The Apologist

All year I've been back and forth with it in my brain. Perhaps that's why I've found this NBA season so enjoyable. I like being challenged by concepts that can't be tied down or easily traced. I haven't been able to convince myself, one way or the other, whether or not this experiment is succeeding or failing. Is this the start of a new order in the NBA or just an example of young athlete's naiveté? Of course, I'm referring to the Three Blind Mice that are the Miami Heat.

Back in July, when I got the news that LeBron would announce the team he planned to sign with from a YMCA in Connecticut for a one-hour special on ESPN, I knew he wasn't staying in Cleveland. And even if he wasn't leaving, this showed he wasn't really one of them. Cleveland, like Buffalo, is a blue-collar town. We like our athletes to be no-nonsense tough guys who carry themselves as we do, with few complaints and very little flash. And no athlete who connects with and understands such a place would need to announce that he was resigning on national television, hundreds of miles away.

What I did not realize is just how oblivious Mr. James was. In hindsight, some of the signs had always been there. For starters, LeBron could've squashed the entire situation from the start by simply resigning a long time before he came to his "Decision". I think your average Cavalier fan would've admitted at the time that there was no good reason for LeBron to make his team deal with the daily questions of "Will he or won't he?" Even before that, there was the night he showed up to a Indians/Yankees playoff game wearing the baseball cap of the opposing team. If LeBron is a Yankee fan, that's just fine. But ANY player with an OUNCE of common sense has to know what an offense this is to your fan base. Even if you are a Yankee fan, you can't show up wearing that hat. Imagine if Thomas Vanek showed up to a Dolphins game wearing a Dan Marino jersey. He would no longer be safe in Western New York.

But the depth of LeBron's ignorance is a conversation for another post. The question that intrigues me more than any other is this... has LeBron James irrevocably altered the landscape of the NBA? Is every superstar in the league now planning on forming their own super group?