It's a business choice at the end of the day, fans can't understand that because they're so clingy. Personally I don't believe James would have won a Championship in Cleveland anytime soon, they would've had to add pieces to the puzzle. Now that he's with the Heat and has Bosh and Wade on both sides, they're going to be monsters. I expect them to win a Championship in the next few years.

However, I do think LeBron made a poor choice as far as how he handled the situation. Regardless of being a free agent, I understand you don't have to answer to anyone, he should have had enough respect for that organization to tell the owner he was leaving, he left them in the dark and embarrassed them. I can understand why a lot of those fans are annoyed.

I'll explain it for you. Bear with me, this is gonna be a long post. I moved to Ohio from California for college 3 years ago, and while I can't say I've been a life-long resident, I've done my research on the city and have followed LBJ's career since the beginning. I also like to think of myself as one of the few in Cleveland who knew of the true ego LeBron James has prior to the events of his leaving yo, so I'll tell you why people are bashing him from the perspective of Cleveland, and the perspective of everyone in the media besides ESPN yo

First, let me point out the obvious flaws LeBron James has:

Admittedly, LeBron James was enabled by many enablers since high school yo, such as the fans, his teammates the Cavaliers, Dan Gilbert, the media, the NBA, etc. etc. I use this analogy to describe the situation: the worst thing that you can do as a parent is to spoil your child. LeBron James is spoiled, he's been called the chosen one, "King", and the "greatest player since Michael Jordan", leading him to believe that everything should be handed to him simply because he's LeBron James. As a result, he has no real competitive drive to strive to be better, and if you don't have that competitive drive, your teammates won't get better either, leading them to become arrogant and too easily assured of victory, as seen here for example:

[ame='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhAWXCGn5c4']YouTube- Broadcast Yourself.[/ame]

It wasn't the players that were holding him back on the Cavs, it was him alone IMO. Michael Jordan used to chew out his teammates if they didn't perform up to par, what does LBJ do? He spoils his teammates just as much as he's been spoiled. Another flaw LBJ has is that he simply cannot be coached or handle any criticism from coaches, which is why the Cavs got Mike Brown; because they knew that an easygoing guy like Brown wouldn't tell LeBron to shut the fuck up and keep his ego in check, appeasing their spoiled child even more.

In Game 5 of the series with the Celtics this year, if you notice, LeBron wasn't even trying to get into the huddles, completely ignoring plays, acting lethargic, and obviously not playing up to his true level. Had he been dealing with a tougher coach, he would have been sent back to the locker room for quitting on his team like that. This shows how much pull LeBron has, if he's willing to sink his entire team just to get what he wants (which was obviously to go to the Heat).

Another flaw LBJ has is that he made too many false promises in return to Cleveland, such as stating to an entire crowd during a Jay-Z concert he was throwing to support Barack Obama that he would stay in Cleveland no matter what (and there have been other instances of him making the same claim), and claiming that he would bring the city its first championship in a long time. However, he values Akron more so than Cleveland (and I can understand the reasoning behind this, Akron is his hometown) and openly roots against other Cleveland sports teams (i.e. the Yankee cap at the Indians playoff series vs the Yankees incident).

The last and biggest flaw LBJ has? It seems like he's focused not on the game of basketball and winning a championship, but he's focused more so on his business prospects, as evidenced by his statement that he wanted to be the "NBA's first billionaire player." To him, money, publicity, and his own personal well-being matters more to him than winning does.

Unless LeBron makes some lifestyle changes or matures in his mindset, he'll never be a real champion IMO. I blame some of his lack of maturity on the fact that he never went to college and played college basketball as well, where he would have learned to better himself as a man and a player.

Now, to really answer your question about why fans, the media (besides ESPN who were riding his dick like crazy), and players have turned on him, and to a lesser extent the Heat in general...

Cleveland:

The general feeling among fans here is that they aren't angry at him for leaving, nor are they criticizing his decision for doing so, but rather how he went about doing it. Because he never announced his intentions of leaving to Dan Gilbert and the Cavs organization, he pretty much got Mike Brown and GM Danny Ferry unnecessarily fired (as the Cavs were trying to restructure things to appeal to his liking, such as getting a new coach and GM), keep them in the dark for so long they weren't able to bring any good free agents in to replace him, and embarrassed the city, the fans, and the Cavs on national television.

People are also angry because he legitimately believes that he spoiled THEM way too much, by thinking that he accomplished a lot for the city, when in actuality, none of what he did really matters because if you don't get a championship, it's all for naught. The bitterness is again multiplied by all his false promises and false hope he gave the fans, leading them to effectively turn on him.

Also, part of the hate LeBron has received is because the politicians of this city were stupid enough to center the majority of their economy around LeBron, so the politicians are using this as a perfect opportunity to draw attention away from their own buffoonish mistakes yo

The media/other current and older players:

The reason why they're upset is pretty simple. While there's no denying that Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson all had help, people could safely say that those were still technically their teams, that they were the leaders (alongside the coaches) of the team. LeBron essentially gave up leading a team in favor of playing second fiddle to Dwyane Wade. Now, when he wins championship (if he does), he'll always have one less than Wade as long as they play on the same team together, and there will obviously be people comparing the situation to when Kobe was stuck in a rut during his struggle to win a championship as the sole leader of his team without Shaq. He's playing on Dwyane Wade's team, not his.

Now had Bosh decided to go to either Miami or Cleveland, and Wade and LBJ had decided to stay on their respective teams, you wouldn't see much of a backlash because people can see Bosh as someone who can be a supporting player (even he probably does). But Wade and LeBron are still in their primes. Unlike the Boston situation, where it was basically a last-ditch effort due to the fact that they are all getting older, you've got two guys who can lead their teams to championships as leaders of their own respective teams, and their legacies would be more powerful if they attempted to do that.

Wade wouldn't have been criticized as much as LeBron as he already has a ring he essentially won by himself (Shaq wasn't in his prime and was more of a supporting player than leader) if Wade had moved to Cleveland, or if the Heat only had Wade and Bosh (and vice versa if it was only LBJ and Bosh in Cleveland). But LeBron on the other hand, is going to take a couple hits in terms of his overall legacy until he wins a ring without the aid of people on an equal level as him.

The fans outside of Cleveland:

With the way he whored himself out to these cities he was thinking of playing for and gave so much false hope that he'd be going to one of them, and as a result, to a lesser extent than Cleveland, these cities feel used and alienated by him yo. The media spectacle he put on was a slap in the face to not just Cleveland, but Chicago, NY, and other cities that tried to lure him away. These cities don't blame him for his decision. Just like Cleveland they hate the way he went about it.

LeBron has always claimed that he wants to expand his brand, and with his actions, he did a good job of ruining his brand in those areas. It's hard to believe that he just woke up the day of "The Decision" and had a revelation that he wanted to go to Miami, this was all planned for years, and it's obvious there was a lot of collusion going on yo

In summary, I truly believe that LeBron doesn't realize the ramifications of what he did, he's a 25 year old doing stupid 25 year old things yo. No matter how many championships he wins, he'll always be remembered just as much for his failure to bring a championship to Cleveland and how he went about inflating his ego when it came to "The Decision."

I'll end this with some videos I feel are appropriate for this situation:

[ame='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6XCPY9NtYo']YouTube- Broadcast Yourself.[/ame]

[ame='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d-Mnfz6iB0']YouTube- Broadcast Yourself.[/ame]

[ame='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNVyvrgqVi8']YouTube- Broadcast Yourself.[/ame]

screw lebron

Geez I live in Ohio and all I've seen on facebook lately is "f#@$ Lebron"

It's getting annoying

I mean LeBron wants to win a title, you can't blame him for that. I respect that more rather than getting the biggest contract, which ppl would assume he is greedy

yea the LBJ hype does get annoying, but he wants to win a ring, and i hope he does so everyone can stop making a big deal out of him.

I agree. Cleveland did THE most. It's not LeBrons fault they suck.

Lebron can go anywhere he wants. I don't blame him for going somewhere else where he can win. Doesn't that what all players want? To WIN? Baseball players do it all the time. Why the shock here? The only thing I disagree with what Lebron did was the TV show. That was a little over the top.

Lepricks an egotistical quitter who takes the easy way

---------- Post added at 10:48 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:48 AM ----------



who the hell watches baseball

I agree with you. In one interview Lebron said that he will not retire until he wins another championship. So obviously he's going to switch teams

James will always be KING.

You just sound like a mad Cleveland fan to be honest.

F lbj!

Nah yo, he's absolutely right, it's a commonly accepted fact among basketball fans that many Cleveland fans didn't realize until "The Decision."

allow me to present the LeBron James Classless Resume:

2010 Post-season Shenanigans
-Has Dan Gilbert fire Mike Brown and Danny Ferry
-Delays announcement just to have a useless one-hour ego show
-Humiliates hometown on national TV
-Hosts overly extravagant parties in Vegas

2010 Playoffs Shenanigans
-Claims that they lost because the Cavs all depend on him
-Refuses to defend rondo
-pretends his elbow is injured so ESPN talks about it 24/7
-Mocks Bulls with left handed free throw
-after claims to have had only "3 bad games in 7 years"

2009 Playoff Shenanigans
-Classless arrogant showboat dancing
-Doesn't shake hands and claims "winners don't shake hands"
-Runs to the bus crying to his mommy (literally)
-Refusing to talk to media, leaves teammates out to dry

Team
-Makes fun of his teammates own injuries
-Pushes his own teammate to get stats
-Skips out of Team USA to film his own movie
-Got a long-time teammate traded out (Ilguaskas)
-Farts on teammates (possibly sharding)

In the Arena and On-court
-Lebron cursing and kicking a trash can after Marion nails the gamewinner
-Bulldozes players
-Fakes injuries
-Started a fight with Noah and blamed it all on him.
-Complains about foul at end of game, even though they won

Misc On-Court
-Kicks Gatorade angrily at fans
-Degrades Bull's ball boy by throwing his stuff on the floor in his face on purpose.
-Kicks Jason Terry from invisible shenanigans
-Moves/stretches during national anthem, then does strange devil signs

All-Star Weekend
-Tried his hardest to win All-Star MVP and was raged when Wade won it
-Admitted he statpads in games when he was commentating All-Star Game
-Kept interrupting all-star events commentary and refused to leave
-Promises he's gonna enter the dunk contest then back out
-Pulls a Kanye on Gibson's spotlight leaving gibson speechless

Selfish-Stats
-Wears check my $tats t-shirt
-Doesn't take full court shots to preserve %
-Saying if he really wanted to, he could win the scoring title
-Constantly pads his stats even during blowouts

Family/Relationships
-Curses and yells at his own mother
-has children without getting married
-Cheats on GF with Kanye West's ugly bald girlfriend

Other
-Took a child to a topless pool party
-Took a French Fry from a kid
-Refuses to sign teammate's human rights petition
-Confiscates Nike video of him getting dunked on
-Building a Mansion in Ohio to belittle poor Ohio citizens
-Averaged a 2.8 GPA in high school
-Tips $10 on a $800 bill


Some Video Examples for Proof
Bullboy: [ame='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjXQCT47EAc&feature=popt00us09']YouTube- Broadcast Yourself.[/ame]
All-star MVP: i50.tinypic.com/2rcs591.gif
Tip: LeBron James Has Obviously Never Been A Waiter
Gatorade: [ame='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE_1eFU3Zww&feature=related']YouTube- Broadcast Yourself.[/ame]
Kicking Trashcan: [ame='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbV73ezBsGo&feature=related']YouTube- Broadcast Yourself.[/ame] (at the end)
Yelling at mom: [ame='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lsAkR09F_I']YouTube- Broadcast Yourself.[/ame]
Check my $tats: cdn0.sbnation.com/imported_ass…ames-check-my-stats-1.jpg
Cheating on GF: lebron james cheating on girlfriend
Lebron lying about Dunk contest: [ame='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5FU1ieHIT4']YouTube- Broadcast Yourself.[/ame]
Arrogant Dancing: [ame='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kroxmCZUgQ4']YouTube- Broadcast Yourself.[/ame]
Lebron Complaining about foul: [ame='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86PPPlciPeY']YouTube- Broadcast Yourself.[/ame]
Farting on Teammate: [ame='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6CWVkPhzRw&NR=1']YouTube- Broadcast Yourself.[/ame]
Lebron on Sportsmanship: [ame='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t4Iwd8kx3I']YouTube- Broadcast Yourself.[/ame]
Kicking Terry out of charades: [ame='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZdckN_XVOE&feature=related']YouTube- Broadcast Yourself.[/ame]
Lebron disrespecting anthem and devil signs: [ame='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8rSexNF4Ts&feature=related']YouTube- Broadcast Yourself.[/ame]

It hasn't been updated though, as LeChoke's recent GQ interview should be up there as well in addition to his Twitter postings

dude has an ego the size of the sun and has no heart whatsoever yo, there's no denying that