LeBron learns plenty in year after 'Decision'
One year ago today, wearing a purple-and-white checkered shirt and a look as uncomfortable as the year he was about to unleash, LeBron James went on live television, uttered the following words and changed everything.
"This is very tough," he said. "This fall I'm going to take my talents to South Beach and join the Miami Heat."
Yes, no doubt, The Decision was tough. LeBron was leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers after seven seasons as its star player. He was leaving his hometown of Akron. He was letting a lot of people down.
All of that was surely difficult.
Just not as difficult as what was about to unfold.
It turned out The Decision wasn't the easy route LeBron had envisioned to "not one, not two ... not seven championships."
Instead, The Decision turned out to be a complete rewrite of the NBA and how (despite Dallas' ultimate triumph) its stars believe they now must cluster together to try and dominate a league still boasting a Big Three.
The Decision was also a total rewrite of life as LeBron knew it. That grimace-worthy announcement became an ugly, anger-inducing kickoff of a yearlong foray into public-relations ineptitude and recurring frustration and doubt. It ultimately ended with a historic choke job in the NBA Finals.
This story had it all: News, drama, arrogance and the ensuing rage of Cleveland fans coupled with the less intense, but equally lasting frustration of most everyone else.
All of these things happened when King James transformed himself into more rascal than royalty, when he changed the NBA right along with him and when an announcement that was meant to earn money for children and trumpet the next stage of his career instead became a punch line.
Assassinating his own reputation on national television – and morphing from arguably one of the world's most talented athletes to certainly its most interesting – also offered insight into a coming year that would further batter his reputation and psyche.
It did not take long for the wheels to start coming off.
Everything The Decision had shown about LeBron – the recklessness, an inability to grasp the consequences that stem from unchecked pride and ego, pressure's impact on him, the deep-seated fear of not winning a title that drove him from home and into the arms of Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade – began to emerge in real life like some kind of grotesque reality show.
LeBron and the Heat got off to a rocky 9-8 start, which bred bickering and doubt and foreshadowed the brutal meltdown they would endure in the Finals eight months later. LeBron bumped his head coach. A story was leaked, clearly by someone in LeBron's camp, which had the intention of getting coach Erik Spoelstra fired.
The season continued, and so did LeBron's mistakes.
LeBron tweeted that the woeful Cavaliers, the team he'd scorned, deserved an early-season 55-point beat down at the hands of the Los Angeles Lakers because of "karma."
He too often displayed poorly concealed contempt for his coach. He told reporters he thought contraction was a swell idea, forgetting that with contraction would come more suffering for more fans who would have to watch something they loved about their city leave.
That fact, you know, LeBron probably should have been in tune with by then.
He launched a cartoon featuring multiple versions of himself that seemed as narcissistic as his staunchest critics claimed him to be. He was booed everywhere he went. It went so poorly for him, he said he'd accepted the fact he was a villain.
And, largely dismissed but ultimately critical, he often failed when it was his turn to try to close out games in the regular season.
All the while, opposing teams didn't just want to beat LeBron and the Heat. They wanted to humiliate them. Pundits reveled in the chance to put him in his place. Even retired Hall of Fame players seemed to take quiet (and sometimes not-so-quiet) joy in LeBron's struggles.
Forget The Decision. In its aftermath, LeBron experienced The Descent – a season-long plummet from beloved athlete to reviled bad guy.
And then the Heat started to win. And gel (even LeBron and Spoelstra, who formed a genuine bond with each other late in the season). And redemption, sweet redemption, seemed more and more certain as Miami and its star player dispatched Philadelphia, Boston and then Chicago from the playoffs.
With last month's NBA Finals featuring a confident-seeming LeBron James and his hard-charging Miami Heat against an older Dallas Mavericks team, The King seemed certain to claim his crown, the people's love and a royal place in the game of basketball.
And then came the worst part of all, final proof that The Decision was (for now) the start of a tragedy rather than a triumph.
In June, with his ultimate goal of winning it all so close, LeBron unveiled The Collapse.
LeBron simply vanished from the Finals, particularly in fourth quarters. With games on the line – with a championship riding on his play as time ticked toward zero – he might as well have been me out there. And so it was Dirk Nowitzki who took on the mantel of champion, Dirk who basked in redemption, Dirk who got the love.
And it was LeBron, in the moments after his historically poor Finals performance, who seemed to criticize most everyone else when he pointed out they'd have to go back to their lives and problems.
That brings us back to the beginning, to Friday's anniversary of The Decision and to its stark reminder of how thoroughly one of Earth's most talented athletes has been changed by his own words and choices.
One year ago Thursday, LeBron James was a beloved star.
One year ago Friday, LeBron James was a loathed athlete.
Today he is still that, only with the title of historic choker added to his résumé.
Odds are Friday's anniversary will usher in something just as compelling for him. Will it be a chastised and highly motivated LeBron quietly working so hard on his game that redemption surely follows, or, instead, another season watching a tottering talent stumble once more?
Either way, everyone other than the self-proclaimed Chosen One – the Heat, the NBA, fans – have benefited from The Decision.
The past 365 days of LeBron James and the NBA were a villain's tale that captivated the sporting world. Perhaps the next 365 will turn into an equally powerful story of redemption and lessons learned
