Welcome back, LeBron. Welcome back to the building you lost one regular season game that you played in in during the 08-09 season. Welcome back to the building where you hit what could have been a game-winning and-1 over Dwight Howard in the first game of the Eastern Conference Finals, only to watch Rashard Lewis hit a three on the next possession. Welcome back to the building where you hit a game-winner in the very next game and got a local news crew to do this. The chances of you seeing that kind of reaction in Miami are about the same as the chances of seeing a sub-60 degree weather forecast down there.
Welcome back to the building with the best fans in the Eastern Conference, if not the entire league. Have fun being on their bad side — maybe now you’ll understand why the Cavs were all but unbeatable at home for the past two regular seasons.
Welcome back to the place where thousands of people lost their collective s**t every time they heard “From St. Vincent/St. Mary’s…IN AKRON, OHIO…” each and every time they heard it. I suppose the “…WHICH IS A DIFFERENT CITY THAN CLEVELAND” was supposed to be an implied disclaimer.
Welcome back to the Q. Last time you were here, you went 3-14 in a 32-point loss. Maybe the booing will motivate you to do better this time. I am fairly confident that you will not always be hated the way you are now. You will probably be loved someday. But you will never be loved with the kind of passion that Cleveland hates you with now. I am fairly confident of this. You may as well embrace that, because it’s far too late to try and change it.
Welcome back to the city that you never thought would feel this way about you. You gave it the first seven years of your professional career, some of the best basketball that’s ever been played, a finals appearance, and seven years of hope. You managed to throw away all that good will in an hour. After seven years, seven words — “and this is very hard for me…” just weren’t quite enough. I’m sure a part of you is confused. I’m sure a part of you is hurt. I’m sure a part of you is angry. I doubt you’ll get much sympathy for any of that in Cleveland.
You asked the city of Cleveland, and the national public, what you should do. I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but you know what I want you to do? Win. I want to see you become the player you’re capable of becoming. I want to see you integrate yourself with Wade and Bosh instead of being frustrated that they won’t adapt to your game. I want to see you MOVE WITHOUT THE FREAKING BALL. I want to see you attack the basket the way you did in Cleveland instead of deferring and trying to prove a point. I want you to prove that you can be a team player instead of just being a franchise player.
I want you to prove that even though you left the Cavs in the wrong manner, you left for the right reasons. Right now, it looks like you took the “play” part of the “chance to play with Wade and Bosh” thing way too seriously. I want you to show — not tell, show — that the decision to leave Cleveland for Miami, as tough as it was, was an opportunity you couldn’t pass up. I want you to show that you left to chase greatness, not fame or notoriety. I have enough friends and colleagues. I never needed to know that you were a great guy. I followed you because I knew you had the potential to be the greatest to ever pick up a basketball, and hoped you were committed to that goal.
I want you to show that I wasn’t wrong about you all these years. Yes, I mostly rooted for you because you were wearing a Cavaliers jersey, but I also came to believe in you over those seven years. If I rooted for you to fail or, worse, blow out an ACL, that would make me a hypocrite, and isn’t that what everyone who hates you is accusing you of being?
I want you to show that you’re ready to be a great player and made your decision for a reason, starting on December 3rd. If you want to keep making risky passes, passing to your teammates for 18-footers instead of attacking the basket, watching plays develop when you don’t have the ball instead of moving without it, and letting a city that knows how to support its team savor a win over a team that you don’t know how to play for on Thursday, I wouldn’t mind in the slightest.
What I haven’t heard and exactly how I feel.
I thinks its too late for that. LeBron has everything he wants already. For that matter what prevented him from being as great as he can be while in Cleveland? If he didn’t when he a rookie and in his first years, I seriously doubt anything is going to change.
Don’t hold your breath…
John, you are a courageous man for sharing your heartfelt feelings like this and for saving them until the day of the return. I don’t have to agree with everything you’ve written to respect what you’ve done here. Thanks for being a good writer.
Hopefully, the fans will keep a cool head. Personally, I’d like to see the crowd go utterly, eerily silent every time LeBron’s name is announced.
Wanting to see LeBron win in Miami is a logical response, but not one I can get on board with. I want to see them suffer, first.
John,
As you said in your article I can’t speak for everyone but I don’t
hate LeBron for being a hypocrite. I hate him for not being man
enough to come face to face with the organization and give it to them
straight. Stringing us (and the three other teams that had a “shot” in
getting him) along as he did was simply the wrong thing do, especially
if you believe as I do that he had his mind made up well before July.
With that said, I am ready to move on. I would never wish injury on an
athlete because again that is just the wrong thing to do, but if the
Heat don’t win again while he’s there I can’t say I’ll be upset.
I don’t know how you can want him to succeed and figure things out in Miami. We are Cavs fans, not LeBron fans. What I want is for him to show that he isn’t that great. That maybe we were never that close to a championship because not only did we not have a strong enough cast, we didn’t have a good enough (or at least smart enough) star.
I want LeBron to fail and be placed squarely in Kobe’s (and perhaps Durant’s) shadow in the history books. This is what happens when you leave the team I root for. I would love to have him back, because it makes the Cavs a lot more interesting. But until he plays for my team again, I want him to lose, every single time.
No different than I (still) feel about the Ravens. Sure, I would love to have Ray-Ray on our side – hell, we cheered for Jamal Lewis. Anyone on another team is the enemy, and it’s more true for LBJ than any other athlete. I don’t care if he gets hurt, but I want him to never, ever improve – and never, ever win a championship for the Miami f’ing Heat.
yeah, i’m with scott
Even if the Cleveland loses tonight at least they always win in this game http://studiodgames.com/?page_id=293
I predict a win though, they got pumped up to beat Boston at the second half of their back to back, they can do the same to Miami.
Everything Comes Around.
Thats what i believe and someone would have a hard time trying to convince me otherwise. Lebron handled the whole “Desicion” thing the wrong way; and he has faced all the consequences of it: the media backlash, the fan’s (and not only the fans from Cleveland)hate, the “tainting” of his legacy, all the “taking my talents to” jokes, etc.
He might say he doesnt care or doesnt mind, but really, wouldnt you? Maybe he doesnt regrets (yet) going to Miami, but im pretty sure he is not havinga good time there, and im sure he didnt expect the Heat to have such poor performance in the start of the season. If the Heat dont have the season they expected, then maybe he would ask himself if it was worth it (the hate of an entire city and almost the entire league, the prospect of winning had he gone somewhere else,etc).And then he might feel dissapointed, the same dissapointment Cleveland fans felt that tuesday night. And to what is happenning to the Miami Heat right now, he might even feel dissapointed right now.
So i wouldnt boo him. He might be booing himself already.
PD:Sorry for the broken english.
Lebron is being manipulated by friends and a marketing guy with no college degree on how to build a brand….his friends have no clue what to do and are just there for the ride. Maverick Carter is an idiot and is destroying Lebron more than he thinks and tries to place blame on others to salvage whatever is left. Those sources from Broussard were clearly Maverick Carter and other cronies associated with Lebron. Some one yells at Lebron…its a problem…someone tells Lebron the real truth even if it hurts..its a problem…Its amazing how immature he really is even though for years analysts and others have raved about his maturity..maybe he’s mature in playing basketball so well…but anything else he’s a spoiled 5 yr old brat and there’s no parental control or advisor to help him…
Just clicked on an article and it took me to the HeatIndex and an article written by John Krolik. I think you need to sue somebody, because I’m sure you haven’t gone to the Dark Side.
JK: I understand what you’re saying, but don’t agree. I view this more like Scott, I’m a Cavs fan and have always been a Cavs fan. The fact the LeBron was on the team just made it that much more exciting because every night I though my Cavs would win and had a good shot at a championship.
Now that LeBron is gone, I’m still a Cavs fan. I still want the Cavs to win every night they play (just a hope now – not an expectation). I still say the LeBron is the best player in the league – I said this when he was on the Cavs and still stand by this statement. However, I don’t want him or the Heat to win. As I said, I’m a Cavs fan so why would I wish for the success of another team. Moreover, I want the Heat to lose, I don’t want them to win anything – why: because I’m a Cavs fan. I’d rather be able to say that my Cavs were a better team than people thought and ‘the supporting cast’ in Cleveland would have given LeBron a better chance to win a championship than the Heat.
Again, I’m a Cavs fan, and that means rooting for the Cavs and wishing the best for them. If a player like LeBron leaves the Cavs, I want that player to understand they made a mistake and the BEST place for them to be would be in Cleveland. I’m a Cavs fan and yes I want LeBron to regret leaving, yes I want the Cavs to win tonight (and every night) and yes I hope our fans show how Cleveland has the best fans in the country. But no – I don’t wish any harm on ANY player. The only thing I hope LeBron proves is that he would have been better off staying with the Cavs.
I don’t wish Lebron any physical injuries but I do wish him the worst possible luck on the basketball court. Wether it be losing game after game or for the three amigos to self-implode… Sorry for Wade and Bosh, I don’t think they knew it was going to come to this, but oh well, they were all in it since ’08.
Amazing quotes that Windhorst got in his ‘Cavs ambivalent’ column on espn. Most of all the Daniel Gibson quote at the end: “In his heart of hearts, he knows that he’ll never play for a city like this ever again,” Gibson said. “The loyalty they showed, the love they showed. He knows that. He may not say that. I know it.”
He should have stayed, he should have not given up, he should have not strung our team along. He deserves every loss he has comming to him. If he really wanted to win he would have gone to the Bulls, everyone knows that. He knew everyone would treat a game vs. Miami as a play off game. If he would have not strung us along, and just said what he would do we and everyone in the league would not treat them so harsh.
Honestly, I just REALLY want the Cavs to win. Not only do I want this because I am first and foremost a Cavs fan, but I just think it symbolizes what’s right with the NBA (Cavs – team oriented, hard working, system basketball) versus what’s wrong (heat – Superstar dependent, flash, one-on-one oriented). Just for once I want to see the good guys win.
While I understand the feelings of scott and those that agree with him, I also understand why you said what you said John. While you are clearly a Cavs fan, I think you are an even bigger basketball fan. Anyone that loves basketball as you do, must love the potential for what could be done in Miami. In a lot of ways I am right there with you. What makes me different is that I believe they will never allow themselves to be as good as they can be, because they are a little too ego-centric, and I think they all went there to take the easy road to a championship, not to work hard to be as good as they can be.
On a side note, I don’t know if everyone saw this, but it’s great: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=101201/Cleveland. Finally a thoughtful, well-researched piece on the city of Cleveland, and why the city feels the way it does. I never expected to read anything like this from ESPN.
I agree with Nupe. I’m in the team over players camp. Sure I wanted James to do well when he was on the team. Now he is not, so I hope he has an off game tonight. Just like I hoped Bobby Sura would out play Gary Payton.
It is more wishful thinking than expectation some years, but the players come and go relatively quickly. The team has stuck around.
Hey I’m from the Knicks Blog and I just wanted to say Lequeen is a real Douche, Not because he went to south but because of how everything was handle He suck. I really hope the Cavs stick it to him tonight.
3-14. Man, that numbers says a lot, but it doesn’t say nearly enough. 3-14 while simply standing in a corner 50% of the game not even moving. For his last game as a Cav to have been probably his worst game as a Cav (at least in 2008 in game 1 against the celtics he was playing hard) is really quite amazing.
ABSOLUTE SILENCE WHEN LEBRON IS INTRODUCED and everytime he HAS THE BALL
Ugh, Kroly, not even close. Dude, what are you serious? I want LeBron to go 0-100 from the field tonight, and I want him to have a terrible season, for the Heat to fallm on their faces in the most embarrassing way possible, and for all the elitist douchebag dilletantes who laugh at Cleveland’s misfortune to get what’s coming to them. Lebron’s the worst, ever. I don’t wish injury or death on anyone, but I certainly wish misfortune and misery on James. Your type of “even” approach to this subject would fit in better with the shameless sycophants at TrueHoop. We come to C:TB for a bit of homerism. Get on board with the Cavs for 5 minutes and let us relish in the shadenfreude of LeBron’s failures without tempering it with faux-deep ruminations on what could have been and blah blah blah. LeBron can go F himself. So can the Heat, the city of Miami, and any soulless piece of trash who could possibly root for this team (Miamians excluded, of course, they have to root for the Heat). I never cease to tire of journalists contrarian streak; just because everyone expeects you to write an article about James being garbage and hoping he falls off a cliff, doesn’t mean you have to buck the expectation. Just once write exactly what we all expect. It’s a fascinating page turner that goes something like this:
F#&k LeBron, F#&k Riley, F#&k the Heat, Go Cavs. The End.
feel everyone here! Lebron you had to go to the heat, but at what cost!!!
Check out my blog post about it: http://maryjaneshirts.com/maryjaneblog/?p=39