Read this.

Then watch this.

Then read this.

Then watch this.

Then wait a few months.

Then read this.

Fin.

Bad news - it kills you.

When Howard signed with Miami in 1996, he almost broke the NBA. As Howard signs with Miami in 2010, the NBA is almost broke.

Howard’s annulled deal of ‘96 was essentially the pinnacle of his career; he’d been an All-Star in his second season, carried a woefully under-talented and oft-injured Bullets team to the brink of the playoffs and now had teams fighting to offer him a $100 million contract. More from the papers:

The Howard reunion of sorts with Miami is tinged in irony.

Riley originally signed Howard in what he thought was a blockbuster summer of 1996, seeing him as a huge chip to play alongside Alonzo Mourning (FSY)— who landed a $112 million deal from Miami in that same offseason. Instead, Howard arrives during the blockbuster summer of 2010, with Mourning now an executive who helped the Heat land LeBron James (FSY) and Chris Bosh.

-AP/USA Today, 7/20

Why the deal was annulled is still unclear; according to the NBA at the time, the Heat had already agreed to terms with their own players, which put them over the salary cap and left them technically unable to sign Howard. (Because of a wrinkle that allows teams to break the salary cap to resign their own players, the Heat instead should have made the deal with Howard first, and then resigned their own players.  But as underscored by last week’s LeBronathon, players routinely make known their intentions to commit and then actually sign with teams out-of-order.)  It’s always seemed that NBA Commissioner David Stern pulled a few strings to help out his buddy, Bullets/Wizards owner Abe Pollin, who had just opened a new downtown arena and didn’t want to lose his star.

The final irony: Despite the local celebration, the Bullets didn’t really benefit from getting Howard back. He was a very good player, but not worth a $100 million contract that eventually hamstrung the franchise.

Lin could become the first Harvard player in the NBA since Ed Smith in 1953. As a senior, Lin nearly guided the non-scholarship Crimson to its first NCAA Tournament berth since 1946. He averaged 16.4 points and 4.4 rebounds. He went undrafted and was widely considered a nice story but not an NBA player.

Much like his 8.0 scoring average with 2.0 assists and 2.3 rebounds in 15.7 minutes in four summer league games, Lin’s stat line doesn’t tell the whole story of his production and value. The Mavs came to Las Vegas seeking to train the electrifying guard Rodrigue Beaubois to run the point but will leave knowing that Lin — while not the complete athlete or pure shooter as Beaubois — is the superior point guard.

–Kaplan, ESPNDallas.com, 7/17

Dan-

A few things about Cleveland: it’s a city like anywhere else, where people live and work, raise families, have friends, and enjoy parks, world-class cultural activities, and occasionally major-league level sports. I get that for people who want to be clubbing and partying it up constantly, is as the prerogative of some young multi-millionaires, Cleveland is not the promised land. But for the vast majority of people, including myself, why the naysaying?

I’d like to point out to our reader, if there is one, that you are only one generation removed from living in Cleveland, and that you sound as grateful to not be here as if you left Siberia for the gilded streets of Manhattan in 1895. Cleveland has no Monopoly on depressed areas and economic problems, Mr. Parker Brother.

Did Lebron do the right thing by creating as much animosity as he did? Surely you agree that he could have left Cleveland (which would have caused tremendous pain regardless of how he went about it, no doubt) in a much less mean-spirited fashion? Had he done so, I would agree with you: the Miami Heat are must-watch TV next year from a basketball standpoint. But the personal nature of his departure transcended a sports interest.

I do not think Lebron owed Cleveland a championship. It’s his life and it’s not his burden to stay in Cleveland because he happened to grow up here. But he did owe Cleveland, its fans, and his former teammates and coaches a “thank you,” which he very tellingly did not offer up. Not surprising, given this sequence of tweets from the omnipotent Brian Windhorst:

-Suddenly it is clear to me. LeBron has changed. A new website. Starting Twitter. This announcement. This isn’t the guy I know.

-Before this starts, remember that this is LeBron’s decision and his alone. He’s a committee of one no matter what he chooses.

-Very few of LeBron’s friends there and I’ve seen no family. Most have been ejected from process.

Oh, and by the way, he: a.) played like crap for the last two games of the Celtics series while appearing that his head was on another planet (the vacant stare on his face, looking out into outer space) and b.) sympathized with himself after the game for being so good at basketball that he spoiled his fans. He did owe Ohio more than that.

Call me crazy, but yes, I’m less interested in a guy who anointed himself the Chosen One and yet determined his future based on where Chris Bosh wants to live. I trust Windhorst implicitly, and if he says Lebron was trying to convince Bosh to accept a sign and trade with Cleveland, then it is so.

The Cavs did everything that could reasonably be expected in building their roster. They drafted pretty well without high picks, and traded for complementary players (Mo Williams, Szczerbiak) to fill roles. It’s not like all-NBA players are always sitting, waiting to be plucked away from their teams. After all, Chris Wallace is only the GM for one team.

That’s even somewhat besides the point: why is everyone acting like the Cavs are no-talent ass clowns? They won 127 games the last two seasons! In 2010, with their strongest roster of the Lebron era, they ran into a healthy Celtics team with three Hall of Famers and a world-class point guard—a Celtics team that devoured a good Magic team in the conference finals and possibly came within a starting center’s injury of taking down the Lakers (who, by the way, many experts are still calling the favorite for 2011).

Your arguments about the Yankees and mass popularity are well-taken, but seem to center around the fact that The Decision is good for the NBA, not specifically for The Decider himself. So you think David Stern was behind this whole debacle?

And your arguments also brought up an interesting parallel: While I can think of a half dozen differences between the two situations off the top of my head, would it have been a good move for Joe Mauer to play out his contract with Minnesota and then sign with the Yankees?

-Eric

Eric,

You get to be McEnroe, I’ll be Borg. Like aging tennis stars, it’s fantastic that we can still serve and volley on sports, at least for one round. And I’m thrilled by your recent comments - because I totally disagree and can’t wait to take them apart.

Perhaps I’m not getting your A-level material. I’d imagine that blogging isn’t top-of-mind as area businesses fail and bread lines stretch to Chagrin Falls (such was my expectation from a June 2009 e-mail exchange, when you informed me that you’d be leaving Ann Arbor for Ohio):

DD: Cleveland??  I hear they have two buildings there, and the economy’s built on LeBron James.

Eric: I am truly a bit concerned about what will happen to the economy in Cleveland if LeBron leaves next year. It’ll kill property values and unemployment will spike. (Only half-kidding.)

My pressing question: Has the LeBronpocolypse begun? (And if so, how could you tell?)

I must be a Parkers Brother, because I’m boggled by your statements.

You say that sports got “a whole lot less entertaining” for non-Heat fans. Couldn’t disagree more. As a casual NBA fan, I’m now tremendously interested in next season. By pairing with Dwyane Wade, arguably the second-best player in the league, and All-Star Chris Bosh, LeBron James has just created a super-team, the likes of which we’ve never seen (yes, three stars have played together, but never on this level and in their physical primes).

Don’t you want to see how they match up with Kobe and the Lakers, or if they can beat the Big Three in Boston? Won’t there be a random Tuesday night when you’ve got nothing to watch - until you remember that a mini-Dream Team is playing on ESPN?

Your defense of the Cleveland front office is also inaccurate. Until last season, the team didn’t have a one-year window to make decisions; they had LeBron locked into a five-year contract from 2002 to 2007 and then a three-year extension that ran out last week. Their failure was making poor decisions with trade chips like Wally Szczerbiak’s expiring contract, and the best players they could find to pair with LeBron were aging, ex-All Stars like Shaq and Antawn Jamison.

To be fair, some of that’s tied to Cleveland’s lack of appeal; if I’m a free agent, Cuyohoga County isn’t exactly atop my list.  How were you convinced to move there again? Maybe the Cavs should be taking lessons from Emily.

(And maybe they shouldn’t let their owner take mean-spirited potshots at a star performer who brought his franchise millions. Of Dan Gilbert’s letter, all I can say is high comic-edy! Do you buy Gilbert’s implication that LeBron,as a native son, owed something to the Cavs?

For further analysis, I refer you to Josh Levin’s brilliant piece at Slate.)

—

You know -  these are pretty conventional arguments, and I still haven’t gotten to your key question about my unconventional stance: whether LeBron was fine to “trade image for brand awareness.”

Essentially it comes down to four words: This too shall pass.

We’re in the first hours of a painful breakup - there’s even been a ritual bonfire of your ex-partner’s possessions. Eventually, Clevelanders will come to regard their time with LeBron as we’d remember a great love lost: wistfully, a bit mournful but ultimately nostalgic for the experience.

The rest of the country will come around sooner. Sure, by turning his back on Cleveland and joining other stars, LeBron may never be universally loved like Michael Jordan; he’s being outright loathed by some and seen as a front-runner by others. But what’s wrong with being the New York Yankees, whose excellence inspires potshots but also mass popularity? Sports fans - who forgave Kobe a rape trial - just want to see 1) athletes win and 2) provide spectacular highlights in the process. Despite this odd and messy spectacle, LeBron’s in better position to accomplish both than ever before.

Meanwhile, SLAM magazine editor Lang Whitaker alluded to how interest in LeBron’s contract status had crossed-over to non-fans. It was a national story, perhaps the national story of the past ten days.

I ran by the Newseum yesterday, which has a wall of newspapers, and counted how many covered LeBron James as a front-page story (37 of 52, if you must know). This was a cultural moment - he became bigger than his sport, which is what he’s always wanted. The average housewife may never watch an NBA game or have even heard of the Miami Heat, but at least she knows who LeBron is now. Is that a good thing? Perhaps a discussion for another blog post.

At the same time, LeBron’s created a narrative arc within basketball - accidentally, of course - that’s significantly more interesting than the path he was on.

-DD

Dan, thanks for inviting me to this debate. Actually, I pretty much invited myself, because your own comments on Facebook and Twitter made me curious to hear more than 140 characters from you. I root for my hometown Boston teams first and foremost, but do have an interest in the Cavaliers doing well. I was very torn watching the 2010 Eastern Conference finals because of the potential long-term impact of a Cavs’ loss, which has been realized.

You ask why so many fans are upset at Lebron for providing entertainment, given that his primary job description is “entertainer.” (Secondary job descriptions: one man economic stimulus package; property owner; and lung-damager. And yes, this was a form of entertainment, but lots of people doing bad things draw ratings and mass attention, whether they be criminal acts (O.J.), socially frowned-upon behavior (Tiger; Jon and Kate), or general inanity (Paris, the cast of the Jersey Shore). None of these people require last names, by the way.

For most fans outside of South Florida, sports just got a whole lot less entertaining, because the guy who just drew that 7.3 rating just got a whole lot less likeable. Real-life drama (as opposed to movies, books, or TV) is only entertaining when it’s organic and not manufactured, and it’s least entertaining when it’s manufactured by the centerpiece of the drama. And Lebron has been meticulously plotting how he would revel in free agency, probably since the 2008 Olympics;. He spent the last two years doing everything he could to call as much attention as possible to his own fame and greatness. He always portrayed himself as a loyal Ohioan who wanted to bring a championship to his hometown team—Cleveland. (Your Washington/Baltimore comparison doesn’t really hold up; the Akron area is a fraction of the size of Cleveland and doesn’t have its own sports identity.)

That brings me to his choice to join Miami, an unusual choice for an athlete because he accepted a much smaller contract (although the income loss really isn’t that great when one factors in the lack of state income tax on at least half of his salary and on any of his endorsement and business revenue). His stated deciding factor is the ability to win multiple championships. Except…if he had stated plans three years ago to resign with Cleveland (or signed a longer extension), he would have put his team in the best possible position to win multiple championships. The Cavs’ front office, which has proven it will do anything in its power to win, could have put together a long-term plan. Cleveland would have appealed to free agents and players who could encourage a trade, because they would know Lebron would be there and the team would be in contention every year.

In a perhaps fitting coda to Lebron’s devastation of a city, had the Cavs not been forced to make deals with a one year time frame in mind, hampering their long-term flexibility, they would now have some assets (young talent and cap-friendly salaries) left to trade for Chris Paul or some similar star. That might have been enough to convince him to stick around. But Lebron himself didn’t let that happen; he held the franchise hostage through his silence.

Aside from whether Lebron’s decision process was good entertainment for fans, do you think it was good in the long-run for him? I’m curious, given your online comment that he traded image for brand awareness, and that maybe that’s a good thing. And related to that, were you sufficiently entertained by the content of Dan Gilbert’s letter (as opposed to your feelings on the typography)?

-Eric