Sure, “The Decision” was about the biggest public relations nightmare anyone could ever conceive of. I’m sure if LeBron had it to do over again, he’d gladly change how he handled his departure from Cleveland. But the hatred that goes along with that isn’t because of how he departed Cleveland, it’s because he left at all.
Quick, name me three NBA superstars that left as free agents. I’ll wait.
Shaq gets a pass for two reasons. One, he went to the Lakers, and the Lakers seemingly always get a pass. Two, because he’s Shaq. He’s a goofball that makes fun of himself. We always give a pass to people that are funny and self-deprecating. So, even though he left his team in the prime of his career, no one could be angry at Shaq unless they paid money to see Kazaam, or for a CD of Shaq Diesel.
Every other superstar of the last 30 years has either played with his team for his entire career, or if they didn’t, it was because they were traded, not because they voluntarily left. And we applaud them for it. It doesn’t matter if they won it all or not, we love people who break their backs for the fans that idolize them for their entire careers.
They are all beloved, because they chose to stay and struggle, rather than do what LeBron did, and leave. Kobe Bryant understood this, which is why he stayed with the Lakers despite the struggles of the mid-2000’s. He can weather the sexual assault charges, an on-again off-again marriage, and years of public perception that he’s selfish, aloof, and a general a-hole. But he stayed with the team despite its struggles, and eventually became the most popular athlete in the sport again.
Kareem (traded from Milwaukee), Magic and Worthy with the Lakers; Bird, Parish, and McHale with the Celtics; Dr. J with Philly; David Robinson (and later Duncan, Parker and Ginobili) with the Spurs; Stockton and Malone with the Jazz; Isaiah with Detroit; Hakeem with the Rockets; Dirk with the Mavs; all of them stayed with one team.
Sure, there are the second tier guys that have bounced around. There are also the guys who would be shuffled around via trade: Jason Kidd, Charles Barkley, Allen Iverson, etc. The only other near star that left in the prime of his career was Steve Nash, who wanted desperately to stay in Dallas, and gave Mark Cuban every chance to match the offer he got from Phoenix. But Nash, despite the MVP’s, isn’t a superstar on the LeBron/Kobe/Jordan level.
We expect someone of that level to carry his team on his back, rise up, and claim the Championship. We loved Jordan because the Pistons knocked him down over and over, and yet he kept getting up and eventually was the best player in the world because of it. We forgave Kobe all his transgressions because he kept working harder than anyone else, and when he finally got the pieces around him to win again, he rose up and took it.
I’ve heard many people over the years say that LeBron could never have won the title in Cleveland, because they were never going to be able to surround him with enough talent to win. Bullshit. He’s 29. Right now, he’s 29, and he’s been in Miami for four years. He got to the finals with Cleveland when he was only 22. You don’t think that if he had stayed with the Cavs, with as weak and feeble as the East is now, that they would have found a way to surround him with enough talent to get back there a couple of times?
Dirk won a title coming out of a stacked Western conference, with a bunch of cripples and has-beens. And we love him for it, because he carried his team to the title on his back, and even though he could have left Dallas a number of times to go somewhere that would have made him a more immediate threat, he didn’t go. He understood. LeBron still doesn’t get it.
It doesn’t matter how many titles he wins with Miami. He can win 7 in a row, people will still hate him. Not because of HOW he left Cleveland, but because he left there at all.
