field.
As he left, some fans followed him toward the gate with more derisive chants.
James' recent departure from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Heat caused a lot of anger in the city.
Many fans were near the left-field foul pole in hopes of catching the 600th home run ball by Alex Rodriguez.
Here is video of the incident. Warning: There is foul language contained in this video.
CLEVELAND (AP) — A fan wearing a Miami Heat jersey of LeBron James drew the ire of the crowd at a Cleveland Indians game and was escorted out of the ballpark.
Fans in the left-field bleachers chanted obscenities and pointed at the man Wednesday night during the sixth inning of the game between the Indians and New York Yankees. Hundreds of fans joined in before security led the man out of Progressive Field.
As he left, some fans followed him toward the gate with more derisive chants.
James' recent departure from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Heat caused a lot of anger in the city.
Many fans were near the left-field foul pole in hopes of catching the 600th home run ball by Alex Rodriguez.
POSTED: 08:29 a.m. EDT, Jul 29, 2010
CLEVELAND (AP) — A fan wearing a Miami Heat jersey of LeBron James drew the ire of the crowd at a Cleveland Indians game and was escorted out of the ballpark.
Fans in the left-field bleachers chanted obscenities and pointed at the man Wednesday night during the sixth inning of the game between the Indians and New York Yankees. Hundreds of fans joined in before security led the man out of Progressive Field.
As he left, some fans followed him toward the gate with more derisive chants.
James' recent departure from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Heat caused a lot of anger in the city.
Many fans were near the left-field foul pole in hopes of catching the 600th home run ball by Alex Rodriguez.
Here is video of the incident. Warning: There is foul language contained in this video.
CLEVELAND (AP) — A fan wearing a Miami Heat jersey of LeBron James drew the ire of the crowd at a Cleveland Indians game and was escorted out of the ballpark.
Fans in the left-field bleachers chanted obscenities and pointed at the man Wednesday night during the sixth inning of the game between the Indians and New York Yankees. Hundreds of fans joined in before security led the man out of Progressive Field.
As he left, some fans followed him toward the gate with more derisive chants.
James' recent departure from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Heat caused a lot of anger in the city.
Many fans were near the left-field foul pole in hopes of catching the 600th home run ball by Alex Rodriguez.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
ESPN ombudsman blasts network for LeBron coverage
Thu Jul 22 03:17pm PDT
ESPN ombudsman blasts network for LeBron coverage
By Chris Chase
ESPN's ombudsman despised the network's 60-minute LeBron James free-agency special as much as everyone else.
In a blistering, 4,600-word column posted Wednesday night on the network's website, Don Ohlmeyer ripped ESPN for airing LeBron's free-agency special and writes that it violated the implicit trust between the network and its viewers. The television producer, who serves as ESPN's independent journalism watchdog, criticized nearly every facet of the now-infamous program, writing that it "pandered to a superstar" and gave in to a "celebration of greed, ego and excess."
"The Decision" earned rebukes for its massive build-up, misleading viewers and blurring the lines between journalism and entertainment, or pretty much the same stuff that outside critics wrote in the wake of the program, which aired two weeks ago.
But Ohlmeyer saved most of his venom for what he perceived to be the biggest of ESPN's violations: paying for a news story. Though money didn't technically change hands between the network and LeBron (proceeds went to charity), Ohlmeyer believes that allowing LeBron and his team to sell an hour's worth of advertising was essentially the same thing. By doing so, ESPN compromised the trust of its viewing audience.
"ESPN should never have traded inventory for access or allowed a subject to select his inquisitor," he writes, "and if that meant losing the exclusive, so be it."
Ohlmeyer didn't blame everyone at the network for the fiasco. He mentions the dichotomy between the newsgathering side of ESPN and the one more focused on entertainment, and scolds the latter for compromising the integrity of the former. Letting LeBron and his team take over the network for 60 minutes was "editorial acquiescence, not an editorial decision."
If anything, Ohlmeyer may have pulled his punches. There was plenty more to criticize about "The Decision," from Michael Wilbon's sycophantic interview with LeBron (which Ohlymeyer backhandedly complimented as "straightforward") to the use of children as props during the program. To Ohlmeyer, though, such matters must have seemed trivial compared to ESPN doing its best impression of The National Enquirer and paying for a scoop.
After the column appeared on ESPN.com, the network released a statement saying "it aggressively seeks and embraces feedback of all kinds."
ESPN ombudsman blasts network for LeBron coverage
By Chris Chase
ESPN's ombudsman despised the network's 60-minute LeBron James free-agency special as much as everyone else.
In a blistering, 4,600-word column posted Wednesday night on the network's website, Don Ohlmeyer ripped ESPN for airing LeBron's free-agency special and writes that it violated the implicit trust between the network and its viewers. The television producer, who serves as ESPN's independent journalism watchdog, criticized nearly every facet of the now-infamous program, writing that it "pandered to a superstar" and gave in to a "celebration of greed, ego and excess."
"The Decision" earned rebukes for its massive build-up, misleading viewers and blurring the lines between journalism and entertainment, or pretty much the same stuff that outside critics wrote in the wake of the program, which aired two weeks ago.
But Ohlmeyer saved most of his venom for what he perceived to be the biggest of ESPN's violations: paying for a news story. Though money didn't technically change hands between the network and LeBron (proceeds went to charity), Ohlmeyer believes that allowing LeBron and his team to sell an hour's worth of advertising was essentially the same thing. By doing so, ESPN compromised the trust of its viewing audience.
"ESPN should never have traded inventory for access or allowed a subject to select his inquisitor," he writes, "and if that meant losing the exclusive, so be it."
Ohlmeyer didn't blame everyone at the network for the fiasco. He mentions the dichotomy between the newsgathering side of ESPN and the one more focused on entertainment, and scolds the latter for compromising the integrity of the former. Letting LeBron and his team take over the network for 60 minutes was "editorial acquiescence, not an editorial decision."
If anything, Ohlmeyer may have pulled his punches. There was plenty more to criticize about "The Decision," from Michael Wilbon's sycophantic interview with LeBron (which Ohlymeyer backhandedly complimented as "straightforward") to the use of children as props during the program. To Ohlmeyer, though, such matters must have seemed trivial compared to ESPN doing its best impression of The National Enquirer and paying for a scoop.
After the column appeared on ESPN.com, the network released a statement saying "it aggressively seeks and embraces feedback of all kinds."
Monday, July 19, 2010
Gilbert calls LeBron ‘self-titled former King,” guarantees championship
Gilbert calls LeBron ‘self-titled former King,” guarantees championship
by Jason Lloyd on July 8, 2010 - 11:24 pm
in Uncategorized
Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert didn’t hold back his thoughts about LeBron this evening here is his open letter to the fans about the `self-proclaimed former King:’
Dear Cleveland, All Of Northeast Ohio and Cleveland Cavaliers Supporters Wherever You May Be Tonight;
As you now know, our former hero, who grew up in the very region that he deserted this evening, is no longer a Cleveland Cavalier.
This was announced with a several day, narcissistic, self-promotional build-up culminating with a national TV special of his “decision” unlike anything ever “witnessed” in the history of sports and probably the history of entertainment.
Clearly, this is bitterly disappointing to all of us.
The good news is that the ownership team and the rest of the hard-working, loyal, and driven staff over here at your hometown Cavaliers have not betrayed you nor NEVER will betray you.
There is so much more to tell you about the events of the recent past and our more than exciting future. Over the next several days and weeks, we will be communicating much of that to you.
You simply don’t deserve this kind of cowardly betrayal.
You have given so much and deserve so much more.
In the meantime, I want to make one statement to you tonight:
“I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WILL WIN AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER ‘KING’ WINS ONE”
You can take it to the bank.
If you thought we were motivated before tonight to bring the hardware to Cleveland, I can tell you that this shameful display of selfishness and betrayal by one of our very own has shifted our “motivation” to previously unknown and previously never experienced levels.
Some people think they should go to heaven but NOT have to die to get there.
Sorry, but that’s simply not how it works.
This shocking act of disloyalty from our home grown “chosen one” sends the exact opposite lesson of what we would want our children to learn. And “who” we would want them to grow-up to become.
But the good news is that this heartless and callous action can only serve as the antidote to the so-called “curse” on Cleveland, Ohio.
The self-declared former “King” will be taking the “curse” with him down south. And until he does “right” by Cleveland and Ohio, James (and the town where he plays) will unfortunately own this dreaded spell and bad karma.
Just watch.
Sleep well, Cleveland.
Tomorrow is a new and much brighter day….
I PROMISE you that our energy, focus, capital, knowledge and experience will be directed at one thing and one thing only:
DELIVERING YOU the championship you have long deserved and is long overdue….
Dan Gilbert
Majority Owner
Cleveland Cavaliers
by Jason Lloyd on July 8, 2010 - 11:24 pm
in Uncategorized
Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert didn’t hold back his thoughts about LeBron this evening here is his open letter to the fans about the `self-proclaimed former King:’
Dear Cleveland, All Of Northeast Ohio and Cleveland Cavaliers Supporters Wherever You May Be Tonight;
As you now know, our former hero, who grew up in the very region that he deserted this evening, is no longer a Cleveland Cavalier.
This was announced with a several day, narcissistic, self-promotional build-up culminating with a national TV special of his “decision” unlike anything ever “witnessed” in the history of sports and probably the history of entertainment.
Clearly, this is bitterly disappointing to all of us.
The good news is that the ownership team and the rest of the hard-working, loyal, and driven staff over here at your hometown Cavaliers have not betrayed you nor NEVER will betray you.
There is so much more to tell you about the events of the recent past and our more than exciting future. Over the next several days and weeks, we will be communicating much of that to you.
You simply don’t deserve this kind of cowardly betrayal.
You have given so much and deserve so much more.
In the meantime, I want to make one statement to you tonight:
“I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WILL WIN AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER ‘KING’ WINS ONE”
You can take it to the bank.
If you thought we were motivated before tonight to bring the hardware to Cleveland, I can tell you that this shameful display of selfishness and betrayal by one of our very own has shifted our “motivation” to previously unknown and previously never experienced levels.
Some people think they should go to heaven but NOT have to die to get there.
Sorry, but that’s simply not how it works.
This shocking act of disloyalty from our home grown “chosen one” sends the exact opposite lesson of what we would want our children to learn. And “who” we would want them to grow-up to become.
But the good news is that this heartless and callous action can only serve as the antidote to the so-called “curse” on Cleveland, Ohio.
The self-declared former “King” will be taking the “curse” with him down south. And until he does “right” by Cleveland and Ohio, James (and the town where he plays) will unfortunately own this dreaded spell and bad karma.
Just watch.
Sleep well, Cleveland.
Tomorrow is a new and much brighter day….
I PROMISE you that our energy, focus, capital, knowledge and experience will be directed at one thing and one thing only:
DELIVERING YOU the championship you have long deserved and is long overdue….
Dan Gilbert
Majority Owner
Cleveland Cavaliers
Cavs owner says LeBron quit in playoffs
Cavs owner says LeBron quit in playoffs
By Tom Withers
Associated Press
POSTED: 11:40 a.m. EDT, Jul 09, 2010
CLEVELAND: Angered and betrayed by LeBron James' decision to leave for Miami, Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert accused the NBA's MVP of quitting during the playoffs.
Gilbert, who posted a letter to Cavs fans on the team's website shortly after James announced his plans to sign with the Heat, told the Associated Press late Thursday night that it's ''accountability time'' for James.
''He has gotten a free pass,'' Gilbert said in a phone interview with the AP. ''People have covered up for (James) for way too long. Tonight we saw who he really is.''
Gilbert feels James quit on the Cavs during their second-round series against the Boston Celtics, who rallied from a 2-1 deficit to eliminate Cleveland.
''He quit,'' Gilbert said. ''Not just in Game 5, but in Games 2, 4 and 6. Watch the tape. The Boston series was unlike anything in the history of sports for a superstar.''
The Cavaliers were beaten by 32 points in Game 5. During the game, James appeared distracted and uninterested, often glaring at Cleveland's coaches as the Cavs tried to foul to get back into the game in the second half. James also made some puzzling postgame comments, saying he had ''spoiled'' people with his play over seven seasons.
Gilbert also said he believes James quit on the Cavs in Game 6 of their series in 2009 against Orlando.
''Go back and look at the tape,'' he said. ''How many shots did he take?''
Gilbert, who has owned the Cavs for five years, said he was most disappointed by James' behavior in the months leading up to the superstar's announcement that he is going to Miami to play with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. Gilbert said James never returned a single phone message or text since the end of the season and that the Cavs were not informed of James' decision until he went on the air.
Gilbert said Rich Paul, one of James' business partners, called the Cavs moments before the announcement.
''LeBron James needs to go to another team with two superstars already so he can win a championship,'' Gilbert said. ''We will win a championship before (the Heat) do.''
Gilbert said he now wishes he had done some things differently with James, who spent seven seasons with the Cavs.
''It's not about him leaving,'' Gilbert said. ''It's the disrespect. It's time for people to hold these athletes accountable for their actions. Is this the way you raise your children? I've been holding this all in for a long time.''
In Miami, Wade said he was stunned by Gilbert's comments.
''I think I'm happy that I have the owner that I have here in Miami,'' Wade told The Associated Press late Thursday night. ''I'm happy Micky Arison is my owner. I couldn't believe it. I'm speechless. It's very unfortunate and I think it makes LeBron that much better about his decision.
''We knew 'Bron would take some backlash,'' Wade added in his interview with AP. ''I told him he's a strong man for it.''
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Associated Press writer Tim Reynolds in Miami contributed to this report.
CLEVELAND: Angered and betrayed by LeBron James' decision to leave for Miami, Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert accused the NBA's MVP of quitting during the playoffs.
Gilbert, who posted a letter to Cavs fans on the team's website shortly after James announced his plans to sign with the Heat, told the Associated Press late Thursday night that it's ''accountability time'' for James.
''He has gotten a free pass,'' Gilbert said in a phone interview with the AP. ''People have covered up for (James) for way too long. Tonight we saw who he really is.''
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Gilbert feels James quit on the Cavs during their second-round series against the Boston Celtics, who rallied from a 2-1 deficit to eliminate Cleveland.
''He quit,'' Gilbert said. ''Not just in Game 5, but in Games 2, 4 and 6. Watch the tape. The Boston series was unlike anything in the history of sports for a superstar.''
The Cavaliers were beaten by 32 points in Game 5. During the game, James appeared distracted and uninterested, often glaring at Cleveland's coaches as the Cavs tried to foul to get back into the game in the second half. James also made some puzzling postgame comments, saying he had ''spoiled'' people with his play over seven seasons.
Gilbert also said he believes James quit on the Cavs in Game 6 of their series in 2009 against Orlando.
''Go back and look at the tape,'' he said. ''How many shots did he take?''
Gilbert, who has owned the Cavs for five years, said he was most disappointed by James' behavior in the months leading up to the superstar's announcement that he is going to Miami to play with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. Gilbert said James never returned a single phone message or text since the end of the season and that the Cavs were not informed of James' decision until he went on the air.
Gilbert said Rich Paul, one of James' business partners, called the Cavs moments before the announcement.
''LeBron James needs to go to another team with two superstars already so he can win a championship,'' Gilbert said. ''We will win a championship before (the Heat) do.''
Gilbert said he now wishes he had done some things differently with James, who spent seven seasons with the Cavs.
''It's not about him leaving,'' Gilbert said. ''It's the disrespect. It's time for people to hold these athletes accountable for their actions. Is this the way you raise your children? I've been holding this all in for a long time.''
In Miami, Wade said he was stunned by Gilbert's comments.
''I think I'm happy that I have the owner that I have here in Miami,'' Wade told The Associated Press late Thursday night. ''I'm happy Micky Arison is my owner. I couldn't believe it. I'm speechless. It's very unfortunate and I think it makes LeBron that much better about his decision.
''We knew 'Bron would take some backlash,'' Wade added in his interview with AP. ''I told him he's a strong man for it.''
By Tom Withers
Associated Press
POSTED: 11:40 a.m. EDT, Jul 09, 2010
CLEVELAND: Angered and betrayed by LeBron James' decision to leave for Miami, Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert accused the NBA's MVP of quitting during the playoffs.
Gilbert, who posted a letter to Cavs fans on the team's website shortly after James announced his plans to sign with the Heat, told the Associated Press late Thursday night that it's ''accountability time'' for James.
''He has gotten a free pass,'' Gilbert said in a phone interview with the AP. ''People have covered up for (James) for way too long. Tonight we saw who he really is.''
Gilbert feels James quit on the Cavs during their second-round series against the Boston Celtics, who rallied from a 2-1 deficit to eliminate Cleveland.
''He quit,'' Gilbert said. ''Not just in Game 5, but in Games 2, 4 and 6. Watch the tape. The Boston series was unlike anything in the history of sports for a superstar.''
The Cavaliers were beaten by 32 points in Game 5. During the game, James appeared distracted and uninterested, often glaring at Cleveland's coaches as the Cavs tried to foul to get back into the game in the second half. James also made some puzzling postgame comments, saying he had ''spoiled'' people with his play over seven seasons.
Gilbert also said he believes James quit on the Cavs in Game 6 of their series in 2009 against Orlando.
''Go back and look at the tape,'' he said. ''How many shots did he take?''
Gilbert, who has owned the Cavs for five years, said he was most disappointed by James' behavior in the months leading up to the superstar's announcement that he is going to Miami to play with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. Gilbert said James never returned a single phone message or text since the end of the season and that the Cavs were not informed of James' decision until he went on the air.
Gilbert said Rich Paul, one of James' business partners, called the Cavs moments before the announcement.
''LeBron James needs to go to another team with two superstars already so he can win a championship,'' Gilbert said. ''We will win a championship before (the Heat) do.''
Gilbert said he now wishes he had done some things differently with James, who spent seven seasons with the Cavs.
''It's not about him leaving,'' Gilbert said. ''It's the disrespect. It's time for people to hold these athletes accountable for their actions. Is this the way you raise your children? I've been holding this all in for a long time.''
In Miami, Wade said he was stunned by Gilbert's comments.
''I think I'm happy that I have the owner that I have here in Miami,'' Wade told The Associated Press late Thursday night. ''I'm happy Micky Arison is my owner. I couldn't believe it. I'm speechless. It's very unfortunate and I think it makes LeBron that much better about his decision.
''We knew 'Bron would take some backlash,'' Wade added in his interview with AP. ''I told him he's a strong man for it.''
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Associated Press writer Tim Reynolds in Miami contributed to this report.
CLEVELAND: Angered and betrayed by LeBron James' decision to leave for Miami, Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert accused the NBA's MVP of quitting during the playoffs.
Gilbert, who posted a letter to Cavs fans on the team's website shortly after James announced his plans to sign with the Heat, told the Associated Press late Thursday night that it's ''accountability time'' for James.
''He has gotten a free pass,'' Gilbert said in a phone interview with the AP. ''People have covered up for (James) for way too long. Tonight we saw who he really is.''
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Gilbert feels James quit on the Cavs during their second-round series against the Boston Celtics, who rallied from a 2-1 deficit to eliminate Cleveland.
''He quit,'' Gilbert said. ''Not just in Game 5, but in Games 2, 4 and 6. Watch the tape. The Boston series was unlike anything in the history of sports for a superstar.''
The Cavaliers were beaten by 32 points in Game 5. During the game, James appeared distracted and uninterested, often glaring at Cleveland's coaches as the Cavs tried to foul to get back into the game in the second half. James also made some puzzling postgame comments, saying he had ''spoiled'' people with his play over seven seasons.
Gilbert also said he believes James quit on the Cavs in Game 6 of their series in 2009 against Orlando.
''Go back and look at the tape,'' he said. ''How many shots did he take?''
Gilbert, who has owned the Cavs for five years, said he was most disappointed by James' behavior in the months leading up to the superstar's announcement that he is going to Miami to play with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. Gilbert said James never returned a single phone message or text since the end of the season and that the Cavs were not informed of James' decision until he went on the air.
Gilbert said Rich Paul, one of James' business partners, called the Cavs moments before the announcement.
''LeBron James needs to go to another team with two superstars already so he can win a championship,'' Gilbert said. ''We will win a championship before (the Heat) do.''
Gilbert said he now wishes he had done some things differently with James, who spent seven seasons with the Cavs.
''It's not about him leaving,'' Gilbert said. ''It's the disrespect. It's time for people to hold these athletes accountable for their actions. Is this the way you raise your children? I've been holding this all in for a long time.''
In Miami, Wade said he was stunned by Gilbert's comments.
''I think I'm happy that I have the owner that I have here in Miami,'' Wade told The Associated Press late Thursday night. ''I'm happy Micky Arison is my owner. I couldn't believe it. I'm speechless. It's very unfortunate and I think it makes LeBron that much better about his decision.
''We knew 'Bron would take some backlash,'' Wade added in his interview with AP. ''I told him he's a strong man for it.''
LeBron responds to Gilbert’s scathing letter
LeBron responds to Gilbert’s scathing letter
by Marla Ridenour on July 11, 2010 - 11:37 am
in Dan Gilbert,LeBron James,Miami Heat,free agency
Former Cavs star LeBron James criticized team owner Dan Gilbert’s emotional letter to fans in an interview with Rachel Nichols airing on ESPN’s ”Sunday Conversation.”
Portions of the interview were shown during the network’s Sunday morning ”SportsCenter.” James announced Thursday night during a one-hour ESPN special that he was jumping to the Miami Heat after seven years in Cleveland.
”I think it’s unfortunate that he did that,” James said of Gilbert’s response. ”I understand that the fans are hurt and I wish it could have been a different way. But Dan and whoever his partners are have to look themselves in the mirror and understand what he may have done may have cost them in the long run.”
When Nichols commented that Gilbert’s language was extremely strong, James said, ”I’ve heard worse. I’ve been in a single-parent household, I’ve heard worse.”
Asked if he called the Cavs personally on Thursday, James said, ”I didn’t talk to anyone personally because … I got to a point the last day, I heard so much throughout the whole process. The last day I wanted to be about me. I didn’t want to talk to anybody. So when I went to that interview I was comfortable with myself and I wasn’t hearing other people’s voices going on in my decision. I didn’t talk to anybody.”
by Marla Ridenour on July 11, 2010 - 11:37 am
in Dan Gilbert,LeBron James,Miami Heat,free agency
Former Cavs star LeBron James criticized team owner Dan Gilbert’s emotional letter to fans in an interview with Rachel Nichols airing on ESPN’s ”Sunday Conversation.”
Portions of the interview were shown during the network’s Sunday morning ”SportsCenter.” James announced Thursday night during a one-hour ESPN special that he was jumping to the Miami Heat after seven years in Cleveland.
”I think it’s unfortunate that he did that,” James said of Gilbert’s response. ”I understand that the fans are hurt and I wish it could have been a different way. But Dan and whoever his partners are have to look themselves in the mirror and understand what he may have done may have cost them in the long run.”
When Nichols commented that Gilbert’s language was extremely strong, James said, ”I’ve heard worse. I’ve been in a single-parent household, I’ve heard worse.”
Asked if he called the Cavs personally on Thursday, James said, ”I didn’t talk to anyone personally because … I got to a point the last day, I heard so much throughout the whole process. The last day I wanted to be about me. I didn’t want to talk to anybody. So when I went to that interview I was comfortable with myself and I wasn’t hearing other people’s voices going on in my decision. I didn’t talk to anybody.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtIaMr2hGeI&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtIaMr2hGeI&feature=player_embedded
Steve Corell spoof "The Decision"
Steve Corell spoof "The Decision"
Gilbert apologizes, but LeBron doesn't
Gilbert apologizes, but LeBron doesn't
Cavs owner still hopes to deliver championship, says offseason won't revolve around making James happy
By Marla Ridenour
Beacon Journal sports writer
POSTED: 08:36 p.m. EDT, May 14, 2010
INDEPENDENCE: ''Sorry'' seemed to be the hardest word for LeBron James after another Cleveland dream died hard Thursday night.
Fans in Northeast Ohio, looking for an apology from James or even some sincere feelings of agony after the Cavaliers were eliminated from the playoffs by the Boston Celtics, went to bed hurt and perhaps a little angry.
Asked to address the area's faithful who have followed him since his days at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School and for seven years in the NBA, James started talking about how his ''team'' will figure out the best opportunity for him in free agency. His ''I love the city of Cleveland, of course,'' seemed almost an afterthought and his caveat, ''We had a great time together'' sounded ominous.
But Dan Gilbert feels your pain.
The Cavs' owner said everything James didn't Friday afternoon, reaffirming his commitment to building ''the best franchise we possibly can'' and getting ''a little hokey'' as he thought about what he's been charged to deliver.
''This is about . . . this maybe sounds a little hokey, but I thought about the kids waking up in Cleveland, Ohio, this morning and having them be disappointed,'' Gilbert said. ''I'm sorry. I apologize to the fans for what happened because this isn't about money or franchise value. This is about delivering for the fans and to the kids and to the corporate sponsors.
''Plan A is just one plan and that's to continue to get better and rise above this and learn from this and deliver a championship to Cleveland, Ohio.''
Whatever it takes
A decision by James to depart when free agency begins July 1 could have dire financial ramifications for Gilbert, the chairman and founder of Quicken Loans Inc. But although Gilbert learned the hard lesson that compiling the best record in the NBA in the regular season for the past two seasons means nothing in the playoffs, it hasn't shaken him in his quest to deliver the first major professional title for Cleveland since the 1964 Browns.
''We will continue to do whatever it takes and I mean whatever it takes,'' Gilbert said. ''One thing that Cleveland should understand — when you start to get little messages that this is the beginning of the end and the franchise is going to move — that's absurd. That's not a thought that's ever even occurred, not in this ownership. We're more motivated than ever. Cleveland deserves more than any town I've ever been in, and the people here, to have a winner.
''And I'll tell you what, worse than any of this, anything that's happened, is looking at the people here and seeing them go, 'Here we go again.' It's a nightmare and we've got to get through it and we will.''
Playoff troubles
Since Gilbert took over in March 2005, the Cavs have advanced past the first round of the playoffs in each of his five full seasons. But their only trip to the NBA Finals came in 2007, when they were swept by the San Antonio Spurs. This year, expectations were over the moon.
''Most e-mails have been pretty positive and supportive, but there's nothing anybody can say to any of us here that is going to mask the fact that we didn't do what we were supposed to do,'' Gilbert said. ''There's no use denying that. There's no sugar-coating it. That's a big blow to a lot of people here.''
As for convincing James to stay in Cleveland, Gilbert had a hard time turning his thoughts to July, when the Chicago Bulls, New York Knicks and New Jersey Nets will be among those trying to woo the two-time NBA Most Valuable Player.
Asked if the Cavs were still in the James sweepstakes, Gilbert said, ''I don't know about a sweepstakes thing, is there a drawing somewhere? Of course, we fully believe this is the best franchise for him to play at and hopefully most players would look at it like that. We will do everything in our power to attract great talent and keep great talent.''
While the future of coach Mike Brown is being evaluated, Gilbert insisted that he does not look at the offseason in the context of doing what he can to make James happy.
''As great as LeBron James is, and at this point he's one of the greatest players to play this game, we don't sit around and say, 'How can we make him happy? How can we make anybody happy?' We strategize and say, 'How can this team come together . . . to give us the best chance of winning.' You can see, there's no one man or even two players who can win a playoff series, especially the second round or later. It's really got to be a team effort and everybody's accountable.''
Ferry's future
General Manager Danny Ferry's future might also be in jeopardy. But after playing for the Cavs for 10 years and serving in his present post for five more, Ferry was also flooded with e-mails, texts and voice mails from hurting fans.
''I know how important winning is to Northeast Ohio and you can trust that Dan Gilbert and the Cavs organization will always have the thirst to make sure they try to bring it,'' Ferry said. ''That's a given, trust me. Dan is very driven in that regard.''
With a summer of insecurity ahead, that's the best assurance Cleveland fans might get for a while.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marla Ridenour can be reached at mridenour@thebeaconjournal.com. Read her Browns blog at http://www.ohiomm.com/blogs/browns/. Follow the Browns on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ABJ_Browns.
Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert talks to the media during a news conference on Friday in Independence. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak) INDEPENDENCE: ''Sorry'' seemed to be the hardest word for LeBron James after another Cleveland dream died hard Thursday night.
Fans in Northeast Ohio, looking for an apology from James or even some sincere feelings of agony after the Cavaliers were eliminated from the playoffs by the Boston Celtics, went to bed hurt and perhaps a little angry.
Asked to address the area's faithful who have followed him since his days at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School and for seven years in the NBA, James started talking about how his ''team'' will figure out the best opportunity for him in free agency. His ''I love the city of Cleveland, of course,'' seemed almost an afterthought and his caveat, ''We had a great time together'' sounded ominous.
But Dan Gilbert feels your pain.
The Cavs' owner said everything James didn't Friday afternoon, reaffirming his commitment to building ''the best franchise we possibly can'' and getting ''a little hokey'' as he thought about what he's been charged to deliver.
''This is about . . . this maybe sounds a little hokey, but I thought about the kids waking up in Cleveland, Ohio, this morning and having them be disappointed,'' Gilbert said. ''I'm sorry. I apologize to the fans for what happened because this isn't about money or franchise value. This is about delivering for the fans and to the kids and to the corporate sponsors.
''Plan A is just one plan and that's to continue to get better and rise above this and learn from this and deliver a championship to Cleveland, Ohio.''
Whatever it takes
A decision by James to depart when free agency begins July 1 could have dire financial ramifications for Gilbert, the chairman and founder of Quicken Loans Inc. But although Gilbert learned the hard lesson that compiling the best record in the NBA in the regular season for the past two seasons means nothing in the playoffs, it hasn't shaken him in his quest to deliver the first major professional title for Cleveland since the 1964 Browns.
''We will continue to do whatever it takes and I mean whatever it takes,'' Gilbert said. ''One thing that Cleveland should understand — when you start to get little messages that this is the beginning of the end and the franchise is going to move — that's absurd. That's not a thought that's ever even occurred, not in this ownership. We're more motivated than ever. Cleveland deserves more than any town I've ever been in, and the people here, to have a winner.
''And I'll tell you what, worse than any of this, anything that's happened, is looking at the people here and seeing them go, 'Here we go again.' It's a nightmare and we've got to get through it and we will.''
Playoff troubles
Since Gilbert took over in March 2005, the Cavs have advanced past the first round of the playoffs in each of his five full seasons. But their only trip to the NBA Finals came in 2007, when they were swept by the San Antonio Spurs. This year, expectations were over the moon.
''Most e-mails have been pretty positive and supportive, but there's nothing anybody can say to any of us here that is going to mask the fact that we didn't do what we were supposed to do,'' Gilbert said. ''There's no use denying that. There's no sugar-coating it. That's a big blow to a lot of people here.''
As for convincing James to stay in Cleveland, Gilbert had a hard time turning his thoughts to July, when the Chicago Bulls, New York Knicks and New Jersey Nets will be among those trying to woo the two-time NBA Most Valuable Player.
Asked if the Cavs were still in the James sweepstakes, Gilbert said, ''I don't know about a sweepstakes thing, is there a drawing somewhere? Of course, we fully believe this is the best franchise for him to play at and hopefully most players would look at it like that. We will do everything in our power to attract great talent and keep great talent.''
While the future of coach Mike Brown is being evaluated, Gilbert insisted that he does not look at the offseason in the context of doing what he can to make James happy.
''As great as LeBron James is, and at this point he's one of the greatest players to play this game, we don't sit around and say, 'How can we make him happy? How can we make anybody happy?' We strategize and say, 'How can this team come together . . . to give us the best chance of winning.' You can see, there's no one man or even two players who can win a playoff series, especially the second round or later. It's really got to be a team effort and everybody's accountable.''
Ferry's future
General Manager Danny Ferry's future might also be in jeopardy. But after playing for the Cavs for 10 years and serving in his present post for five more, Ferry was also flooded with e-mails, texts and voice mails from hurting fans.
''I know how important winning is to Northeast Ohio and you can trust that Dan Gilbert and the Cavs organization will always have the thirst to make sure they try to bring it,'' Ferry said. ''That's a given, trust me. Dan is very driven in that regard.''
With a summer of insecurity ahead, that's the best assurance Cleveland fans might get for a while.
Cavs owner still hopes to deliver championship, says offseason won't revolve around making James happy
By Marla Ridenour
Beacon Journal sports writer
POSTED: 08:36 p.m. EDT, May 14, 2010
INDEPENDENCE: ''Sorry'' seemed to be the hardest word for LeBron James after another Cleveland dream died hard Thursday night.
Fans in Northeast Ohio, looking for an apology from James or even some sincere feelings of agony after the Cavaliers were eliminated from the playoffs by the Boston Celtics, went to bed hurt and perhaps a little angry.
Asked to address the area's faithful who have followed him since his days at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School and for seven years in the NBA, James started talking about how his ''team'' will figure out the best opportunity for him in free agency. His ''I love the city of Cleveland, of course,'' seemed almost an afterthought and his caveat, ''We had a great time together'' sounded ominous.
But Dan Gilbert feels your pain.
The Cavs' owner said everything James didn't Friday afternoon, reaffirming his commitment to building ''the best franchise we possibly can'' and getting ''a little hokey'' as he thought about what he's been charged to deliver.
''This is about . . . this maybe sounds a little hokey, but I thought about the kids waking up in Cleveland, Ohio, this morning and having them be disappointed,'' Gilbert said. ''I'm sorry. I apologize to the fans for what happened because this isn't about money or franchise value. This is about delivering for the fans and to the kids and to the corporate sponsors.
''Plan A is just one plan and that's to continue to get better and rise above this and learn from this and deliver a championship to Cleveland, Ohio.''
Whatever it takes
A decision by James to depart when free agency begins July 1 could have dire financial ramifications for Gilbert, the chairman and founder of Quicken Loans Inc. But although Gilbert learned the hard lesson that compiling the best record in the NBA in the regular season for the past two seasons means nothing in the playoffs, it hasn't shaken him in his quest to deliver the first major professional title for Cleveland since the 1964 Browns.
''We will continue to do whatever it takes and I mean whatever it takes,'' Gilbert said. ''One thing that Cleveland should understand — when you start to get little messages that this is the beginning of the end and the franchise is going to move — that's absurd. That's not a thought that's ever even occurred, not in this ownership. We're more motivated than ever. Cleveland deserves more than any town I've ever been in, and the people here, to have a winner.
''And I'll tell you what, worse than any of this, anything that's happened, is looking at the people here and seeing them go, 'Here we go again.' It's a nightmare and we've got to get through it and we will.''
Playoff troubles
Since Gilbert took over in March 2005, the Cavs have advanced past the first round of the playoffs in each of his five full seasons. But their only trip to the NBA Finals came in 2007, when they were swept by the San Antonio Spurs. This year, expectations were over the moon.
''Most e-mails have been pretty positive and supportive, but there's nothing anybody can say to any of us here that is going to mask the fact that we didn't do what we were supposed to do,'' Gilbert said. ''There's no use denying that. There's no sugar-coating it. That's a big blow to a lot of people here.''
As for convincing James to stay in Cleveland, Gilbert had a hard time turning his thoughts to July, when the Chicago Bulls, New York Knicks and New Jersey Nets will be among those trying to woo the two-time NBA Most Valuable Player.
Asked if the Cavs were still in the James sweepstakes, Gilbert said, ''I don't know about a sweepstakes thing, is there a drawing somewhere? Of course, we fully believe this is the best franchise for him to play at and hopefully most players would look at it like that. We will do everything in our power to attract great talent and keep great talent.''
While the future of coach Mike Brown is being evaluated, Gilbert insisted that he does not look at the offseason in the context of doing what he can to make James happy.
''As great as LeBron James is, and at this point he's one of the greatest players to play this game, we don't sit around and say, 'How can we make him happy? How can we make anybody happy?' We strategize and say, 'How can this team come together . . . to give us the best chance of winning.' You can see, there's no one man or even two players who can win a playoff series, especially the second round or later. It's really got to be a team effort and everybody's accountable.''
Ferry's future
General Manager Danny Ferry's future might also be in jeopardy. But after playing for the Cavs for 10 years and serving in his present post for five more, Ferry was also flooded with e-mails, texts and voice mails from hurting fans.
''I know how important winning is to Northeast Ohio and you can trust that Dan Gilbert and the Cavs organization will always have the thirst to make sure they try to bring it,'' Ferry said. ''That's a given, trust me. Dan is very driven in that regard.''
With a summer of insecurity ahead, that's the best assurance Cleveland fans might get for a while.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marla Ridenour can be reached at mridenour@thebeaconjournal.com. Read her Browns blog at http://www.ohiomm.com/blogs/browns/. Follow the Browns on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ABJ_Browns.
Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert talks to the media during a news conference on Friday in Independence. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak) INDEPENDENCE: ''Sorry'' seemed to be the hardest word for LeBron James after another Cleveland dream died hard Thursday night.
Fans in Northeast Ohio, looking for an apology from James or even some sincere feelings of agony after the Cavaliers were eliminated from the playoffs by the Boston Celtics, went to bed hurt and perhaps a little angry.
Asked to address the area's faithful who have followed him since his days at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School and for seven years in the NBA, James started talking about how his ''team'' will figure out the best opportunity for him in free agency. His ''I love the city of Cleveland, of course,'' seemed almost an afterthought and his caveat, ''We had a great time together'' sounded ominous.
But Dan Gilbert feels your pain.
The Cavs' owner said everything James didn't Friday afternoon, reaffirming his commitment to building ''the best franchise we possibly can'' and getting ''a little hokey'' as he thought about what he's been charged to deliver.
''This is about . . . this maybe sounds a little hokey, but I thought about the kids waking up in Cleveland, Ohio, this morning and having them be disappointed,'' Gilbert said. ''I'm sorry. I apologize to the fans for what happened because this isn't about money or franchise value. This is about delivering for the fans and to the kids and to the corporate sponsors.
''Plan A is just one plan and that's to continue to get better and rise above this and learn from this and deliver a championship to Cleveland, Ohio.''
Whatever it takes
A decision by James to depart when free agency begins July 1 could have dire financial ramifications for Gilbert, the chairman and founder of Quicken Loans Inc. But although Gilbert learned the hard lesson that compiling the best record in the NBA in the regular season for the past two seasons means nothing in the playoffs, it hasn't shaken him in his quest to deliver the first major professional title for Cleveland since the 1964 Browns.
''We will continue to do whatever it takes and I mean whatever it takes,'' Gilbert said. ''One thing that Cleveland should understand — when you start to get little messages that this is the beginning of the end and the franchise is going to move — that's absurd. That's not a thought that's ever even occurred, not in this ownership. We're more motivated than ever. Cleveland deserves more than any town I've ever been in, and the people here, to have a winner.
''And I'll tell you what, worse than any of this, anything that's happened, is looking at the people here and seeing them go, 'Here we go again.' It's a nightmare and we've got to get through it and we will.''
Playoff troubles
Since Gilbert took over in March 2005, the Cavs have advanced past the first round of the playoffs in each of his five full seasons. But their only trip to the NBA Finals came in 2007, when they were swept by the San Antonio Spurs. This year, expectations were over the moon.
''Most e-mails have been pretty positive and supportive, but there's nothing anybody can say to any of us here that is going to mask the fact that we didn't do what we were supposed to do,'' Gilbert said. ''There's no use denying that. There's no sugar-coating it. That's a big blow to a lot of people here.''
As for convincing James to stay in Cleveland, Gilbert had a hard time turning his thoughts to July, when the Chicago Bulls, New York Knicks and New Jersey Nets will be among those trying to woo the two-time NBA Most Valuable Player.
Asked if the Cavs were still in the James sweepstakes, Gilbert said, ''I don't know about a sweepstakes thing, is there a drawing somewhere? Of course, we fully believe this is the best franchise for him to play at and hopefully most players would look at it like that. We will do everything in our power to attract great talent and keep great talent.''
While the future of coach Mike Brown is being evaluated, Gilbert insisted that he does not look at the offseason in the context of doing what he can to make James happy.
''As great as LeBron James is, and at this point he's one of the greatest players to play this game, we don't sit around and say, 'How can we make him happy? How can we make anybody happy?' We strategize and say, 'How can this team come together . . . to give us the best chance of winning.' You can see, there's no one man or even two players who can win a playoff series, especially the second round or later. It's really got to be a team effort and everybody's accountable.''
Ferry's future
General Manager Danny Ferry's future might also be in jeopardy. But after playing for the Cavs for 10 years and serving in his present post for five more, Ferry was also flooded with e-mails, texts and voice mails from hurting fans.
''I know how important winning is to Northeast Ohio and you can trust that Dan Gilbert and the Cavs organization will always have the thirst to make sure they try to bring it,'' Ferry said. ''That's a given, trust me. Dan is very driven in that regard.''
With a summer of insecurity ahead, that's the best assurance Cleveland fans might get for a while.
Police: Akron woman who tried to sell stolen LeBron pendant is a suspect
Police: Akron woman who tried to sell stolen LeBron pendant is a suspect
By Associated Press
POSTED: 06:48 a.m. EDT, Jul 16, 2010
Updated at 1:21 p.m.
WADSWORTH: Police say a woman who tried to sell a $10,000 pendant stolen from a LeBron James business partner is a suspect in the case.
A police report identifies 19-year-old Vaneisha Robinson of Akron as a suspect in receiving stolen property but doesn't elaborate. No arrests have been made.
The white gold diamond-studded pendant is in the shape of James' basketball jersey. It was stolen three years ago from Maverick O. Carter, the CEO for James' marketing company.
Robinson says she bought it for $5 at a yard sale, got it appraised and put it for sale on eBay.
She says she then got a call and was invited to the Carter house, where Robinson says she was forced to hand it over.
Robinson has an unlisted phone and could not be reached for comment Friday.
Robinson tells WEWS-TV the pendant belongs to her and she wants it back.
Read the full story on NewsNet5.com
Updated at 1:21 p.m.
WADSWORTH: Police say a woman who tried to sell a $10,000 pendant stolen from a LeBron James business partner is a suspect in the case.
A police report identifies 19-year-old Vaneisha Robinson of Akron as a suspect in receiving stolen property but doesn't elaborate. No arrests have been made.
The white gold diamond-studded pendant is in the shape of James' basketball jersey. It was stolen three years ago from Maverick O. Carter, the CEO for James' marketing company.
Robinson says she bought it for $5 at a yard sale, got it appraised and put it for sale on eBay.
She says she then got a call and was invited to the Carter house, where Robinson says she was forced to hand it over.
Robinson has an unlisted phone and could not be reached for comment Friday.
Robinson tells WEWS-TV the pendant belongs to her and she wants it back.
By Associated Press
POSTED: 06:48 a.m. EDT, Jul 16, 2010
Updated at 1:21 p.m.
WADSWORTH: Police say a woman who tried to sell a $10,000 pendant stolen from a LeBron James business partner is a suspect in the case.
A police report identifies 19-year-old Vaneisha Robinson of Akron as a suspect in receiving stolen property but doesn't elaborate. No arrests have been made.
The white gold diamond-studded pendant is in the shape of James' basketball jersey. It was stolen three years ago from Maverick O. Carter, the CEO for James' marketing company.
Robinson says she bought it for $5 at a yard sale, got it appraised and put it for sale on eBay.
She says she then got a call and was invited to the Carter house, where Robinson says she was forced to hand it over.
Robinson has an unlisted phone and could not be reached for comment Friday.
Robinson tells WEWS-TV the pendant belongs to her and she wants it back.
Read the full story on NewsNet5.com
Updated at 1:21 p.m.
WADSWORTH: Police say a woman who tried to sell a $10,000 pendant stolen from a LeBron James business partner is a suspect in the case.
A police report identifies 19-year-old Vaneisha Robinson of Akron as a suspect in receiving stolen property but doesn't elaborate. No arrests have been made.
The white gold diamond-studded pendant is in the shape of James' basketball jersey. It was stolen three years ago from Maverick O. Carter, the CEO for James' marketing company.
Robinson says she bought it for $5 at a yard sale, got it appraised and put it for sale on eBay.
She says she then got a call and was invited to the Carter house, where Robinson says she was forced to hand it over.
Robinson has an unlisted phone and could not be reached for comment Friday.
Robinson tells WEWS-TV the pendant belongs to her and she wants it back.
New twist in LeBron pendant case
New twist in LeBron pendant case
By Beacon Journal staff report
POSTED: 07:00 p.m. EDT, Jul 16, 2010
WADSWORTH: A woman who tried to sell a $10,000 pendant stolen from a LeBron James business partner is a suspect in the case, police said.
The white gold diamond-studded pendant is in the shape of James' basketball jersey. Maverick O. Carter, the CEO for James' marketing company, says it was stolen from him three years ago.
The police incident report obtained Friday identified Vaneisha Robinson, 19, of Akron, as a suspect in the receiving stolen property investigation but didn't elaborate. No immediate arrests were made and police didn't immediately return calls Friday.
Robinson declined comment to the Beacon Journal on Friday. Her attorney, Patrick Kramer, told WEWS-TV he doesn't believe Carter ever filed a police report or insurance claim on the pendant. Kramer will fight to get it back to Robinson.
''For police to call her a suspect is irresponsible,'' Kramer said. ''She's not a suspect. She bought it four years ago.''
Robinson, an amateur boxer, said she bought the pendant four years ago for $5 at a yard sale, recently got it appraised and put it for sale on eBay. She was on TV in Cleveland on Tuesday discussing her surprise at its value.
One day later, she received a call and was invited to the Carter house and was told James would be there to make a pendant offer she couldn't refuse.
But James wasn't there and a crowd of eight or nine people forced her to give up the pendant, she said. ''I was scared for my life,'' Robinson told WEWS.
''They pretty much accused me, they threatened me,'' Robinson said. ''They told us that we weren't going anywhere until they got that pendant.''
A woman called police about the commotion. In a call posted on WEWS, the caller told the 911 operator, ''She was pretty upset. I just kept walking just in case something was about to happen.''
Carter's mother, Katherine Powers, shares the home where the incident occurred with her son. A woman who answered the phone there Friday said Powers was not home and she did not return a call seeking comment.
Police Sgt. James Elchlinger said he was able to determine that the item was one-of-a-kind and belonged to Carter. Police were checking for a theft/loss report.
Carter, who wasn't home at the time of the incident Wednesday, cited the ongoing investigation and declined comment Friday through James' spokesman, Keith Estabrook. Also listed in the police report was Ernest ''Randy'' Mims, another close associate to James.
Last week, James upset many Cleveland fans with his decision to take advantage of his free-agent status to leave the Cavaliers and sign with the Miami Heat.
This undated photo provided by the International Gemological Institute shows both sides of a jeweled pendant made to resemble a Cleveland Cavaliers' LeBron James number 23 jersey. When Vaneisha Robinson bought the diamond studded pendant at a yard sale four years ago, she thought it was costume jewelry. But, after having it appraised, the pendant she paid $5 for four years ago is worth nearly $10,000. (AP Photo/HO, International Gemological Institute)
View larger version>> WADSWORTH: A woman who tried to sell a $10,000 pendant stolen from a LeBron James business partner is a suspect in the case, police said.
The white gold diamond-studded pendant is in the shape of James' basketball jersey. Maverick O. Carter, the CEO for James' marketing company, says it was stolen from him three years ago.
The police incident report obtained Friday identified Vaneisha Robinson, 19, of Akron, as a suspect in the receiving stolen property investigation but didn't elaborate. No immediate arrests were made and police didn't immediately return calls Friday.
Robinson declined comment to the Beacon Journal on Friday. Her attorney, Patrick Kramer, told WEWS-TV he doesn't believe Carter ever filed a police report or insurance claim on the pendant. Kramer will fight to get it back to Robinson.
''For police to call her a suspect is irresponsible,'' Kramer said. ''She's not a suspect. She bought it four years ago.''
Robinson, an amateur boxer, said she bought the pendant four years ago for $5 at a yard sale, recently got it appraised and put it for sale on eBay. She was on TV in Cleveland on Tuesday discussing her surprise at its value.
One day later, she received a call and was invited to the Carter house and was told James would be there to make a pendant offer she couldn't refuse.
But James wasn't there and a crowd of eight or nine people forced her to give up the pendant, she said. ''I was scared for my life,'' Robinson told WEWS.
''They pretty much accused me, they threatened me,'' Robinson said. ''They told us that we weren't going anywhere until they got that pendant.''
A woman called police about the commotion. In a call posted on WEWS, the caller told the 911 operator, ''She was pretty upset. I just kept walking just in case something was about to happen.''
Carter's mother, Katherine Powers, shares the home where the incident occurred with her son. A woman who answered the phone there Friday said Powers was not home and she did not return a call seeking comment.
Police Sgt. James Elchlinger said he was able to determine that the item was one-of-a-kind and belonged to Carter. Police were checking for a theft/loss report.
Carter, who wasn't home at the time of the incident Wednesday, cited the ongoing investigation and declined comment Friday through James' spokesman, Keith Estabrook. Also listed in the police report was Ernest ''Randy'' Mims, another close associate to James.
Last week, James upset many Cleveland fans with his decision to take advantage of his free-agent status to leave the Cavaliers and sign with the Miami Heat.
By Beacon Journal staff report
POSTED: 07:00 p.m. EDT, Jul 16, 2010
WADSWORTH: A woman who tried to sell a $10,000 pendant stolen from a LeBron James business partner is a suspect in the case, police said.
The white gold diamond-studded pendant is in the shape of James' basketball jersey. Maverick O. Carter, the CEO for James' marketing company, says it was stolen from him three years ago.
The police incident report obtained Friday identified Vaneisha Robinson, 19, of Akron, as a suspect in the receiving stolen property investigation but didn't elaborate. No immediate arrests were made and police didn't immediately return calls Friday.
Robinson declined comment to the Beacon Journal on Friday. Her attorney, Patrick Kramer, told WEWS-TV he doesn't believe Carter ever filed a police report or insurance claim on the pendant. Kramer will fight to get it back to Robinson.
''For police to call her a suspect is irresponsible,'' Kramer said. ''She's not a suspect. She bought it four years ago.''
Robinson, an amateur boxer, said she bought the pendant four years ago for $5 at a yard sale, recently got it appraised and put it for sale on eBay. She was on TV in Cleveland on Tuesday discussing her surprise at its value.
One day later, she received a call and was invited to the Carter house and was told James would be there to make a pendant offer she couldn't refuse.
But James wasn't there and a crowd of eight or nine people forced her to give up the pendant, she said. ''I was scared for my life,'' Robinson told WEWS.
''They pretty much accused me, they threatened me,'' Robinson said. ''They told us that we weren't going anywhere until they got that pendant.''
A woman called police about the commotion. In a call posted on WEWS, the caller told the 911 operator, ''She was pretty upset. I just kept walking just in case something was about to happen.''
Carter's mother, Katherine Powers, shares the home where the incident occurred with her son. A woman who answered the phone there Friday said Powers was not home and she did not return a call seeking comment.
Police Sgt. James Elchlinger said he was able to determine that the item was one-of-a-kind and belonged to Carter. Police were checking for a theft/loss report.
Carter, who wasn't home at the time of the incident Wednesday, cited the ongoing investigation and declined comment Friday through James' spokesman, Keith Estabrook. Also listed in the police report was Ernest ''Randy'' Mims, another close associate to James.
Last week, James upset many Cleveland fans with his decision to take advantage of his free-agent status to leave the Cavaliers and sign with the Miami Heat.
This undated photo provided by the International Gemological Institute shows both sides of a jeweled pendant made to resemble a Cleveland Cavaliers' LeBron James number 23 jersey. When Vaneisha Robinson bought the diamond studded pendant at a yard sale four years ago, she thought it was costume jewelry. But, after having it appraised, the pendant she paid $5 for four years ago is worth nearly $10,000. (AP Photo/HO, International Gemological Institute)
View larger version>> WADSWORTH: A woman who tried to sell a $10,000 pendant stolen from a LeBron James business partner is a suspect in the case, police said.
The white gold diamond-studded pendant is in the shape of James' basketball jersey. Maverick O. Carter, the CEO for James' marketing company, says it was stolen from him three years ago.
The police incident report obtained Friday identified Vaneisha Robinson, 19, of Akron, as a suspect in the receiving stolen property investigation but didn't elaborate. No immediate arrests were made and police didn't immediately return calls Friday.
Robinson declined comment to the Beacon Journal on Friday. Her attorney, Patrick Kramer, told WEWS-TV he doesn't believe Carter ever filed a police report or insurance claim on the pendant. Kramer will fight to get it back to Robinson.
''For police to call her a suspect is irresponsible,'' Kramer said. ''She's not a suspect. She bought it four years ago.''
Robinson, an amateur boxer, said she bought the pendant four years ago for $5 at a yard sale, recently got it appraised and put it for sale on eBay. She was on TV in Cleveland on Tuesday discussing her surprise at its value.
One day later, she received a call and was invited to the Carter house and was told James would be there to make a pendant offer she couldn't refuse.
But James wasn't there and a crowd of eight or nine people forced her to give up the pendant, she said. ''I was scared for my life,'' Robinson told WEWS.
''They pretty much accused me, they threatened me,'' Robinson said. ''They told us that we weren't going anywhere until they got that pendant.''
A woman called police about the commotion. In a call posted on WEWS, the caller told the 911 operator, ''She was pretty upset. I just kept walking just in case something was about to happen.''
Carter's mother, Katherine Powers, shares the home where the incident occurred with her son. A woman who answered the phone there Friday said Powers was not home and she did not return a call seeking comment.
Police Sgt. James Elchlinger said he was able to determine that the item was one-of-a-kind and belonged to Carter. Police were checking for a theft/loss report.
Carter, who wasn't home at the time of the incident Wednesday, cited the ongoing investigation and declined comment Friday through James' spokesman, Keith Estabrook. Also listed in the police report was Ernest ''Randy'' Mims, another close associate to James.
Last week, James upset many Cleveland fans with his decision to take advantage of his free-agent status to leave the Cavaliers and sign with the Miami Heat.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Inside look at LeBron’s free-agent coup
Inside look at LeBron’s free-agent coup
By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports
Jul 16, 4:17 pm EDT
Email Print At the Beijing Olympics, where LeBron James(notes) was surrounded by such talent and possibility, the Cleveland Cavaliers began to lose their star to free agency. The beginning of his departure came in small moments on the daily bus rides through the city’s choking smog and bigger ones on the basketball court. Together, Dwyane Wade(notes), Chris Bosh(notes) and James kept talking about the summer of 2010, about the chance of a lifetime to chase championships and roll like a touring rock band.
And yet before Pat Riley’s free-agency vision for the Miami Heat could ever be validated, James had to first become a member of that 2008 Olympic team. The public never knew what those on the inside of American basketball’s elite power structure did: In the years and months before Beijing, that was very much in doubt for James.
Other Popular Sports StoriesAmazing trick shot at the British Open NFL player's rush with great white sharks More From Adrian WojnarowskiEasy come, easy go for King James Jul 9, 2010 State of LeBron: Live at 9, from his ego Jul 7, 2010
LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh have already made the Heat the favorite to win the 2011 championship, according to Las Vegas odds makers.
(Getty Images)
Back when the Heat’s three new superstars had signed short contract extensions and started to explore the idea of free agency thrusting them together, a different discussion had played out within the NBA and USA Basketball: What should we do with LeBron?
From Team USA coach Mike Krzyzewski to managing director Jerry Colangelo to NBA elders, the issue of James’ immaturity and downright disrespectfulness had become a consuming topic on the march to the Olympics. The course of history could’ve changed dramatically, because there was a real risk that James wouldn’t be brought to Beijing based on fears his monumental talents weren’t worth the daily grind of dealing with him.
When the mandate had been to gather these immense egos and get the NBA’s greatest players to fit into a program, no one had a more difficult time meshing into the framework than James. Other players made it a point to learn the names of staffers and modestly go about their business without barking orders and brash demands.
No one could stand James as a 19-year-old in the 2004 Athens Olympics, nor the 2006 World Championships. Officials feared James could become the instigator of everything they wanted to rid themselves for the ’08 Olympics. For as gifted as James was, Krzyzewski and Colangelo subscribed to a belief that with Kobe Bryant(notes) joining the national team in 2007, they could win a gold medal in ’08 with or without LeBron James. Behind the scenes, officials had taken to calling James’ inner circle, “The Enablers.” No one ever told him to grow up. No one ever challenged him. And yet, James was still a powerful pull for his teammates, and everyone had to agree they could no longer let his bossy and belittling act go unchecked. These weren’t the Cleveland Cavaliers, and Team USA wasn’t beholden to him.
After the NBA witnessed the behavior of James and his business manager Maverick Carter during the 2007 All-Star Weekend, the commissioner’s office sent word to USA Basketball the league wouldn’t force James on them for the Olympics. Before Team USA gathered for the 2007 Tournament of the Americas in Las Vegas, an unmistakable message had been delivered to James through Nike: Unless you change, we’re serious about leaving you home.
“Legacies were on the line,” one league official said, “and they weren’t going to let LeBron [expletive] it up for everyone in China.”
[Photos: Fallout from LeBron’s decision]
Through Nike, James ultimately heeded the message and became more tolerable to coaches, teammates and staff. Team USA assigned Jason Kidd(notes) to babysit him at the Tournament of the Americas in 2007, to try to teach him something the Cavaliers never had a veteran to do: professionalism.
When James returned to the Cavaliers, the franchise hoped that he had grown, matured and maybe learned some lessons. Only James understood the angles and leverage he had in Cleveland. Every day, owner Dan Gilbert and general manager Danny Ferry wondered: What must we do to get him to re-sign in 2010?
What will make him happy?
The answer, as the Cavaliers eventually discovered, was nothing. James lived to make demands, but those with knowledge of his plans insist he never intended to re-sign with the Cavaliers.
One week after James joined Wade and Bosh in Miami to potentially alter the NBA’s balance of power for years, Yahoo! Sports has shaped a story of how events unfolded in the free-agent frenzy of 2010 based on interviews with several sources who were either involved in or have direct knowledge of the process.
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Within an hour of the Cavaliers’ season ending in Boston, James’ inner circle, including power broker William Wesley, agent Leon Rose and business manager Maverick Carter, stood outside the visiting locker room grumbling about coach Mike Brown.
Former Cavs GM Danny Ferry (center) never wanted to fire coach Mike Brown, but owner Dan Gilbert (left) knew LeBron James and his business manager Maverick Carter (right) wanted Brown out as far back as 2009.
(Getty Images)
James had wanted Brown gone a year earlier after the Cavs lost in the Eastern Conference finals to the Orlando Magic – despite Brown guiding Cleveland to 66 victories while winning the league’s Coach of the Year award. Ferry debated Gilbert to keep Brown. He won out, but Ferry knew it would be tough to make that case again in 2010. Every decision the Cavaliers made had to be run past James. He didn’t always get to decide, but he had to be consulted.
This time, Gilbert believed he had to fire Brown to have a chance of re-signing James. When he was fired, Brown purposely left his star’s name out of a public statement of thanks. He knew James had led the movement for his dismissal for more than two years and Brown no longer needed to pretend that he liked, or respected James.
Ferry warned the owner there wouldn’t be a better coach available to hire. Eventually, Gilbert pushed out Ferry, too. The owner wanted to take over a bigger portion of the basketball decision-making and Ferry’s stubbornness made that difficult for him.
The franchise was in complete upheaval, and Gilbert had the Cavaliers trying everything possible to impress a non-responsive James. The Cavaliers star had started to fully distance himself from the organization. He refused to get on the phone and discuss his future with Michigan State’s Tom Izzo, whom Gilbert had offered $30 million to take over as coach.
Before the Cavaliers ever reached out to him, Izzo turned down a less lucrative offer to coach the Chicago Bulls. James wasn’t returning Gilbert’s calls and messages – never mind willing to talk with Izzo. Before Izzo finally turned down Gilbert, he was delivered a direct line to two of James’ close NBA friends, who told him he should only take the job with an expectation he’ll never coach James in Cleveland. Gilbert tried to sell Izzo, but the coach feared there wasn’t a single influential official in the Cavs organization who truly had a relationship with James.
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No one had more intelligence and better monitored the disconnect between James and the Cavaliers than Miami Heat president Pat Riley. He had informants and spies everywhere, including his own star, Wade, who had been telling Riley for most of two years they could lure James to South Beach. The Heat had everything they needed to sell James, except for what finally arrived on the eve of the NBA draft: salary-cap space.
On the night before the draft, Riley hung up on a call with Oklahoma City Thunder GM Sam Presti to complete a salary dump of Daequan Cook(notes). It wouldn’t be long until word traveled to everyone. LeBron James. Dwyane Wade. Chris Bosh. The Heat had the salary-cap space to make this happen. All these months of planning, all these contingencies, and now the greatest free-agent coup in history was within reach.
When the NBA powerbroker and adviser to James, William Wesley – famously known as Worldwide Wes – heard the news, he was duly impressed. After all these months, all this careful planning, Riley had cleared the cap space to give the three stars of free agency contracts starting at about $15 million.
For months, Wesley had believed James’ choice would be the Chicago Bulls, but no one had counted on Riley’s relentlessness in clearing enough cap space to accommodate the three stars. Free agency wouldn’t officially start for another week on July 1, but from then on, Wesley had two words about LeBron and the Heat for the closest of associates: done deal.
Worldwide Wes had understood something about James the Cavaliers refused to believe, and even James’ childhood buddies from Akron were still somewhat unwilling to accept: LeBron James was never re-signing with the Cleveland Cavaliers, and now it was a matter of securing him the proper complement of teammates for the greatest free-agent haul in history.
Riley was 65, a five-time NBA champion, a Hall of Famer and he wanted a dynasty to fade into the sunset of his basketball life. He had kept his word, continuing to dump contract upon contract in a high-wire act that left him without a safety net.
Riley believed he could unload those contracts. And mostly, he believed in his own power of persuasion. He is still the biggest presence, biggest voice in the room. Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey, a statistics analyst, met with Chris Bosh at 12:01 a.m. on July 1 armed with an iPad. Morey’s cult followers on the web hailed it as a resounding success, but Riley never believed he was losing Bosh to the MIT gang.
Riley believed in his ability to get into the room with James and sell him on the way the 1980s Los Angeles Lakers sacrificed salary, shots and statistics for the greater good of a dynasty. Most of all, Riley believed he could benefit on the close relationship that James had with Wade, and that there wasn’t a franchise with cap space that could offer such a compelling case to the two-time defending MVP.
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra will be under pressure to win with president Pat Riley always a possibility to return to the bench.
(Getty Images)
Riley ran the Heat franchise in a bold way. He had two things to sell the best players in the NBA: South Beach and his bigger-than-life persona. The Heat don’t bother scouting internationally. They didn’t believe much in the college draft. They constantly planned around free agents and trades, a high-risk, high-reward way to steer an organization.
All along, teams believed Bosh would choose to play with James or Wade. What Bosh truly wanted was to play with James and Wade. It was commonly accepted that Bosh’s time with the Toronto Raptors taught him he couldn’t be the centerpiece player, and so he embraced the idea of playing the part of Robin to James’ and Wade’s Batman.
Wade had come to believe James would likely leave Cleveland, but became largely certain once the Cavaliers lost to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference semifinals. For the first time, James could no longer blame his supporting cast and coaching for a playoff exit. His peculiar performance in a Game 5 blowout, lethargic and distant, pushed James on trial.
Within days of the season’s end, James and Carter traveled to Winston-Salem, N.C., for the birthday party of New Orleans Hornets star Chris Paul’s(notes) young son. With James on the premises, rules for the toddler’s birthday party included no photos, no video.
James was close with Paul, and free agency and the possible connecting of the players’ futures did come up in conversation. Paul was unhappy with the Hornets, and frustrated to see so many of his Team USA teammates on championship contenders and playoff teams. James and Carter long had been trying to recruit Paul to their LRMR marketing company and the Rose/Wesley/CAA cluster for his contract representation.
As a prelude to Paul eventually going into business with James, Wesley began working the New York Knicks and New Jersey Nets to get them to try and trade for Paul with the strong suggestion that it could deliver James in free agency. Both tried, both failed.
As Wesley worked front offices, his stature started to rise out of the subculture of the sport and into mainstream news coverage. Carter wanted credibility beyond the public perception of him as merely James’ childhood buddy, and ultimately he could no longer hide his jealousy when Wesley started to get too much public recognition for packaging the players in free agency. Privately, everyone in the circle knew James was leaving Cleveland, and it would be harder for his Akron guys to get credit for the deal.
During the NBA Finals, Carter met entertainment mogul David Geffen at a party in Los Angeles. Carter talked informally with Geffen’s people about the possibility of them attempting to purchase a majority share of the Los Angeles Clippers and signing James with the team’s cap space. Carter even made sure to show up with Geffen courtside at Staples Center for a game in the Finals to elevate his stature as a major mover, but buzz died fast when Clippers owner Donald Sterling made clear he had no interest in selling his team.
After a Yahoo! Sports column detailing the strife within Team LeBron in late June, Carter unwrapped his jealousy and called the New York Times to insist Wesley would have nothing to do with choosing a team. Wesley had unsuccessfully shopped Kentucky coach John Calipari to the Chicago Bulls as a preferred coaching candidate for James, but the Bulls made a run for Izzo and ultimately settled on a less-expensive client of CAA, Celtics assistant coach Tom Thibodeau.
Wesley wanted the commission on Calipari’s pro contract, but no one wanted to hire him. James did have a strong bond with Calipari, but ultimately he was much more interested with the ownership, front office and talent on the floor. James understood that coaches were easily disposable, but the rest had more staying power.
Nevertheless, Wesley reacted with caution over Carter’s public proclamation to back off, and slid further into the background. Still, he stayed in close contact with James through a Nike official, Lynn Merritt, and let Carter cool down from his public tantrum. Carter worried far more about Wesley than Wesley did about Carter. There were such doubts about the kinds of advice that Carter had been giving James, about the staying power of that bond, that Wesley was willing to play it out and see who would still be standing beside LeBron James.
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The New Jersey Nets – with owner Mikhail Prokhorov and minority partner Jay-Z – were the first team to make a formal presentation to James at the offices of his LRMR marketing company in downtown Cleveland on July 1. This was the meeting that most intrigued James, because he had never been in the room with Prokhorov, the Russian billionaire and new Nets owner. This was a self-made global tycoon, different than the rest of the owners, and this surely intrigued James.
Prokhorov was long, trim and athletic, and at 6-foot-9 inches able to look James in the eyes when greeting him for the first time. The Nets made a pointed, flashy presentation on the franchise’s eventual move to a new arena in Brooklyn and delivered a creative, if not embellished, explanation of how Prokhorov held a international blueprint for James on how to catapult him someday into the billionaire athlete that he always wanted to be.
For James, the problem with back-to-back presentations was his short attention span. Cavaliers coaches had always tried to keep film sessions short because James would drift away and lose interest. As the New York Knicks followed the Nets by repeating those themes with an array of power points and charts about accumulating wealth, James drifted in and out of focus. Later, James would tell Jay-Z that parts of New York’s presentation felt too redundant to New Jersey’s.
In this free-agent push for James, the Nets were something of a wild card, largely because of his close relationship with Jay-Z. In so many ways, James wanted to emulate the music mogul’s platform. In pitching the Nets, who had won only 12 games, Jay-Z kept reminding LeBron that he cared too much about his own brand to ever associate it with something unworthy. The Nets were going to be a force, he promised. With a partnership together, they could own New York and someday the sporting world.
At the start of free agency, the Nets erected a 127-foot billboard of Prokhorov and Jay-Z across from Madison Square Garden. Knicks owner James Dolan was irate, called Jay-Z and told him the mural intimidated his employees.
As it started to get back to Jay-Z that the Nets were trailing to the Heat and Bulls, a Nets official close to ownership – against the wishes of several peers – hatched a plan to leak the notes of a Prokhorov staff meeting to a media outlet. The leaked notes indicated that Prokhorov believed James’ brand would be diminished as part of a three-star team in Miami. What’s more, the notes also indicated what great respect Prokhorov had for Maverick Carter.
Most people figured Chris Bosh wanted to play with LeBron James or Dwyane Wade. He wanted to play with both.
(Getty Images)
The Bulls still believed they were strongly in the bidding for James. They met him on July 2, and for all the discussion later about the belief that Chicago wouldn’t give jobs and access to members of James’ inner circle, the issue had never been raised with team executives.
For everything the Bulls tried to sell – from owner Jerry Reinsdorf to GM Gar Forman to coach Tom Thibodeau – there had been one thing that troubled James’ about the Bulls pitch: Derrick Rose(notes) never called and tried to recruit him.
Chicago officials never directly requested Rose to reach out with a call, and the young point guard felt James could’ve always reached out to him had he wanted to discuss the possibility of playing together. James needed to be courted, needed to be wooed and apparently it surprised him there was a star who wasn’t falling over himself to do that.
On the eve of the Bulls’ meeting with James, Forman and vice president John Paxson requested and received a second visit with Wade within 24 hours in Chicago. They met for a couple hours in the office of Wade’s agent, Henry Thomas. Chicago believed it needed badly to emerge out of the meeting with a commitment from Wade to take to James in Cleveland. The Bulls could still make a couple of moves to position them further under the cap and sign two maximum salary players.
Without James committed to joining him in Miami, Wade hadn’t completely let go of the Bulls as a bargaining chip. He knew Bosh would come with him, but LeBron still hadn’t told him that he was going to sign with Miami.
Nevertheless, Riley’s presentation on July 3 pushed James closer to committing than ever. Riley never did pitch James on his own return to coaching, and yet bringing those five championship rings into the meeting were his way of selling James on the fact that Riles’ prints would be all over the team. No other basketball executive in the process could tell James they understood what a title team needed, what it looked like and how they had already done it like Riley could. Riley had such credibility, such presence and he completely captivated James.
Want the best talent? It’s here. Want a Hall of Fame coach? He’s upstairs, waiting for your arrival. Nevertheless, Riley had backed far away from a news conference at season’s end when he suggested he would be willing to return to the bench should a free agent deem it a deal-breaker to sign with the Heat. For James, it wasn’t. Wade had sold him on Erik Spoelstra, and Wade didn’t want Riley hovering over this coach the way he had Stan Van Gundy before taking over on the title run in 2006.
Perhaps Riley could always be seduced to the bench, but he has privately told people he has come to cherish his ability to escape to his Malibu home for a few days here and there in the season. In a lot of ways, the grind no longer appeals to him and he’s wanted to give Spoelstra, his longtime apprentice and understudy, every chance to succeed.
Nevertheless, the pressure on Spoelstra to win a championship in 2011 promises to be immense. To keep his job, he’ll probably have to win it all, especially because Riley has his eye on Doc Rivers to someday coach the Heat. Rivers has one year left on his Celtics contract, and has been heavily affected by the distance between him and his family still living Orlando.
Riley never sold any coach to James in the meeting, but the one sitting next to him. Yet, James understood that Riley ultimately had no loyalty to anything but winning.
Wade wasn’t allowed to recruit for the Heat before the end of the NBA Finals, because he was still a Heat employee. Yet before the end of the Finals, there were two June meetings that involved Wade and members of James’ inner circle – one in Ohio and another in Chicago. The NBA doesn’t seem interested in pursuing a tampering probe, but a senior NBA official wants the league to investigate whether Riley promised James employment and benefits to members of his camp.
“The bigger issue is salary-cap circumvention,” one top NBA front-office executive told Yahoo!. “You can’t promise jobs or preferential services outside of a contract or a job for a friend. If that’s part of the deal, it’s a violation.”
Dwyane Wade started dreaming of playing with LeBron James in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
(Getty Images)
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The way James lost to Boston in the Eastern Conference semifinals turned out to be a boon to the Heat. The pressure was on James to start winning titles and Riley understood this was playing into his favor. The criticism of failing to win a title weighed on James, and Wade worked him over on it. All that would fade away with the Heat, and it wouldn’t be a matter of winning a single title but rather how many they would line up.
James, Wade and Bosh talked on the telephone late on July 6. Wade had gone back to Miami and met with Riley and Heat owner, Micky Arison, and was ready to formally commit to staying. He had Bosh in his pocket, and now they just needed James to make the move with them. They hung up the phone late that night and thought James was prepared to make the jump with them.
Wade and Bosh made public their choices on July 7 and waited for word that would soon quietly come to them: LeBron was on his way to Miami, the greatest coup in free-agent history complete. Later that day, Carter was on the phone with free agent Mike Miller(notes) telling him that James was going to Miami and that he needed to join them as a sharpshooter playing off the three stars.
Back in Akron, James still wanted to go through his live hourlong television show on July 8 to announce his decision. This had been Maverick Carter’s big idea, his production, and still people around him worried about the fallout in Cleveland. Several friends told James this was a bad idea to do to his hometown, that leaving the Cavaliers live on national television would make this a public-relations disaster for him.
James didn’t seem to agree, didn’t think it made a difference. Mad was mad, he thought. He would take a beating, but it would subside and people would love him again in Cleveland. The TV event had delivered hope to the Cavaliers that they would keep James because they never believed he would go on air and open himself to such a visceral reaction.
Better than anyone, they knew LeBron James could sometimes be so unaware of the world outside his own needs, his own yes men. Nearly two years later, the whispers in the back of the bus rolling through Beijing had become the loudest statement in free-agency history. The telephone call to the Cleveland Cavaliers came minutes before the 9 p.m. show, and somehow the news still shocked them. LeBron James was leaving, and the truth finally washed over owner Dan Gilbert and his front office: James had been gone a long time. They just never wanted to believe it.
By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports
Jul 16, 4:17 pm EDT
Email Print At the Beijing Olympics, where LeBron James(notes) was surrounded by such talent and possibility, the Cleveland Cavaliers began to lose their star to free agency. The beginning of his departure came in small moments on the daily bus rides through the city’s choking smog and bigger ones on the basketball court. Together, Dwyane Wade(notes), Chris Bosh(notes) and James kept talking about the summer of 2010, about the chance of a lifetime to chase championships and roll like a touring rock band.
And yet before Pat Riley’s free-agency vision for the Miami Heat could ever be validated, James had to first become a member of that 2008 Olympic team. The public never knew what those on the inside of American basketball’s elite power structure did: In the years and months before Beijing, that was very much in doubt for James.
Other Popular Sports StoriesAmazing trick shot at the British Open NFL player's rush with great white sharks More From Adrian WojnarowskiEasy come, easy go for King James Jul 9, 2010 State of LeBron: Live at 9, from his ego Jul 7, 2010
LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh have already made the Heat the favorite to win the 2011 championship, according to Las Vegas odds makers.
(Getty Images)
Back when the Heat’s three new superstars had signed short contract extensions and started to explore the idea of free agency thrusting them together, a different discussion had played out within the NBA and USA Basketball: What should we do with LeBron?
From Team USA coach Mike Krzyzewski to managing director Jerry Colangelo to NBA elders, the issue of James’ immaturity and downright disrespectfulness had become a consuming topic on the march to the Olympics. The course of history could’ve changed dramatically, because there was a real risk that James wouldn’t be brought to Beijing based on fears his monumental talents weren’t worth the daily grind of dealing with him.
When the mandate had been to gather these immense egos and get the NBA’s greatest players to fit into a program, no one had a more difficult time meshing into the framework than James. Other players made it a point to learn the names of staffers and modestly go about their business without barking orders and brash demands.
No one could stand James as a 19-year-old in the 2004 Athens Olympics, nor the 2006 World Championships. Officials feared James could become the instigator of everything they wanted to rid themselves for the ’08 Olympics. For as gifted as James was, Krzyzewski and Colangelo subscribed to a belief that with Kobe Bryant(notes) joining the national team in 2007, they could win a gold medal in ’08 with or without LeBron James. Behind the scenes, officials had taken to calling James’ inner circle, “The Enablers.” No one ever told him to grow up. No one ever challenged him. And yet, James was still a powerful pull for his teammates, and everyone had to agree they could no longer let his bossy and belittling act go unchecked. These weren’t the Cleveland Cavaliers, and Team USA wasn’t beholden to him.
After the NBA witnessed the behavior of James and his business manager Maverick Carter during the 2007 All-Star Weekend, the commissioner’s office sent word to USA Basketball the league wouldn’t force James on them for the Olympics. Before Team USA gathered for the 2007 Tournament of the Americas in Las Vegas, an unmistakable message had been delivered to James through Nike: Unless you change, we’re serious about leaving you home.
“Legacies were on the line,” one league official said, “and they weren’t going to let LeBron [expletive] it up for everyone in China.”
[Photos: Fallout from LeBron’s decision]
Through Nike, James ultimately heeded the message and became more tolerable to coaches, teammates and staff. Team USA assigned Jason Kidd(notes) to babysit him at the Tournament of the Americas in 2007, to try to teach him something the Cavaliers never had a veteran to do: professionalism.
When James returned to the Cavaliers, the franchise hoped that he had grown, matured and maybe learned some lessons. Only James understood the angles and leverage he had in Cleveland. Every day, owner Dan Gilbert and general manager Danny Ferry wondered: What must we do to get him to re-sign in 2010?
What will make him happy?
The answer, as the Cavaliers eventually discovered, was nothing. James lived to make demands, but those with knowledge of his plans insist he never intended to re-sign with the Cavaliers.
One week after James joined Wade and Bosh in Miami to potentially alter the NBA’s balance of power for years, Yahoo! Sports has shaped a story of how events unfolded in the free-agent frenzy of 2010 based on interviews with several sources who were either involved in or have direct knowledge of the process.
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Within an hour of the Cavaliers’ season ending in Boston, James’ inner circle, including power broker William Wesley, agent Leon Rose and business manager Maverick Carter, stood outside the visiting locker room grumbling about coach Mike Brown.
Former Cavs GM Danny Ferry (center) never wanted to fire coach Mike Brown, but owner Dan Gilbert (left) knew LeBron James and his business manager Maverick Carter (right) wanted Brown out as far back as 2009.
(Getty Images)
James had wanted Brown gone a year earlier after the Cavs lost in the Eastern Conference finals to the Orlando Magic – despite Brown guiding Cleveland to 66 victories while winning the league’s Coach of the Year award. Ferry debated Gilbert to keep Brown. He won out, but Ferry knew it would be tough to make that case again in 2010. Every decision the Cavaliers made had to be run past James. He didn’t always get to decide, but he had to be consulted.
This time, Gilbert believed he had to fire Brown to have a chance of re-signing James. When he was fired, Brown purposely left his star’s name out of a public statement of thanks. He knew James had led the movement for his dismissal for more than two years and Brown no longer needed to pretend that he liked, or respected James.
Ferry warned the owner there wouldn’t be a better coach available to hire. Eventually, Gilbert pushed out Ferry, too. The owner wanted to take over a bigger portion of the basketball decision-making and Ferry’s stubbornness made that difficult for him.
The franchise was in complete upheaval, and Gilbert had the Cavaliers trying everything possible to impress a non-responsive James. The Cavaliers star had started to fully distance himself from the organization. He refused to get on the phone and discuss his future with Michigan State’s Tom Izzo, whom Gilbert had offered $30 million to take over as coach.
Before the Cavaliers ever reached out to him, Izzo turned down a less lucrative offer to coach the Chicago Bulls. James wasn’t returning Gilbert’s calls and messages – never mind willing to talk with Izzo. Before Izzo finally turned down Gilbert, he was delivered a direct line to two of James’ close NBA friends, who told him he should only take the job with an expectation he’ll never coach James in Cleveland. Gilbert tried to sell Izzo, but the coach feared there wasn’t a single influential official in the Cavs organization who truly had a relationship with James.
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No one had more intelligence and better monitored the disconnect between James and the Cavaliers than Miami Heat president Pat Riley. He had informants and spies everywhere, including his own star, Wade, who had been telling Riley for most of two years they could lure James to South Beach. The Heat had everything they needed to sell James, except for what finally arrived on the eve of the NBA draft: salary-cap space.
On the night before the draft, Riley hung up on a call with Oklahoma City Thunder GM Sam Presti to complete a salary dump of Daequan Cook(notes). It wouldn’t be long until word traveled to everyone. LeBron James. Dwyane Wade. Chris Bosh. The Heat had the salary-cap space to make this happen. All these months of planning, all these contingencies, and now the greatest free-agent coup in history was within reach.
When the NBA powerbroker and adviser to James, William Wesley – famously known as Worldwide Wes – heard the news, he was duly impressed. After all these months, all this careful planning, Riley had cleared the cap space to give the three stars of free agency contracts starting at about $15 million.
For months, Wesley had believed James’ choice would be the Chicago Bulls, but no one had counted on Riley’s relentlessness in clearing enough cap space to accommodate the three stars. Free agency wouldn’t officially start for another week on July 1, but from then on, Wesley had two words about LeBron and the Heat for the closest of associates: done deal.
Worldwide Wes had understood something about James the Cavaliers refused to believe, and even James’ childhood buddies from Akron were still somewhat unwilling to accept: LeBron James was never re-signing with the Cleveland Cavaliers, and now it was a matter of securing him the proper complement of teammates for the greatest free-agent haul in history.
Riley was 65, a five-time NBA champion, a Hall of Famer and he wanted a dynasty to fade into the sunset of his basketball life. He had kept his word, continuing to dump contract upon contract in a high-wire act that left him without a safety net.
Riley believed he could unload those contracts. And mostly, he believed in his own power of persuasion. He is still the biggest presence, biggest voice in the room. Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey, a statistics analyst, met with Chris Bosh at 12:01 a.m. on July 1 armed with an iPad. Morey’s cult followers on the web hailed it as a resounding success, but Riley never believed he was losing Bosh to the MIT gang.
Riley believed in his ability to get into the room with James and sell him on the way the 1980s Los Angeles Lakers sacrificed salary, shots and statistics for the greater good of a dynasty. Most of all, Riley believed he could benefit on the close relationship that James had with Wade, and that there wasn’t a franchise with cap space that could offer such a compelling case to the two-time defending MVP.
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra will be under pressure to win with president Pat Riley always a possibility to return to the bench.
(Getty Images)
Riley ran the Heat franchise in a bold way. He had two things to sell the best players in the NBA: South Beach and his bigger-than-life persona. The Heat don’t bother scouting internationally. They didn’t believe much in the college draft. They constantly planned around free agents and trades, a high-risk, high-reward way to steer an organization.
All along, teams believed Bosh would choose to play with James or Wade. What Bosh truly wanted was to play with James and Wade. It was commonly accepted that Bosh’s time with the Toronto Raptors taught him he couldn’t be the centerpiece player, and so he embraced the idea of playing the part of Robin to James’ and Wade’s Batman.
Wade had come to believe James would likely leave Cleveland, but became largely certain once the Cavaliers lost to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference semifinals. For the first time, James could no longer blame his supporting cast and coaching for a playoff exit. His peculiar performance in a Game 5 blowout, lethargic and distant, pushed James on trial.
Within days of the season’s end, James and Carter traveled to Winston-Salem, N.C., for the birthday party of New Orleans Hornets star Chris Paul’s(notes) young son. With James on the premises, rules for the toddler’s birthday party included no photos, no video.
James was close with Paul, and free agency and the possible connecting of the players’ futures did come up in conversation. Paul was unhappy with the Hornets, and frustrated to see so many of his Team USA teammates on championship contenders and playoff teams. James and Carter long had been trying to recruit Paul to their LRMR marketing company and the Rose/Wesley/CAA cluster for his contract representation.
As a prelude to Paul eventually going into business with James, Wesley began working the New York Knicks and New Jersey Nets to get them to try and trade for Paul with the strong suggestion that it could deliver James in free agency. Both tried, both failed.
As Wesley worked front offices, his stature started to rise out of the subculture of the sport and into mainstream news coverage. Carter wanted credibility beyond the public perception of him as merely James’ childhood buddy, and ultimately he could no longer hide his jealousy when Wesley started to get too much public recognition for packaging the players in free agency. Privately, everyone in the circle knew James was leaving Cleveland, and it would be harder for his Akron guys to get credit for the deal.
During the NBA Finals, Carter met entertainment mogul David Geffen at a party in Los Angeles. Carter talked informally with Geffen’s people about the possibility of them attempting to purchase a majority share of the Los Angeles Clippers and signing James with the team’s cap space. Carter even made sure to show up with Geffen courtside at Staples Center for a game in the Finals to elevate his stature as a major mover, but buzz died fast when Clippers owner Donald Sterling made clear he had no interest in selling his team.
After a Yahoo! Sports column detailing the strife within Team LeBron in late June, Carter unwrapped his jealousy and called the New York Times to insist Wesley would have nothing to do with choosing a team. Wesley had unsuccessfully shopped Kentucky coach John Calipari to the Chicago Bulls as a preferred coaching candidate for James, but the Bulls made a run for Izzo and ultimately settled on a less-expensive client of CAA, Celtics assistant coach Tom Thibodeau.
Wesley wanted the commission on Calipari’s pro contract, but no one wanted to hire him. James did have a strong bond with Calipari, but ultimately he was much more interested with the ownership, front office and talent on the floor. James understood that coaches were easily disposable, but the rest had more staying power.
Nevertheless, Wesley reacted with caution over Carter’s public proclamation to back off, and slid further into the background. Still, he stayed in close contact with James through a Nike official, Lynn Merritt, and let Carter cool down from his public tantrum. Carter worried far more about Wesley than Wesley did about Carter. There were such doubts about the kinds of advice that Carter had been giving James, about the staying power of that bond, that Wesley was willing to play it out and see who would still be standing beside LeBron James.
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The New Jersey Nets – with owner Mikhail Prokhorov and minority partner Jay-Z – were the first team to make a formal presentation to James at the offices of his LRMR marketing company in downtown Cleveland on July 1. This was the meeting that most intrigued James, because he had never been in the room with Prokhorov, the Russian billionaire and new Nets owner. This was a self-made global tycoon, different than the rest of the owners, and this surely intrigued James.
Prokhorov was long, trim and athletic, and at 6-foot-9 inches able to look James in the eyes when greeting him for the first time. The Nets made a pointed, flashy presentation on the franchise’s eventual move to a new arena in Brooklyn and delivered a creative, if not embellished, explanation of how Prokhorov held a international blueprint for James on how to catapult him someday into the billionaire athlete that he always wanted to be.
For James, the problem with back-to-back presentations was his short attention span. Cavaliers coaches had always tried to keep film sessions short because James would drift away and lose interest. As the New York Knicks followed the Nets by repeating those themes with an array of power points and charts about accumulating wealth, James drifted in and out of focus. Later, James would tell Jay-Z that parts of New York’s presentation felt too redundant to New Jersey’s.
In this free-agent push for James, the Nets were something of a wild card, largely because of his close relationship with Jay-Z. In so many ways, James wanted to emulate the music mogul’s platform. In pitching the Nets, who had won only 12 games, Jay-Z kept reminding LeBron that he cared too much about his own brand to ever associate it with something unworthy. The Nets were going to be a force, he promised. With a partnership together, they could own New York and someday the sporting world.
At the start of free agency, the Nets erected a 127-foot billboard of Prokhorov and Jay-Z across from Madison Square Garden. Knicks owner James Dolan was irate, called Jay-Z and told him the mural intimidated his employees.
As it started to get back to Jay-Z that the Nets were trailing to the Heat and Bulls, a Nets official close to ownership – against the wishes of several peers – hatched a plan to leak the notes of a Prokhorov staff meeting to a media outlet. The leaked notes indicated that Prokhorov believed James’ brand would be diminished as part of a three-star team in Miami. What’s more, the notes also indicated what great respect Prokhorov had for Maverick Carter.
Most people figured Chris Bosh wanted to play with LeBron James or Dwyane Wade. He wanted to play with both.
(Getty Images)
The Bulls still believed they were strongly in the bidding for James. They met him on July 2, and for all the discussion later about the belief that Chicago wouldn’t give jobs and access to members of James’ inner circle, the issue had never been raised with team executives.
For everything the Bulls tried to sell – from owner Jerry Reinsdorf to GM Gar Forman to coach Tom Thibodeau – there had been one thing that troubled James’ about the Bulls pitch: Derrick Rose(notes) never called and tried to recruit him.
Chicago officials never directly requested Rose to reach out with a call, and the young point guard felt James could’ve always reached out to him had he wanted to discuss the possibility of playing together. James needed to be courted, needed to be wooed and apparently it surprised him there was a star who wasn’t falling over himself to do that.
On the eve of the Bulls’ meeting with James, Forman and vice president John Paxson requested and received a second visit with Wade within 24 hours in Chicago. They met for a couple hours in the office of Wade’s agent, Henry Thomas. Chicago believed it needed badly to emerge out of the meeting with a commitment from Wade to take to James in Cleveland. The Bulls could still make a couple of moves to position them further under the cap and sign two maximum salary players.
Without James committed to joining him in Miami, Wade hadn’t completely let go of the Bulls as a bargaining chip. He knew Bosh would come with him, but LeBron still hadn’t told him that he was going to sign with Miami.
Nevertheless, Riley’s presentation on July 3 pushed James closer to committing than ever. Riley never did pitch James on his own return to coaching, and yet bringing those five championship rings into the meeting were his way of selling James on the fact that Riles’ prints would be all over the team. No other basketball executive in the process could tell James they understood what a title team needed, what it looked like and how they had already done it like Riley could. Riley had such credibility, such presence and he completely captivated James.
Want the best talent? It’s here. Want a Hall of Fame coach? He’s upstairs, waiting for your arrival. Nevertheless, Riley had backed far away from a news conference at season’s end when he suggested he would be willing to return to the bench should a free agent deem it a deal-breaker to sign with the Heat. For James, it wasn’t. Wade had sold him on Erik Spoelstra, and Wade didn’t want Riley hovering over this coach the way he had Stan Van Gundy before taking over on the title run in 2006.
Perhaps Riley could always be seduced to the bench, but he has privately told people he has come to cherish his ability to escape to his Malibu home for a few days here and there in the season. In a lot of ways, the grind no longer appeals to him and he’s wanted to give Spoelstra, his longtime apprentice and understudy, every chance to succeed.
Nevertheless, the pressure on Spoelstra to win a championship in 2011 promises to be immense. To keep his job, he’ll probably have to win it all, especially because Riley has his eye on Doc Rivers to someday coach the Heat. Rivers has one year left on his Celtics contract, and has been heavily affected by the distance between him and his family still living Orlando.
Riley never sold any coach to James in the meeting, but the one sitting next to him. Yet, James understood that Riley ultimately had no loyalty to anything but winning.
Wade wasn’t allowed to recruit for the Heat before the end of the NBA Finals, because he was still a Heat employee. Yet before the end of the Finals, there were two June meetings that involved Wade and members of James’ inner circle – one in Ohio and another in Chicago. The NBA doesn’t seem interested in pursuing a tampering probe, but a senior NBA official wants the league to investigate whether Riley promised James employment and benefits to members of his camp.
“The bigger issue is salary-cap circumvention,” one top NBA front-office executive told Yahoo!. “You can’t promise jobs or preferential services outside of a contract or a job for a friend. If that’s part of the deal, it’s a violation.”
Dwyane Wade started dreaming of playing with LeBron James in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
(Getty Images)
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The way James lost to Boston in the Eastern Conference semifinals turned out to be a boon to the Heat. The pressure was on James to start winning titles and Riley understood this was playing into his favor. The criticism of failing to win a title weighed on James, and Wade worked him over on it. All that would fade away with the Heat, and it wouldn’t be a matter of winning a single title but rather how many they would line up.
James, Wade and Bosh talked on the telephone late on July 6. Wade had gone back to Miami and met with Riley and Heat owner, Micky Arison, and was ready to formally commit to staying. He had Bosh in his pocket, and now they just needed James to make the move with them. They hung up the phone late that night and thought James was prepared to make the jump with them.
Wade and Bosh made public their choices on July 7 and waited for word that would soon quietly come to them: LeBron was on his way to Miami, the greatest coup in free-agent history complete. Later that day, Carter was on the phone with free agent Mike Miller(notes) telling him that James was going to Miami and that he needed to join them as a sharpshooter playing off the three stars.
Back in Akron, James still wanted to go through his live hourlong television show on July 8 to announce his decision. This had been Maverick Carter’s big idea, his production, and still people around him worried about the fallout in Cleveland. Several friends told James this was a bad idea to do to his hometown, that leaving the Cavaliers live on national television would make this a public-relations disaster for him.
James didn’t seem to agree, didn’t think it made a difference. Mad was mad, he thought. He would take a beating, but it would subside and people would love him again in Cleveland. The TV event had delivered hope to the Cavaliers that they would keep James because they never believed he would go on air and open himself to such a visceral reaction.
Better than anyone, they knew LeBron James could sometimes be so unaware of the world outside his own needs, his own yes men. Nearly two years later, the whispers in the back of the bus rolling through Beijing had become the loudest statement in free-agency history. The telephone call to the Cleveland Cavaliers came minutes before the 9 p.m. show, and somehow the news still shocked them. LeBron James was leaving, and the truth finally washed over owner Dan Gilbert and his front office: James had been gone a long time. They just never wanted to believe it.
Bitter LeBron beer back in Cleveland
More on tap: Bitter LeBron beer back in Cleveland
Jul 16, 5:45 pm EDT
Email Print CLEVELAND (AP)—A Cleveland brewery is re-releasing a bitter beer inspired by LeBron James’(notes) decision to leave the Cavaliers for the Miami Heat.
Great Lakes Brewing Co. says 30 gallons of “Quitness” ale sold out in three hours Wednesday at the company’s downtown brewpub.
The beer will return Saturday on a first-come, first-serve basis.
The brewery says “Quitness” is a dry hopped India pale ale that leaves a bitter aftertaste, perfectly describing the mood of Cleveland sports fans these days.
After seven seasons and no championships in Cleveland, James, the NBA’s two-time reigning MVP, announced last week he was joining stars Dwyane Wade(notes) and Chris Bosh(notes) in Miami.
Jul 16, 5:45 pm EDT
Email Print CLEVELAND (AP)—A Cleveland brewery is re-releasing a bitter beer inspired by LeBron James’(notes) decision to leave the Cavaliers for the Miami Heat.
Great Lakes Brewing Co. says 30 gallons of “Quitness” ale sold out in three hours Wednesday at the company’s downtown brewpub.
The beer will return Saturday on a first-come, first-serve basis.
The brewery says “Quitness” is a dry hopped India pale ale that leaves a bitter aftertaste, perfectly describing the mood of Cleveland sports fans these days.
After seven seasons and no championships in Cleveland, James, the NBA’s two-time reigning MVP, announced last week he was joining stars Dwyane Wade(notes) and Chris Bosh(notes) in Miami.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
LeBron pendant now center of police investigation
.LeBron pendant now center of police investigation
Buzz up!200 votes Share
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EmailPrint..Fri Jul 16, 5:38 am ET
By Curtis Jackson, NewsNet5/WEWS TV
Just a few days ago, Vaneisha Robinson believed her dreams were about to come true. As NewsChannel5 and newsnet5.com first reported, Robinson paid $5 for a pendant in the shape of LeBron James' number 23 jersey at a yard sale four years ago.
Robinson thought it was costume jewelry until she had it appraised and certified by International Gemological Institute, which said the diamond-studded, gold jewelry was real and valued at nearly $10,000.
The amateur boxer put the pendant up for sale on eBay, hoping to use the proceeds to open her own gym.
On Wednesday, Robinson said she got a phone call that turned her dream into a nightmare. Robinson said it was Katherine L. Powers, the mother of Maverick O. Carter. Carter is the CEO of LeBron James' marketing company, LRMR.
"[Powers] said that LeBron James was at her house and they wanted me to come over there. They were going to make me an offer that I couldn't refuse," Robinson said.
It turned out the one-of-a-kind pendant belongs to Carter, who claims it was stolen. Robinson said she and her mother went to the Wadsworth house Carter shares with his mother, believing James was going to buy the pendant and give it back to Carter.
"When I got there, LeBron James was not there. It was about eight or nine other people there," Robinson said. "They pretty much accused me, they threatened me and they used their authority to they (sic) best ability to get the pendant in their possession."
Robinson said she and her mother drove to Carter's house in the 500 block of Caledonia Drive in her mother's pickup truck.
"They blocked her truck in the driveway. They told us that we weren't going anywhere until they got that pendant. I was scared for my life," she said.
Wadsworth police said they were called around 11:30 p.m. Wednesday night by a woman visiting a neighbor of Powers. According to a recording of the 911 call, the woman heard loud arguing. She said she called the police at Powers’s request.
"I walked away from that. I just kept walking just in case something was about to happen," the woman told the 911 dispatcher.
A Wadsworth police spokesperson said Robinson and her mother had already left when they arrived on scene. Powers was the only one there. She had the pendant.
"Ms. Powers showed me the pendant in question and I was able to determine that it was a one-of-a-kind item and it did actually belong to Mr. Carter," said Sgt. James Elchlinger.
Elchlinger said Carter was not at the house during the incident. A receptionist at LRMR told NewsChannel5 Thursday that Carter was unavailable for comment. Powers was not home when a reporter stopped at the house seeking an interview.
The case is under investigation.
Robinson did not call police Wednesday night, but showed up at the station Thursday afternoon. Robinson said she was advised to get a lawyer.
Police are trying to determine if the pendant was ever reported stolen. But Robinson maintains she could not have had the jewelry certified by the I.G.S. if it were stolen property.
The boxer vowed her next fight will be in a court of law.
"There was no serial number on that pendant so it's untraceable," Robinson said. "That pendant is mine. It belongs to me. I want it back
Buzz up!200 votes Share
retweet
EmailPrint..Fri Jul 16, 5:38 am ET
By Curtis Jackson, NewsNet5/WEWS TV
Just a few days ago, Vaneisha Robinson believed her dreams were about to come true. As NewsChannel5 and newsnet5.com first reported, Robinson paid $5 for a pendant in the shape of LeBron James' number 23 jersey at a yard sale four years ago.
Robinson thought it was costume jewelry until she had it appraised and certified by International Gemological Institute, which said the diamond-studded, gold jewelry was real and valued at nearly $10,000.
The amateur boxer put the pendant up for sale on eBay, hoping to use the proceeds to open her own gym.
On Wednesday, Robinson said she got a phone call that turned her dream into a nightmare. Robinson said it was Katherine L. Powers, the mother of Maverick O. Carter. Carter is the CEO of LeBron James' marketing company, LRMR.
"[Powers] said that LeBron James was at her house and they wanted me to come over there. They were going to make me an offer that I couldn't refuse," Robinson said.
It turned out the one-of-a-kind pendant belongs to Carter, who claims it was stolen. Robinson said she and her mother went to the Wadsworth house Carter shares with his mother, believing James was going to buy the pendant and give it back to Carter.
"When I got there, LeBron James was not there. It was about eight or nine other people there," Robinson said. "They pretty much accused me, they threatened me and they used their authority to they (sic) best ability to get the pendant in their possession."
Robinson said she and her mother drove to Carter's house in the 500 block of Caledonia Drive in her mother's pickup truck.
"They blocked her truck in the driveway. They told us that we weren't going anywhere until they got that pendant. I was scared for my life," she said.
Wadsworth police said they were called around 11:30 p.m. Wednesday night by a woman visiting a neighbor of Powers. According to a recording of the 911 call, the woman heard loud arguing. She said she called the police at Powers’s request.
"I walked away from that. I just kept walking just in case something was about to happen," the woman told the 911 dispatcher.
A Wadsworth police spokesperson said Robinson and her mother had already left when they arrived on scene. Powers was the only one there. She had the pendant.
"Ms. Powers showed me the pendant in question and I was able to determine that it was a one-of-a-kind item and it did actually belong to Mr. Carter," said Sgt. James Elchlinger.
Elchlinger said Carter was not at the house during the incident. A receptionist at LRMR told NewsChannel5 Thursday that Carter was unavailable for comment. Powers was not home when a reporter stopped at the house seeking an interview.
The case is under investigation.
Robinson did not call police Wednesday night, but showed up at the station Thursday afternoon. Robinson said she was advised to get a lawyer.
Police are trying to determine if the pendant was ever reported stolen. But Robinson maintains she could not have had the jewelry certified by the I.G.S. if it were stolen property.
The boxer vowed her next fight will be in a court of law.
"There was no serial number on that pendant so it's untraceable," Robinson said. "That pendant is mine. It belongs to me. I want it back
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Easy come, easy go for King James
Easy come, easy go for King James
By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports
Jul 9, 11:20 am EDT
Email Print They ended up with that split-screen of the King’s jersey burned live on his infomercial, as this sad, lost robot sat in a leafy suburban gymnasium with children as props and the world watching, those empty eyes masking a lost, dazed LeBron James(notes). This was the champagne shower for the Championship of Me, an exercise in self-aggrandizement and self-loathing that will have far-reaching implications for the NBA and James. What a spectacle, what a train wreck.
Cleveland fans were left feeling jilted after LeBron James abandoned them via national TV.
(AP Photo)
As the worst idea in the history of marketing unfolded, James looked trapped somewhere between despondence and defiance. His bumbling buddy Maverick Carter had walked him into the public execution of his legacy, his image, and there was a part of James that clearly wished he could turn back through the doors and hide. Only, it was too late. No going back now. James goes to the Miami Heat, Cleveland goes into a basketball Hades and LeBron’s legacy becomes that of a callous carpetbagger.
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Cav's Fans devastated
Lebron's Top Dunks
More NBA Videos More on LeBron JamesCavs owner's explosive letter to fans Warren Buffett to LeBron James: 'Call me' More From Adrian WojnarowskiState of LeBron: Live at 9, from his ego Jul 7, 2010 NBA stars know they better bank money now Jul 6, 2010 “His brand is [bleep] now,” one high-level NBA official said late Thursday. “He’s destroyed everything.”
The Championship of Me became the Championship of Flee, because LeBron James doesn’t believe he can be the centerpiece of a title team. He needed Dwyane Wade, a closer, far more than Wade needed him.
Yes, he’s ruined everything. What a wonderful idea: Divorce your childhood sweetheart on national television and tell her, hey, I’ll let you keep the “We are all Witnesses” billboards lording over downtown Cleveland.
“I’m taking my talents to South Beach,” James said, and it was like time stopped because – even for him – this was a moment so devoid of reality and free of concern of consequences. South Beach? He wasn’t picking a basketball team as much as a party. He’s 25 years old, and yet somehow this felt like a cloistered teenager picking a party school for college.
Yes, James will take his talent to South Beach and leave his soul in Cleveland. His hometown won’t hate him as much for leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers as for the way he left them. Leaving never would’ve been easy, but he went out of his way to humiliate them. LeBron James can never go home now. He’s the Browns leaving town, The Fumble, The Shot, all rolled into one colossal disappointment.
Now, Clevelanders truly see it for themselves: He was a fan of the Cowboys, the Yankees – never the Browns and Indians. He was a frontrunner, and he just made the most frontrunner move in the history of the NBA. Off to Miami with Riles, D-Wade and Chris Bosh(notes).
New York would’ve been hard, and maybe Cleveland would’ve been the hardest. With those state tax laws in Florida, he isn’t taking less money with the Heat. He’s just taking less risk and less burden in his championship chase.
“This whole idea that he makes his own decisions, that [bleep] went out the window with this,” one NBA executive said. “Someday, he’s going to look back at this and not believe that he let those kids at LRMR talk him into doing this. This idea that he’s his own man … Come on, he’s a follower. And he’s following all the way to Miami now.”
This was the train rolling down the tracks from miles and miles away, and James never saw it coming. He should lose his obsession to become the richest athlete ever, because the people surrounding LeBron James are much more likely to leave him broke than a billionaire. Someday, he will fire his business manager Maverick Carter for turning the two-time MVP’s free-agent moment into Geraldo and Al Capone’s vault. Carter used the cover of charity for a historically horrible event and completely destroyed the credibility of his client.
So now people are cheering Dan Gilbert’s manifesto tearing apart James, but no one contributed more to what the world witnessed on Thursday night than the owner’s enabling of James and his inner circle for seven years. Gilbert is the biggest con going, a man who makes his fortune peddling mortgages, and he’ll make his next on casinos in downtown Cleveland. He sells illusions for a living, and now he’s selling the biggest of all: that he’s a victim here, that James betrayed everyone. That’s a lie, and no one ought to dare buy it.
Everyone searching for a scapegoat here – Mike Brown, Danny Ferry, Delonte West(notes) – well, just understand that it was the man screaming loudest with LeBron out the door, the man most determined to deflect blame onto him now.
Cavs owner Dan Gilbert called LeBron James' decision to leave a "cowardly betrayal."
(AP Photo)
Now, Gilbert is the tough guy with James leaving the Cavs behind? Listen, Ferry and Brown always warned Gilbert that giving James everything he wanted – giving it when and where and how – wouldn’t be the way they would keep him. LeBron didn’t respect them because they never demanded it.
Gilbert always believed he should do everything James wanted – hire his buddies into jobs, throw them on summer-league rosters, allow him to do those stupid pregame choreographed dances – that James would love him, that he would never leave. Only, James is a taker, and he took and took until he had bled Gilbert and that franchise to the bone.
So now, Gilbert unleashes the most revisionist and self-serving screed that a scorned owner’s ever done. Gilbert is a bully and a baby. As much as James, Gilbert revealed himself, too. He asked for this humiliation and deserves it. Only those fans in Cleveland don’t deserve this. They were loyal, true, and ultimately they must know Gilbert lashed out to make James the villain for a most self-serving reason: to avoid the blame himself. Damn right James quit on the Cavaliers in that playoff series, but that was because Gilbert was always there to make it easy for him. All those times Ferry and Brown warned the owner they had to make stands with James, that they had to force him to have some level of respect within that organization or there would be an ultimate price to pay.
And here it came on Thursday night, in this bizarre, sad set-up that turned LeBron James into a caricature. His puppet seems more human than him. Listen, James’ people tried to leak this story to soften the blow on Cleveland, but here was the problem: He’s so insincere, and they’re so over their heads, that most of us were uneasy with believing what they were selling in the hours leading up to Jim Gray holding everyone hostage. There had to be an agenda, a bait-and-switch, and yet source after source within LeBron’s world insisted: He’s leaving. He wants out. They had been doing this for weeks, even months. So, armed with that knowledge, why would they ever stage this event to rub it in the face of James’ hometown? Lots of stars have moved on, but never one that had such a unique history with a town, a city, a franchise.
We kept writing it with qualifiers because deep down a lot of us doubted his courage to leave that cocoon. He would make Cleveland feel like it had lost him, and then swoop back into town and be celebrated all over again. Only, LeBron’s people were telling the truth. He was gone. He was always gone. He never considered staying, and that’s the most frightening part of all.
For the hand-wringing out of Gilbert and James’ apologists who protected him – and who would still be protecting him had he simply said, “Cleveland,” on Thursday night – they need to stop with this nonsense that somehow LeBron James has transformed into someone else. This is him, and it’s always been him. He’s a creation of our times, of an industry and system that wants to manufacture the next M.J. at the expense of a young man having a sense of himself.
So there was LeBron James, the MVP, the man of the hour, sitting in the middle of his own “Truman Show” on Thursday night. His personal network ran his commercials and celebrated his greatness and let him hijack a platform to build his brand and break hearts. He can never go home again now, and he can never completely rebuild what he let his cast of buddies talk him into losing that night. He’s taking his talents to South Beach, and the kid going away for the first time will have some party down there. After all these years, it was clear he had been coddled and protected and ultimately prepared to do one thing: Take the easy way out. Wherever he was going, he looked conflicted, lost and completely confused.
What a spectacle, what a train wreck.
What a shame.
By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports
Jul 9, 11:20 am EDT
Email Print They ended up with that split-screen of the King’s jersey burned live on his infomercial, as this sad, lost robot sat in a leafy suburban gymnasium with children as props and the world watching, those empty eyes masking a lost, dazed LeBron James(notes). This was the champagne shower for the Championship of Me, an exercise in self-aggrandizement and self-loathing that will have far-reaching implications for the NBA and James. What a spectacle, what a train wreck.
Cleveland fans were left feeling jilted after LeBron James abandoned them via national TV.
(AP Photo)
As the worst idea in the history of marketing unfolded, James looked trapped somewhere between despondence and defiance. His bumbling buddy Maverick Carter had walked him into the public execution of his legacy, his image, and there was a part of James that clearly wished he could turn back through the doors and hide. Only, it was too late. No going back now. James goes to the Miami Heat, Cleveland goes into a basketball Hades and LeBron’s legacy becomes that of a callous carpetbagger.
Related Video Fan burns LeBron jersey Fan burns LeBron jersey
Dream Team Complete
Cav's Fans devastated
Lebron's Top Dunks
More NBA Videos More on LeBron JamesCavs owner's explosive letter to fans Warren Buffett to LeBron James: 'Call me' More From Adrian WojnarowskiState of LeBron: Live at 9, from his ego Jul 7, 2010 NBA stars know they better bank money now Jul 6, 2010 “His brand is [bleep] now,” one high-level NBA official said late Thursday. “He’s destroyed everything.”
The Championship of Me became the Championship of Flee, because LeBron James doesn’t believe he can be the centerpiece of a title team. He needed Dwyane Wade, a closer, far more than Wade needed him.
Yes, he’s ruined everything. What a wonderful idea: Divorce your childhood sweetheart on national television and tell her, hey, I’ll let you keep the “We are all Witnesses” billboards lording over downtown Cleveland.
“I’m taking my talents to South Beach,” James said, and it was like time stopped because – even for him – this was a moment so devoid of reality and free of concern of consequences. South Beach? He wasn’t picking a basketball team as much as a party. He’s 25 years old, and yet somehow this felt like a cloistered teenager picking a party school for college.
Yes, James will take his talent to South Beach and leave his soul in Cleveland. His hometown won’t hate him as much for leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers as for the way he left them. Leaving never would’ve been easy, but he went out of his way to humiliate them. LeBron James can never go home now. He’s the Browns leaving town, The Fumble, The Shot, all rolled into one colossal disappointment.
Now, Clevelanders truly see it for themselves: He was a fan of the Cowboys, the Yankees – never the Browns and Indians. He was a frontrunner, and he just made the most frontrunner move in the history of the NBA. Off to Miami with Riles, D-Wade and Chris Bosh(notes).
New York would’ve been hard, and maybe Cleveland would’ve been the hardest. With those state tax laws in Florida, he isn’t taking less money with the Heat. He’s just taking less risk and less burden in his championship chase.
“This whole idea that he makes his own decisions, that [bleep] went out the window with this,” one NBA executive said. “Someday, he’s going to look back at this and not believe that he let those kids at LRMR talk him into doing this. This idea that he’s his own man … Come on, he’s a follower. And he’s following all the way to Miami now.”
This was the train rolling down the tracks from miles and miles away, and James never saw it coming. He should lose his obsession to become the richest athlete ever, because the people surrounding LeBron James are much more likely to leave him broke than a billionaire. Someday, he will fire his business manager Maverick Carter for turning the two-time MVP’s free-agent moment into Geraldo and Al Capone’s vault. Carter used the cover of charity for a historically horrible event and completely destroyed the credibility of his client.
So now people are cheering Dan Gilbert’s manifesto tearing apart James, but no one contributed more to what the world witnessed on Thursday night than the owner’s enabling of James and his inner circle for seven years. Gilbert is the biggest con going, a man who makes his fortune peddling mortgages, and he’ll make his next on casinos in downtown Cleveland. He sells illusions for a living, and now he’s selling the biggest of all: that he’s a victim here, that James betrayed everyone. That’s a lie, and no one ought to dare buy it.
Everyone searching for a scapegoat here – Mike Brown, Danny Ferry, Delonte West(notes) – well, just understand that it was the man screaming loudest with LeBron out the door, the man most determined to deflect blame onto him now.
Cavs owner Dan Gilbert called LeBron James' decision to leave a "cowardly betrayal."
(AP Photo)
Now, Gilbert is the tough guy with James leaving the Cavs behind? Listen, Ferry and Brown always warned Gilbert that giving James everything he wanted – giving it when and where and how – wouldn’t be the way they would keep him. LeBron didn’t respect them because they never demanded it.
Gilbert always believed he should do everything James wanted – hire his buddies into jobs, throw them on summer-league rosters, allow him to do those stupid pregame choreographed dances – that James would love him, that he would never leave. Only, James is a taker, and he took and took until he had bled Gilbert and that franchise to the bone.
So now, Gilbert unleashes the most revisionist and self-serving screed that a scorned owner’s ever done. Gilbert is a bully and a baby. As much as James, Gilbert revealed himself, too. He asked for this humiliation and deserves it. Only those fans in Cleveland don’t deserve this. They were loyal, true, and ultimately they must know Gilbert lashed out to make James the villain for a most self-serving reason: to avoid the blame himself. Damn right James quit on the Cavaliers in that playoff series, but that was because Gilbert was always there to make it easy for him. All those times Ferry and Brown warned the owner they had to make stands with James, that they had to force him to have some level of respect within that organization or there would be an ultimate price to pay.
And here it came on Thursday night, in this bizarre, sad set-up that turned LeBron James into a caricature. His puppet seems more human than him. Listen, James’ people tried to leak this story to soften the blow on Cleveland, but here was the problem: He’s so insincere, and they’re so over their heads, that most of us were uneasy with believing what they were selling in the hours leading up to Jim Gray holding everyone hostage. There had to be an agenda, a bait-and-switch, and yet source after source within LeBron’s world insisted: He’s leaving. He wants out. They had been doing this for weeks, even months. So, armed with that knowledge, why would they ever stage this event to rub it in the face of James’ hometown? Lots of stars have moved on, but never one that had such a unique history with a town, a city, a franchise.
We kept writing it with qualifiers because deep down a lot of us doubted his courage to leave that cocoon. He would make Cleveland feel like it had lost him, and then swoop back into town and be celebrated all over again. Only, LeBron’s people were telling the truth. He was gone. He was always gone. He never considered staying, and that’s the most frightening part of all.
For the hand-wringing out of Gilbert and James’ apologists who protected him – and who would still be protecting him had he simply said, “Cleveland,” on Thursday night – they need to stop with this nonsense that somehow LeBron James has transformed into someone else. This is him, and it’s always been him. He’s a creation of our times, of an industry and system that wants to manufacture the next M.J. at the expense of a young man having a sense of himself.
So there was LeBron James, the MVP, the man of the hour, sitting in the middle of his own “Truman Show” on Thursday night. His personal network ran his commercials and celebrated his greatness and let him hijack a platform to build his brand and break hearts. He can never go home again now, and he can never completely rebuild what he let his cast of buddies talk him into losing that night. He’s taking his talents to South Beach, and the kid going away for the first time will have some party down there. After all these years, it was clear he had been coddled and protected and ultimately prepared to do one thing: Take the easy way out. Wherever he was going, he looked conflicted, lost and completely confused.
What a spectacle, what a train wreck.
What a shame.
Cavs owner defends stance on LeBron
Cavs owner defends stance on LeBron
By TOM WITHERS, AP Sports Writer
Jul 12, 10:37 pm EDT
Email Print CLEVELAND (AP)—Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert got in another word about the messy, heartbreaking split with LeBron James(notes).
He promised it’s his last one.
Related Video LeBron booed in N.Y. LeBron booed in N.Y.
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Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert
(AP file photo)
It had better be or NBA commissioner David Stern could fine him another $100,000.
On Monday, Gilbert said he strongly disagrees with Rev. Jesse Jackson’s criticism of his recent comments about James, who announced last week he was leaving Cleveland after seven seasons to join fellow All-Stars Dwyane Wade(notes) and Chris Bosh(notes) on the Miami Heat.
Shortly after James’ announcement, Gilbert fired off an incendiary letter to Cavs fans, vilifying the 25-year-old and calling his decision to bolt Cleveland as “narcissistic” and “cowardly behavior.” He also guaranteed his team would win an NBA title “BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER ‘KING’ WINS ONE.”
Gilbert took it a step further when he later told The Associated Press in a phone interview that he felt the NBA’s two-time MVP quit on the Cavs during the playoffs the past two years, and that James “has gotten a free pass.” He also said James should be held accountable for his actions.
Jackson responded to Gilbert’s remarks on Sunday by saying the Cavs owner sees James as a “runaway slave” and that Gilbert’s comments put the player in danger.
“He speaks as an owner of LeBron and not the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers,” Jackson said in a release from his Chicago-based civil-rights group. “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.”
In a statement released by the team on Monday, Gilbert tried to put an end to the issue.
“I strongly disagree with Rev. Jesse Jackson’s recent comments and we are not going to engage in any related discussion on it,” Gilbert said. “Going forward, we’re very excited about the Cavaliers and the positive future of our region.”
Gilbert is attending the owners’ meetings in Las Vegas, where Stern fined him $100,000 for the “inappropriate” comments about James.
“He was completely correct in expressing his disappointment,” Stern said, adding that Gilbert’s statement and the sentiments he expressed in a follow-up interview with the AP were “a little bit extreme.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By TOM WITHERS, AP Sports Writer
Jul 12, 10:37 pm EDT
Email Print CLEVELAND (AP)—Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert got in another word about the messy, heartbreaking split with LeBron James(notes).
He promised it’s his last one.
Related Video LeBron booed in N.Y. LeBron booed in N.Y.
LBJ mural comes down
Fans burn jersey
More NBA Videos
Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert
(AP file photo)
It had better be or NBA commissioner David Stern could fine him another $100,000.
On Monday, Gilbert said he strongly disagrees with Rev. Jesse Jackson’s criticism of his recent comments about James, who announced last week he was leaving Cleveland after seven seasons to join fellow All-Stars Dwyane Wade(notes) and Chris Bosh(notes) on the Miami Heat.
Shortly after James’ announcement, Gilbert fired off an incendiary letter to Cavs fans, vilifying the 25-year-old and calling his decision to bolt Cleveland as “narcissistic” and “cowardly behavior.” He also guaranteed his team would win an NBA title “BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER ‘KING’ WINS ONE.”
Gilbert took it a step further when he later told The Associated Press in a phone interview that he felt the NBA’s two-time MVP quit on the Cavs during the playoffs the past two years, and that James “has gotten a free pass.” He also said James should be held accountable for his actions.
Jackson responded to Gilbert’s remarks on Sunday by saying the Cavs owner sees James as a “runaway slave” and that Gilbert’s comments put the player in danger.
“He speaks as an owner of LeBron and not the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers,” Jackson said in a release from his Chicago-based civil-rights group. “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.”
In a statement released by the team on Monday, Gilbert tried to put an end to the issue.
“I strongly disagree with Rev. Jesse Jackson’s recent comments and we are not going to engage in any related discussion on it,” Gilbert said. “Going forward, we’re very excited about the Cavaliers and the positive future of our region.”
Gilbert is attending the owners’ meetings in Las Vegas, where Stern fined him $100,000 for the “inappropriate” comments about James.
“He was completely correct in expressing his disappointment,” Stern said, adding that Gilbert’s statement and the sentiments he expressed in a follow-up interview with the AP were “a little bit extreme.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
State of LeBron: Live at 9, from his ego
State of LeBron: Live at 9, from his ego
By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports
Jul 7, 3:27 pm EDT
Email Print The Championship of Me comes crashing into a primetime cable infomercial that LeBron James(notes) and his cronies have been working to make happen for months, a slow, cynical churning of manufactured drama that sports has never witnessed. As historic monuments go, this is the Rushmore of basketball hubris and narcissism. The vacuous star for our vacuous times. All about ‘Bron and all about nothing.
James is throwing a few foosball tables at Boys & Girls Clubs, an empty gesture out of the empty superstar. He’s turned free agency into the title of our times, a preening pageant of fawning, begging and pleading. Hard-working people are dragged into municipalities and told to hold signs, chant scripted slogans and beg a diva who doesn’t care about them to accept a $100 million contract.
Other Popular Sports StoriesNASA finds problem with World Cup ball NCAA prospect has one-of-a-kind name More From Adrian WojnarowskiEasy come, easy go for King James Jul 9, 2010 NBA stars know they better bank money now Jul 6, 2010
LeBron James is scheduled to announce where he'll sign at 9 ET on Thursday.
(NBAE/ Getty Images)
Privately, Dwyane Wade(notes) and Chris Bosh(notes) weren’t pleased on Wednesday morning with the belief that James’ camp was responsible for leaking their plans to a television partner, but then again it makes perfect sense: This isn’t about Wade and Bosh choosing the Heat. It’s about LeBron getting the stage to himself on Thursday night.
One front-office executive whose team made a presentation to LeBron James told Yahoo! Sports that he believes James is choosing between Miami and Cleveland. And yet, if James wants to deliver the biggest kick in the gut to his hometown, he’ll pick the flat-lined New York Knicks. Whatever the decision, he’s made clear that the teasing and tormenting of the loser isn’t his concern.
Team LeBron is having the time of its life, but has no idea the repercussions of what it’s done here. All that comes to James now is the biggest burden to win a championship that sports has ever seen. They aren’t making James a bigger star with this big-top, but a bigger target. All those teams that marched into the presentations and listened to some of the foolish and naive questions asked of them believed these kids had no idea what they were doing, or what they had gotten themselves into. They’re all feeling more validated every day. From beginning to end, this process has been a farce.
[Photos: See images of the coveted NBA superstar]
On James’ new website, under the headline dubbing this TV debacle “The Decision,” there come these words: “Maverick Carter, CEO of LRMR Marketing said…” This explains everything. Carter’s marketing company isn’t doing so well trying to get its one client Jonny Flynn(notes) a used-car dealership endorsement in the Twin Cities, and now Carter’s going to try to justify all that plush office space, staff attorneys, private planes and resort hotels by translating the Championship of Me into the making of his reputation.
Carter’s pushed one agent – Aaron Goodwin – and one advisor – William Wesley – aside because he wanted to be the voice in James’ ear and the one getting credit on the masthead. So far, Carter’s been a superstar at spending James’ money on LRMR, but now he’s getting the company name out there and turning LeBron into Mr. July after LeBron didn’t have the stomach to be Mr. June.
Team LeBron had discussed a documentary on the free-agent process, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported, but the narrative changed after James’ Game 5 meltdown in the Eastern Conference semifinals. Carter says there was never a plan for a free-agent tour, but this is what he means: There was never a plan for James to get held accountable, to have his motivations and priorities called into doubt. There was never a plan for the blame to shift from Danny Ferry, Mike Brown and his Cavaliers teammates. There was never a plan that real-world rules applied to the self-proclaimed King.
They scrapped the tour, the documentary and set sights on hijacking the network for an unprecedented special they believe will elevate James’ brand. Only, James has never looked smaller, never more insecure and unsure of who he is and what he wants to be. He won’t look so much like Kobe Bryant(notes) and David Beckham, but rather a three-star linebacker from Shaker Heights picking Bowling Green over Kent and Ohio U. on local access television.
Team LeBron has known all along it was going to do this, and the cushy, protective relationship with that television network culminates with a basketball player commandeering his own coverage on his own terms. Now James and his buddies spoon out misdirection plays on his possible destination – feeding everyone for days and weeks that the Knicks were dead, only to say now, “Well…who knows?” – to build back drama for the infomercial.
For LeBron, free agency hasn't been about Dwayne Wade (R) or Chris Bosh, it's been about him.
(Lynne Sladky/AP Photo)
This is some plan they’ve hatched and some game they’re playing with those Cleveland fans who’ve been so relentlessly loyal to James. First, he marched the biggest suitors in the sport to come court him in downtown Cleveland with those pointless presentations. He wanted those people out there creating a visual public push-and-pull for him, and because James needed to be told something that probably isn’t completely true anymore: Cleveland loves him.
Well, Cleveland craves him. Love is a strong word, and it ought to be unconditional, but loving a sports hero is the most conditional kind of love there is. Only, it was different with Cleveland. He’s one of them, but you still have to wonder: Are they one of him?
James never shared that town’s angst with the Browns and Indians. He wanted winners in his life, and rooted for the Dallas Cowboys and New York Yankees. He doesn’t feel the pain of a city’s broken heart. Shaquille O’Neal(notes) leaving the Orlando Magic for the Los Angeles Lakers 14 years ago was a hard hit, but LeBron bailing on Cleveland is far more devastating on a different level.
Everyone ridicules Cleveland, makes it a butt of jokes, but LeBron James has the chance to change all of that. And even then, it has to crush Cleveland’s sporting psyche that James could still walk out. If one of our own won’t stay, what does that say to the rest of the country?
That’s the hardest part here, and that makes the possibility that James would go on national television – with those split-screen shots of stunned fans in Akron and Cleveland – and completely crush those people so impossible to believe. He couldn’t be that cold, that callous, that cunning? Or perhaps, maybe this is all a rollout – the website, the Twitter page and the infomercial – to introduce a new LeBron, a new city, to the world.
Whatever happens, James and the television network will hide behind some money going to the Boys & Girls Clubs. But this isn’t about kids and sports, and it sure isn’t about the credibility that comes with winning championships. Something’s changed here, and LeBron James has gone a long way to devaluing winning and losing in the NBA. David Stern has long pushed the individual over team, marketed showy over substance, and LeBron James represents the manifestation of it all.
Greatest talent to ever walk into this league, the self-proclaimed King, and now everyone gets a front-row, primetime seat for how it means to live without self-awareness, without restraint. The vacuous star for our vacuous times, live on Thursday night and fitting himself for a ring as the undisputed Champion of Me. All about ‘Bron and all about nothing.
By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports
Jul 7, 3:27 pm EDT
Email Print The Championship of Me comes crashing into a primetime cable infomercial that LeBron James(notes) and his cronies have been working to make happen for months, a slow, cynical churning of manufactured drama that sports has never witnessed. As historic monuments go, this is the Rushmore of basketball hubris and narcissism. The vacuous star for our vacuous times. All about ‘Bron and all about nothing.
James is throwing a few foosball tables at Boys & Girls Clubs, an empty gesture out of the empty superstar. He’s turned free agency into the title of our times, a preening pageant of fawning, begging and pleading. Hard-working people are dragged into municipalities and told to hold signs, chant scripted slogans and beg a diva who doesn’t care about them to accept a $100 million contract.
Other Popular Sports StoriesNASA finds problem with World Cup ball NCAA prospect has one-of-a-kind name More From Adrian WojnarowskiEasy come, easy go for King James Jul 9, 2010 NBA stars know they better bank money now Jul 6, 2010
LeBron James is scheduled to announce where he'll sign at 9 ET on Thursday.
(NBAE/ Getty Images)
Privately, Dwyane Wade(notes) and Chris Bosh(notes) weren’t pleased on Wednesday morning with the belief that James’ camp was responsible for leaking their plans to a television partner, but then again it makes perfect sense: This isn’t about Wade and Bosh choosing the Heat. It’s about LeBron getting the stage to himself on Thursday night.
One front-office executive whose team made a presentation to LeBron James told Yahoo! Sports that he believes James is choosing between Miami and Cleveland. And yet, if James wants to deliver the biggest kick in the gut to his hometown, he’ll pick the flat-lined New York Knicks. Whatever the decision, he’s made clear that the teasing and tormenting of the loser isn’t his concern.
Team LeBron is having the time of its life, but has no idea the repercussions of what it’s done here. All that comes to James now is the biggest burden to win a championship that sports has ever seen. They aren’t making James a bigger star with this big-top, but a bigger target. All those teams that marched into the presentations and listened to some of the foolish and naive questions asked of them believed these kids had no idea what they were doing, or what they had gotten themselves into. They’re all feeling more validated every day. From beginning to end, this process has been a farce.
[Photos: See images of the coveted NBA superstar]
On James’ new website, under the headline dubbing this TV debacle “The Decision,” there come these words: “Maverick Carter, CEO of LRMR Marketing said…” This explains everything. Carter’s marketing company isn’t doing so well trying to get its one client Jonny Flynn(notes) a used-car dealership endorsement in the Twin Cities, and now Carter’s going to try to justify all that plush office space, staff attorneys, private planes and resort hotels by translating the Championship of Me into the making of his reputation.
Carter’s pushed one agent – Aaron Goodwin – and one advisor – William Wesley – aside because he wanted to be the voice in James’ ear and the one getting credit on the masthead. So far, Carter’s been a superstar at spending James’ money on LRMR, but now he’s getting the company name out there and turning LeBron into Mr. July after LeBron didn’t have the stomach to be Mr. June.
Team LeBron had discussed a documentary on the free-agent process, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported, but the narrative changed after James’ Game 5 meltdown in the Eastern Conference semifinals. Carter says there was never a plan for a free-agent tour, but this is what he means: There was never a plan for James to get held accountable, to have his motivations and priorities called into doubt. There was never a plan for the blame to shift from Danny Ferry, Mike Brown and his Cavaliers teammates. There was never a plan that real-world rules applied to the self-proclaimed King.
They scrapped the tour, the documentary and set sights on hijacking the network for an unprecedented special they believe will elevate James’ brand. Only, James has never looked smaller, never more insecure and unsure of who he is and what he wants to be. He won’t look so much like Kobe Bryant(notes) and David Beckham, but rather a three-star linebacker from Shaker Heights picking Bowling Green over Kent and Ohio U. on local access television.
Team LeBron has known all along it was going to do this, and the cushy, protective relationship with that television network culminates with a basketball player commandeering his own coverage on his own terms. Now James and his buddies spoon out misdirection plays on his possible destination – feeding everyone for days and weeks that the Knicks were dead, only to say now, “Well…who knows?” – to build back drama for the infomercial.
For LeBron, free agency hasn't been about Dwayne Wade (R) or Chris Bosh, it's been about him.
(Lynne Sladky/AP Photo)
This is some plan they’ve hatched and some game they’re playing with those Cleveland fans who’ve been so relentlessly loyal to James. First, he marched the biggest suitors in the sport to come court him in downtown Cleveland with those pointless presentations. He wanted those people out there creating a visual public push-and-pull for him, and because James needed to be told something that probably isn’t completely true anymore: Cleveland loves him.
Well, Cleveland craves him. Love is a strong word, and it ought to be unconditional, but loving a sports hero is the most conditional kind of love there is. Only, it was different with Cleveland. He’s one of them, but you still have to wonder: Are they one of him?
James never shared that town’s angst with the Browns and Indians. He wanted winners in his life, and rooted for the Dallas Cowboys and New York Yankees. He doesn’t feel the pain of a city’s broken heart. Shaquille O’Neal(notes) leaving the Orlando Magic for the Los Angeles Lakers 14 years ago was a hard hit, but LeBron bailing on Cleveland is far more devastating on a different level.
Everyone ridicules Cleveland, makes it a butt of jokes, but LeBron James has the chance to change all of that. And even then, it has to crush Cleveland’s sporting psyche that James could still walk out. If one of our own won’t stay, what does that say to the rest of the country?
That’s the hardest part here, and that makes the possibility that James would go on national television – with those split-screen shots of stunned fans in Akron and Cleveland – and completely crush those people so impossible to believe. He couldn’t be that cold, that callous, that cunning? Or perhaps, maybe this is all a rollout – the website, the Twitter page and the infomercial – to introduce a new LeBron, a new city, to the world.
Whatever happens, James and the television network will hide behind some money going to the Boys & Girls Clubs. But this isn’t about kids and sports, and it sure isn’t about the credibility that comes with winning championships. Something’s changed here, and LeBron James has gone a long way to devaluing winning and losing in the NBA. David Stern has long pushed the individual over team, marketed showy over substance, and LeBron James represents the manifestation of it all.
Greatest talent to ever walk into this league, the self-proclaimed King, and now everyone gets a front-row, primetime seat for how it means to live without self-awareness, without restraint. The vacuous star for our vacuous times, live on Thursday night and fitting himself for a ring as the undisputed Champion of Me. All about ‘Bron and all about nothing.
LeSlave is overrated!
LeSlave is overrated!
A players performance in the last 5 minutes of close games separates the men from the boys -- "Larry Bird".
Career stats (per 48 minutes) for the final 5 minutes of close games* including playoffs (*score within 5 with 5 minutes to go).
JORDAN:
38.3 points -- 52.5% shooting
7.8 assists
8.2 rebounds
3.8 steals
2.2 blocks
Kobe:
26.4 points -- 44.6%
7.4 assists
6.1 Rebounds
1.1 Steals
0.8 Blocks
LeSlave:
25.2 Points 44.1%
7.4 Rebounds
6.2 Assists
0.68 Steals
0.80 Blocks
A players performance in the last 5 minutes of close games separates the men from the boys -- "Larry Bird".
Career stats (per 48 minutes) for the final 5 minutes of close games* including playoffs (*score within 5 with 5 minutes to go).
JORDAN:
38.3 points -- 52.5% shooting
7.8 assists
8.2 rebounds
3.8 steals
2.2 blocks
Kobe:
26.4 points -- 44.6%
7.4 assists
6.1 Rebounds
1.1 Steals
0.8 Blocks
LeSlave:
25.2 Points 44.1%
7.4 Rebounds
6.2 Assists
0.68 Steals
0.80 Blocks
Cavs fans back owner on LeBron letter
Cavs fans back owner on LeBron letter
By TOM WITHERS, AP Sports Writer
Jul 13, 6:53 pm EDT
Email Print CLEVELAND (AP)—Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert has more fans and friends than he ever knew.
His emotional, controversial letter criticizing LeBron James(notes) for leaving to join Miami spawned an outpouring of fan support for Gilbert. A team spokesman said the team has received thousands of e-mails and phone calls, including some from fans offering to help Gilbert pay a $100,000 NBA-imposed fine.
Last week, Gilbert fired off his incendiary letter, ripping James’ decision as “a shameful display of selfishness and betrayal.” He called the MVP “narcissistic” and “self-promotional” and vowed that his Cavaliers would win a championship before “the self-titled former king.”
Apparently, the message was just what the spurned fans of Cleveland wanted to hear.
Commissioner David Stern wasn’t as pleased.
He fined Gilbert on Monday, calling the letter and comments Gilbert later made in an interview with The Associated Press that he felt James quit in the playoffs the past two seasons “a little extreme.”
On Tuesday, some Cleveland fans offered to pitch in to help Gilbert pay the penalty. Gilbert issued a statement of thanks.
“The humbling offer by so many is another reflection of the strength of Cavs fans and the people who live and work in this region and are always the first to step up and have each other’s back,” Gilbert said. “I will pay this fine myself, but would be grateful and highly appreciative for any fan who redirects the dollars they kindly offered to contribute towards this fine to the Cavaliers Youth Fund, which will positively impact our region’s kids through the numerous local charitable groups the Cavaliers Youth Fund supports.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By TOM WITHERS, AP Sports Writer
Jul 13, 6:53 pm EDT
Email Print CLEVELAND (AP)—Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert has more fans and friends than he ever knew.
His emotional, controversial letter criticizing LeBron James(notes) for leaving to join Miami spawned an outpouring of fan support for Gilbert. A team spokesman said the team has received thousands of e-mails and phone calls, including some from fans offering to help Gilbert pay a $100,000 NBA-imposed fine.
Last week, Gilbert fired off his incendiary letter, ripping James’ decision as “a shameful display of selfishness and betrayal.” He called the MVP “narcissistic” and “self-promotional” and vowed that his Cavaliers would win a championship before “the self-titled former king.”
Apparently, the message was just what the spurned fans of Cleveland wanted to hear.
Commissioner David Stern wasn’t as pleased.
He fined Gilbert on Monday, calling the letter and comments Gilbert later made in an interview with The Associated Press that he felt James quit in the playoffs the past two seasons “a little extreme.”
On Tuesday, some Cleveland fans offered to pitch in to help Gilbert pay the penalty. Gilbert issued a statement of thanks.
“The humbling offer by so many is another reflection of the strength of Cavs fans and the people who live and work in this region and are always the first to step up and have each other’s back,” Gilbert said. “I will pay this fine myself, but would be grateful and highly appreciative for any fan who redirects the dollars they kindly offered to contribute towards this fine to the Cavaliers Youth Fund, which will positively impact our region’s kids through the numerous local charitable groups the Cavaliers Youth Fund supports.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
कावेस वोंट गो quitely
By Jason Lloyd
Beacon Journal staff writer
POSTED: 07:54 p.m. EDT, Jul 10, 2010
For anyone wondering whether the Cavaliers would tear down and rebuild or forge full speed ahead without LeBron James, the answer came in the first few minutes of Saturday morning.
The Cavaliers are charging ahead, preparing to back up owner Dan Gilbert's guarantee they will win a championship before James does with the Miami Heat.
It will read in history that the Cavs traded James to the Heat, but realistically, he was already gone. What they received in return shows they're not ready to quit and start over.
The Cavs acquired four draft picks from the Heat, spread out over as many as the next seven years. More importantly for right now, though, they also have one year to use a $14.5 million trade exception to land another star.
Having the trade exception, plus the midlevel exception of $5.7 million to use on free agents, means the Cavaliers can remain aggressive in their pursuit of a championship.
''There's really no timeline for us,'' Cavs General Manager Chris Grant said. ''The goal of this organization is to win, period. . . . If there's a great opportunity that comes along, we'll take advantage of it. We're not going to say there's a certain amount of years before we want to win. We're going to try to win every day in everything we do.''
For a reference point, players making in the neighborhood of $14.5 million next season include New Orleans Hornets point guard Chris Paul ($14.9 million), Utah Jazz point guard Deron Williams ($14.9 million), Phoenix Suns guard Jason Richardson ($14.4 million), Los Angeles Lakers center Andrew Bynum ($13.8 million), Portland Trail Blazers guard Brandon Roy ($13.5 million) and San Antonio Spurs point guard Tony Parker ($13.5 million). The trade exception, which can be used between now and next July, can also be divided into multiple deals.
As for the draft picks, the Cavs received two of the Heat's first-round picks starting no earlier than 2013 and continuing through 2017. They also received the Heat's 2012 second-round pick from the Hornets and a future second-round pick the Heat acquired from the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Cavs can also swap first-round picks in 2012 with the Heat.
By agreeing to a sign-and-trade, James technically signed with the Cavs and was dealt to the Heat. It allowed James to receive more money and the extra sixth year on his contract that only the Cavs could offer him, while allowing the Cavs to receive something in return for the franchise scoring leader.
Like James, Chris Bosh was also sent to the Heat in a separate sign-and-trade with the Toronto Raptors. Both James and Bosh signed identical six-year deals worth $110.1 million, according to ESPN. Dwyane Wade re-signed with the Heat for $107.5 million for six years. James took about $14.5 million less than he could've made, according to ESPN.
All three stars have early termination clauses in their contracts, allowing them to become free agents again in the summer of 2014. The final year on all three deals, for 2015-16, is a player option, according to ESPN.
The Raptors received two first-round picks next year for Bosh, reacquiring their own selection and adding the Heat's. The Heat had previously acquired the Raptors' first-round pick next year in a trade two years ago that sent Shawn Marion to Toronto.
Since league rules prohibit a team from trading its first-round pick in consecutive years, the Cavs couldn't have a first-round pick from the Heat until 2013.
James was introduced to Heat fans on Friday night in a setting befitting a rock concert, but he might have to relinquish sole rights of his nickname. James, Wade and Bosh were introduced to Heat fans as the ''Three Kings.''
''The organization is a close-knit group,'' James said of the Heat. ''It's all about family and that's what I'm all about.''
As for playing alongside Wade, James said the hard practices will make the games ''easy'' and that he is expecting to win at least seven championships in Miami, even though his current deal is only for six years.
''Not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven [titles],'' James said, as a camera shot caught Heat President Pat Riley looking uncomfortable in his seat. ''When I say that, I really believe it. I'm not just up here blowing smoke at these fans, because that's not what I'm about. I'm about business and we believe we can win multiple championships if we take care of business and do it the right way.''
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jason Lloyd can be reached at jlloyd@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the Cavs blog at http://www.ohiomm.com/blogs/cavs/. Follow the Cavs on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ABJCavsInsider
For anyone wondering whether the Cavaliers would tear down and rebuild or forge full speed ahead without LeBron James, the answer came in the first few minutes of Saturday morning.
The Cavaliers are charging ahead, preparing to back up owner Dan Gilbert's guarantee they will win a championship before James does with the Miami Heat.
It will read in history that the Cavs traded James to the Heat, but realistically, he was already gone. What they received in return shows they're not ready to quit and start over.
RELATED STORIES
Old adage is fit for 'Three Kings'
Still Public Enemy No. 1?
ON THE WEB
Check out Jason Lloyd's Cavs blog
The Cavs acquired four draft picks from the Heat, spread out over as many as the next seven years. More importantly for right now, though, they also have one year to use a $14.5 million trade exception to land another star.
Having the trade exception, plus the midlevel exception of $5.7 million to use on free agents, means the Cavaliers can remain aggressive in their pursuit of a championship.
''There's really no timeline for us,'' Cavs General Manager Chris Grant said. ''The goal of this organization is to win, period. . . . If there's a great opportunity that comes along, we'll take advantage of it. We're not going to say there's a certain amount of years before we want to win. We're going to try to win every day in everything we do.''
For a reference point, players making in the neighborhood of $14.5 million next season include New Orleans Hornets point guard Chris Paul ($14.9 million), Utah Jazz point guard Deron Williams ($14.9 million), Phoenix Suns guard Jason Richardson ($14.4 million), Los Angeles Lakers center Andrew Bynum ($13.8 million), Portland Trail Blazers guard Brandon Roy ($13.5 million) and San Antonio Spurs point guard Tony Parker ($13.5 million). The trade exception, which can be used between now and next July, can also be divided into multiple deals.
As for the draft picks, the Cavs received two of the Heat's first-round picks starting no earlier than 2013 and continuing through 2017. They also received the Heat's 2012 second-round pick from the Hornets and a future second-round pick the Heat acquired from the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Cavs can also swap first-round picks in 2012 with the Heat.
By agreeing to a sign-and-trade, James technically signed with the Cavs and was dealt to the Heat. It allowed James to receive more money and the extra sixth year on his contract that only the Cavs could offer him, while allowing the Cavs to receive something in return for the franchise scoring leader.
Like James, Chris Bosh was also sent to the Heat in a separate sign-and-trade with the Toronto Raptors. Both James and Bosh signed identical six-year deals worth $110.1 million, according to ESPN. Dwyane Wade re-signed with the Heat for $107.5 million for six years. James took about $14.5 million less than he could've made, according to ESPN.
All three stars have early termination clauses in their contracts, allowing them to become free agents again in the summer of 2014. The final year on all three deals, for 2015-16, is a player option, according to ESPN.
The Raptors received two first-round picks next year for Bosh, reacquiring their own selection and adding the Heat's. The Heat had previously acquired the Raptors' first-round pick next year in a trade two years ago that sent Shawn Marion to Toronto.
Since league rules prohibit a team from trading its first-round pick in consecutive years, the Cavs couldn't have a first-round pick from the Heat until 2013.
James was introduced to Heat fans on Friday night in a setting befitting a rock concert, but he might have to relinquish sole rights of his nickname. James, Wade and Bosh were introduced to Heat fans as the ''Three Kings.''
''The organization is a close-knit group,'' James said of the Heat. ''It's all about family and that's what I'm all about.''
As for playing alongside Wade, James said the hard practices will make the games ''easy'' and that he is expecting to win at least seven championships in Miami, even though his current deal is only for six years.
''Not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven [titles],'' James said, as a camera shot caught Heat President Pat Riley looking uncomfortable in his seat. ''When I say that, I really believe it. I'm not just up here blowing smoke at these fans, because that's not what I'm about. I'm about business and we believe we can win multiple championships if we take care of business and do it the right way.''
Beacon Journal staff writer
POSTED: 07:54 p.m. EDT, Jul 10, 2010
For anyone wondering whether the Cavaliers would tear down and rebuild or forge full speed ahead without LeBron James, the answer came in the first few minutes of Saturday morning.
The Cavaliers are charging ahead, preparing to back up owner Dan Gilbert's guarantee they will win a championship before James does with the Miami Heat.
It will read in history that the Cavs traded James to the Heat, but realistically, he was already gone. What they received in return shows they're not ready to quit and start over.
The Cavs acquired four draft picks from the Heat, spread out over as many as the next seven years. More importantly for right now, though, they also have one year to use a $14.5 million trade exception to land another star.
Having the trade exception, plus the midlevel exception of $5.7 million to use on free agents, means the Cavaliers can remain aggressive in their pursuit of a championship.
''There's really no timeline for us,'' Cavs General Manager Chris Grant said. ''The goal of this organization is to win, period. . . . If there's a great opportunity that comes along, we'll take advantage of it. We're not going to say there's a certain amount of years before we want to win. We're going to try to win every day in everything we do.''
For a reference point, players making in the neighborhood of $14.5 million next season include New Orleans Hornets point guard Chris Paul ($14.9 million), Utah Jazz point guard Deron Williams ($14.9 million), Phoenix Suns guard Jason Richardson ($14.4 million), Los Angeles Lakers center Andrew Bynum ($13.8 million), Portland Trail Blazers guard Brandon Roy ($13.5 million) and San Antonio Spurs point guard Tony Parker ($13.5 million). The trade exception, which can be used between now and next July, can also be divided into multiple deals.
As for the draft picks, the Cavs received two of the Heat's first-round picks starting no earlier than 2013 and continuing through 2017. They also received the Heat's 2012 second-round pick from the Hornets and a future second-round pick the Heat acquired from the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Cavs can also swap first-round picks in 2012 with the Heat.
By agreeing to a sign-and-trade, James technically signed with the Cavs and was dealt to the Heat. It allowed James to receive more money and the extra sixth year on his contract that only the Cavs could offer him, while allowing the Cavs to receive something in return for the franchise scoring leader.
Like James, Chris Bosh was also sent to the Heat in a separate sign-and-trade with the Toronto Raptors. Both James and Bosh signed identical six-year deals worth $110.1 million, according to ESPN. Dwyane Wade re-signed with the Heat for $107.5 million for six years. James took about $14.5 million less than he could've made, according to ESPN.
All three stars have early termination clauses in their contracts, allowing them to become free agents again in the summer of 2014. The final year on all three deals, for 2015-16, is a player option, according to ESPN.
The Raptors received two first-round picks next year for Bosh, reacquiring their own selection and adding the Heat's. The Heat had previously acquired the Raptors' first-round pick next year in a trade two years ago that sent Shawn Marion to Toronto.
Since league rules prohibit a team from trading its first-round pick in consecutive years, the Cavs couldn't have a first-round pick from the Heat until 2013.
James was introduced to Heat fans on Friday night in a setting befitting a rock concert, but he might have to relinquish sole rights of his nickname. James, Wade and Bosh were introduced to Heat fans as the ''Three Kings.''
''The organization is a close-knit group,'' James said of the Heat. ''It's all about family and that's what I'm all about.''
As for playing alongside Wade, James said the hard practices will make the games ''easy'' and that he is expecting to win at least seven championships in Miami, even though his current deal is only for six years.
''Not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven [titles],'' James said, as a camera shot caught Heat President Pat Riley looking uncomfortable in his seat. ''When I say that, I really believe it. I'm not just up here blowing smoke at these fans, because that's not what I'm about. I'm about business and we believe we can win multiple championships if we take care of business and do it the right way.''
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jason Lloyd can be reached at jlloyd@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the Cavs blog at http://www.ohiomm.com/blogs/cavs/. Follow the Cavs on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ABJCavsInsider
For anyone wondering whether the Cavaliers would tear down and rebuild or forge full speed ahead without LeBron James, the answer came in the first few minutes of Saturday morning.
The Cavaliers are charging ahead, preparing to back up owner Dan Gilbert's guarantee they will win a championship before James does with the Miami Heat.
It will read in history that the Cavs traded James to the Heat, but realistically, he was already gone. What they received in return shows they're not ready to quit and start over.
RELATED STORIES
Old adage is fit for 'Three Kings'
Still Public Enemy No. 1?
ON THE WEB
Check out Jason Lloyd's Cavs blog
The Cavs acquired four draft picks from the Heat, spread out over as many as the next seven years. More importantly for right now, though, they also have one year to use a $14.5 million trade exception to land another star.
Having the trade exception, plus the midlevel exception of $5.7 million to use on free agents, means the Cavaliers can remain aggressive in their pursuit of a championship.
''There's really no timeline for us,'' Cavs General Manager Chris Grant said. ''The goal of this organization is to win, period. . . . If there's a great opportunity that comes along, we'll take advantage of it. We're not going to say there's a certain amount of years before we want to win. We're going to try to win every day in everything we do.''
For a reference point, players making in the neighborhood of $14.5 million next season include New Orleans Hornets point guard Chris Paul ($14.9 million), Utah Jazz point guard Deron Williams ($14.9 million), Phoenix Suns guard Jason Richardson ($14.4 million), Los Angeles Lakers center Andrew Bynum ($13.8 million), Portland Trail Blazers guard Brandon Roy ($13.5 million) and San Antonio Spurs point guard Tony Parker ($13.5 million). The trade exception, which can be used between now and next July, can also be divided into multiple deals.
As for the draft picks, the Cavs received two of the Heat's first-round picks starting no earlier than 2013 and continuing through 2017. They also received the Heat's 2012 second-round pick from the Hornets and a future second-round pick the Heat acquired from the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Cavs can also swap first-round picks in 2012 with the Heat.
By agreeing to a sign-and-trade, James technically signed with the Cavs and was dealt to the Heat. It allowed James to receive more money and the extra sixth year on his contract that only the Cavs could offer him, while allowing the Cavs to receive something in return for the franchise scoring leader.
Like James, Chris Bosh was also sent to the Heat in a separate sign-and-trade with the Toronto Raptors. Both James and Bosh signed identical six-year deals worth $110.1 million, according to ESPN. Dwyane Wade re-signed with the Heat for $107.5 million for six years. James took about $14.5 million less than he could've made, according to ESPN.
All three stars have early termination clauses in their contracts, allowing them to become free agents again in the summer of 2014. The final year on all three deals, for 2015-16, is a player option, according to ESPN.
The Raptors received two first-round picks next year for Bosh, reacquiring their own selection and adding the Heat's. The Heat had previously acquired the Raptors' first-round pick next year in a trade two years ago that sent Shawn Marion to Toronto.
Since league rules prohibit a team from trading its first-round pick in consecutive years, the Cavs couldn't have a first-round pick from the Heat until 2013.
James was introduced to Heat fans on Friday night in a setting befitting a rock concert, but he might have to relinquish sole rights of his nickname. James, Wade and Bosh were introduced to Heat fans as the ''Three Kings.''
''The organization is a close-knit group,'' James said of the Heat. ''It's all about family and that's what I'm all about.''
As for playing alongside Wade, James said the hard practices will make the games ''easy'' and that he is expecting to win at least seven championships in Miami, even though his current deal is only for six years.
''Not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven [titles],'' James said, as a camera shot caught Heat President Pat Riley looking uncomfortable in his seat. ''When I say that, I really believe it. I'm not just up here blowing smoke at these fans, because that's not what I'm about. I'm about business and we believe we can win multiple championships if we take care of business and do it the right way.''
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