The Case for The Decision

One of my many manifestations of maladaptive behavior is that I force myself to see things from another perspective. It’s a time consuming chore and I regularly lose sleep over it. The ultimate goal is finding true objectivity for better or worse, and making a final judgment independent of emotion and societal moors. We are weaned from childhood to find a moral of a story. There is always something positive to be found even in the worst of situations. Periodically, I will present a Cavaliers-related event that was a catalyst leading us to this moment in a different light. To get this one out of the way, I present a topic that I lost plenty of sleep over, the case for The Decision.

The Decision was a shock and awe campaign without an exit strategy. LeBron James, Maverick Carter and the rest of the Akron assembly severely underestimated the fallout the program would produce. At the time, it was widely critiqued for being a narcissistic, self-love promotion that encompassed everything that is wrong with professional sports. Allegations of tampering were lobbed by Mark Cuban. Charles Barkley found the premeditation of the announcement disturbing. Bill Simmons stated that it was a sports atrocity that couldn’t have been handled worse. Dan Gilbert…Let’s just say that he didn’t handle it well.

The Decision was received in Northeast Ohio like an announcement by U.S. Steel that they were snuffing out blast furnaces statewide for good. While only a minority of Cavalier fans actually burned James’ jerseys, that became a major subplot of the reaction coverage along with Gilbert’s notorious letter. Personally, I didn’t burn any James memorabilia. I was bartending at The Youngstown Crab Company when LeBron highjacked the sports world. After he uttered the words “South Beach,” I immediately headed behind the curtain to the restaurants control center and my nerves finally erupted as I threw up coffee bile. I didn’t sleep for two nights. I kept telling myself that I shouldn’t care this much about a subterfuge used to escape the monotony of modern life.

Like most, I was more upset with how LeBron left than why. I understood completely why he left. I left Ohio myself a few months after he did. I wasn’t chasing championships, I was searching for myself. My exist was planned for months, just like LeBrons probably was. Old sights brought back too many old memories. The past needed to be the past and dead needed to be dead. The need for change gurgled in my marrow. In December of 2010, I took my dearth of talents to California to chase an old dream. My time away from home brought me closer to my family, rekindled my love affair with Northern Ohio, and made me ache for its pace every single day. My exile gave me closure and I returned a month ago.

Objectively, The Decision was a smashing success for the league as a whole. Thirteen million people watched James make his announcement. The hour long attention tickler on where the best player of his generation would play his prime seasons drew fringe fans’ pupils back to the NBA product, and due to the wrestling plot lines The Decision produced, the NBA was more compelling than it had been in years. The Cavs and Raptors became instant lottery jobbers. The Heat were transformed into the most hated heel stable the league had ever seen.

While the Heat failed to live up to LeBron’s “not six, not seven” proclamation from Miami’s collusion victory pep rally, South Beach was the right decision for him at the time and it’s hard to imagine any of LeBron’s other options from 2010 exceeding two titles and four consecutive Finals appearances. The Knicks and Nets would have found a way to screw up their good fortune. Imagining either franchise having the patience and vision to construct a suitable supporting cast is an impossibility for me. The Clippers were still a punchline at the time. Of all the teams James let court him, they were the longest shot. Even if they would have presented him with a plan to trade for his BFF Chris Paul, how could he have faith in them actually pulling it off after 30 years of Sterling ineptitude? Had LeBron gone to Chicago they could have created a Miami-level juggernaut for the 2011 and 2012 seasons, but LeBron probably would have had the same growing pains with Derrick Rose that he experienced with Dwyane Wade. Rose wouldn’t pick up a phone to court James to Chicago in 2010. How willing would he have been to share the reins of the franchise? Would tight-pocketed Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf have dived into luxury tax waters for a dynasty? Would Thibs have run LeBron into the ground the way he did Luol Deng? Chicago probably would have won a title, but matching Miami’s run with the Rose injury seems far fetched.

Of all of the possibilities James had in the summer of 2010, the sad reality is that the Cavs would have probably been his worst option. Danny Ferry and the franchise mutually agreed to part ways and Mike Brown’s pink slip was still warm. The roster lacked youth and tradable assets. Perhaps Chris Grant could have flipped some more expiring contracts and future draft picks for a horrible contract like Joe Johnson, but what would that have ultimately achieved? We saw Grant’s miscarriage of moves in 2013, how in Hades could he have built a championship roster around LeBron with nothing to work with? I can’t see a scenario where the Cavs could have gotten past Boston in 2011, the Heat or Bulls in 2012, or the Pacers the past two seasons. If LeBron would have stayed, he probably wouldn’t have won a title and would have opted out of his contract last season and he’d be gone forever. We would just now be entering the demolition phase of the franchise that we went through four years ago, with an  “empty cupboard” draft pick portfolio like the Nets now have, from years of mortgaging the future.

Without The Decision we don’t have Gilbert’s letter, the luck of the Nick, bow ties or a troika of lottery jubilation. Without The Decision LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love aren’t playing in Cleveland this season. Without The Decision the world doesn’t get to see the depth of our hate or the magnitude of our love.  In an ironic twist, the biggest winners to come from The Decision are us as Cavalier fans for the unparalleled negative and positive emotional G-forces that we’ve experienced on this four-year roller coaster ride.