Le Le Le Le Le Le Bron

A round up of a bunch of LeBron James links.

In case you didn't see it, LeBron James chose to join the Miami Heat, leaving his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers. He did it on an hour-long special on ESPN called "The Decision". Let's just say that it did not go down well. Both things. The decision to go to Miami, and the decision to announce it on "The Decision".

- Bill Simmons and his fans sound off.

For LeBron not to understand what he was doing -- or even worse, not to care -- made me quickly turn off the television, find my kids, give them their nightly bath and try to forget the sports atrocity that I had just witnessed. He just couldn't have handled it worse. Never in my life can I remember someone swinging from likable to unlikable that quickly. I will forgive him some day because I like watching him play basketball, and whether you're rooting for or against him, his alliance with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami created one the greatest "Holy s---, how is this going to play out?????" scenarios in recent sports history. Sports are supposed to be fun, and eventually, this will become fun -- for everyone but people in Cleveland -- because we finally have a Yankees of basketball.
But I will never, ever, not in a million years, understand why it had to play out that way. If LeBron James is the future of sports, then I shudder for the future.

Man, the comments from fans that Bill posts at the end will help you understand the depth of feeling there is about sport.

- Check out Bill's piece just before The Decision, especially the rumour he had heard about LeBron, Bosh and Wade making a pact to play together... with CHRIS PAUL. Yes.

As the rumor went, the 2010 free agents (LeBron, Wade and Bosh) would sign with the same team (at that point the Knicks if they created enough cap room), then Paul would join them in 2012 (or sooner). I thought this was the craziest thing I had ever heard -- so crazy, I only mentioned it once (in a November '08 column). It reminded me of being in my mid-20s in Las Vegas, gambling in the wee hours with my single high school buddies, then all of us drunkenly saying, "We should all pick one city and live there, we'd just go out and kill it every night!" Then you wake up the next morning and forget it was ever discussed. So even if the China rumor was true, that didn't mean it was actually going to happen. Or so I thought.

- J A Adande from ESPN points out that people expect their hometown heroes to move onto brighter lights. But it's the manner of James' departure that rankles.

But it's not too much to ask him to be respectful on the way out. In this case promotion took precedence over protocol. He strung everyone along, tried to build the drama at the expense of the common courtesy of notifying teams of his plans so they could get about constructing their teams.
Everyone associated with this looks bad.

- Cleveland's newest No. 1 pick John Wall gives his thoughts on LeBron's decision.

- "Never has being a sports fan felt so stupid."

Never has it been laid more bare, and never did it feel so empty. It felt like a break, the moment when the tide crested, when we looked at the games, and their players, and ourselves, and wondered: Why in the world are we watching these awful people? It was a question impossible to answer.
LeBron James, thanks to this debacle, will never be the same. (That he appears unable to understand why is the precise reason why.) ESPN, it feels, will never quite be the same: There were surely thousands of employees there who rubbed their eyes, aghast at what they were watching, guilty to be a part of it. The NBA, the hunger laid bare and the wound gaping for all to see, may never be the same.

- The Cavaliers' owner fired off a bitter letter after LeBron left. Which players will want to perform for him now?

- The Bulls console themselves over missing out on Wade and LeBron.

- The Knicks have been building towards this moment for two years... and ended up with none of them. Who dropped the ball? And another article on how much it's going to suck being a Knicks fan. AAAAAND an article looking at ALL the players who have played for the New York Knicks since LeBron was drafted in 2003.

- So, how will it work? Will LeBron, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh make it work in Miami??