NBA fans

cured · #1 07-08-2010, 10:02 PM

I know there's the World Cup going on but the best player in basketball just jumped ship from the Cleveland Cavaliers to form a super team in Miami. Lebron James plus Dwayne Wade plus Chris Bosh, three guys who started for team USA on one team. It's eventually going to be the new dynasty.

chuck · #2 07-08-2010, 11:14 PM

Bollocks.

LeBron is punk.

ESPN and Wilbon are his bitches.

Dwayne Wade is glass - and dynasty's are built - not bought.

That is all.

Troy McClure · #3 07-09-2010, 01:24 AM

The Cavs' majority owner Dan Gilbert's open letter posted on the team website:

http://tinyurl.com/24f3uw6

Mr. Gilbert claims that James quit on the team the past two playoff runs:

http://tinyurl.com/2dtjmat

I think this happening to Cleveland's, given sports history of rotten luck, of all places gets to me more riled up than say if Dwyane Wade left Miami. I've seen Lebron James play nearly each time they've played at the Phoenix Suns, and yes he is a great talent, but this is just a low-class thing.

Give me people like Steve Nash, Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade, Derrick Rose, Rajon Rondo, and Kobe Bryant (even though he's on LA, but he delivers time after time after time).

BTW, I'm a Suns fan and Amar'e Stoudemire leaving for the Knicks is a big punk move, too.

Jason

chuck · #4 07-09-2010, 03:02 AM

via Deadspin - with naughty words.

http://deadspin.com/5581889/lebron-j...s-a-cocksucker

Quote:

Tomorrow is the day LeBron James becomes the most unlikable person in the NBA, and perhaps all of American sports. I used to think he was okay a year ago. No more. He's the villain now.

It doesn't matter where he opts to go. If he goes to Chicago, he's a cocksucker. If he goes to Miami, he's a cocksucker. Even if he goes back to Cleveland, he's a goddamn cocksucker. He's a self-aggrandizing sack of shit, and ESPN is a bunch of pussy-whipped enablers for giving him a free hour of airtime tomorrow night and inevitably using 55 minutes of it to let Stu Scott give him a rimjob.

Look at what Kevin Durant did today. He signed an extension well before he could have filed for free agency, announced the signing, and then went back about his business. He didn't need all this dog-and-pony show bullshit. James does, and that means he's a dipshit. People have been kissing this man's ass SINCE FUCKING MIDDLE SCHOOL, and he still needs this hourlong AFI tribute special? Bullshit. BULLSHIT.

And I don't care that he asked ESPN to use the commercial airtime tomorrow night to go to charity. That's the most transparent use of charity for the sake of self-glorification I've seen since I saw some actor do it yesterday. "Hey ESPN, why don't you spend an hour kissing my ass? Oh, don't worry. We'll give the money to AIDS babies. That totally makes me selfless." No, it doesn't.

And FUCK YOU to ESPN for going along with this "Bonds on Bonds" redux. If an ESPN reporter found concrete proof tomorrow morning that James was going to Cleveland or somewhere else, do you think ESPN would let him run with it? FUCK AND NO. They'd stick him in a fucking Lucite box and throw him in the cellar until 10PM. They're the whoringest whores that have ever whored. I heard they offered LeBron's crew free blowjobs if he wins a title next year. Wilbon asked to blow him JUST A LITTLE BIT. Not much. Just a little bit.

LeBron is now the guy you openly root against. If he leaves Cleveland tomorrow night, he'll have needlessly strung along an entire fanbase and given them the middle finger by making their breakup spectacularly public. If he stays, he'll have spent two years cockteasing the rest of the world about going somewhere else when he probably never wanted to leave Ohio to begin with. There's no end result tomorrow that makes LeBron a sympathetic figure. He's already gone past the point of no return. He's a cocksucker. Fitting that his most memorable career moment will come when he doesn't even take a fucking shot. He's a guy that cares more about the end result of playing basketball – massive, unending adulation – than he does actual basketball.

I don't begrudge him that attitude. I'd be the same way if I were a basketball player. All I'd give a shit about would be what I make and where I'm drinking tonight. And I don't begrudge him the right to play somewhere other than Cleveland. It's Cleveland. It blows. There's nothing to do in that town except masturbate and cry. But there's a normal way of doing things, and there's the dick way of doing things, and making your own free agency a two-year drama capped off with an infomercial directed by Senor Spielbergo falls squarely in the purview of FLAMING FUCKING DICK MOVES. James is trying to bullshit the world into believing this whole process is some great entertainment he's lavishing upon you. It's not. It's a con. Right now, a lot of people aren't buying the shit this man is selling. And really, that's all LeBron James is these days: a fucking salesman.

Eikman · #5 07-09-2010, 05:23 AM

i don't get it. is this an American thing? sports stars change teams. for whatever reasons. so what.

34958hq439-qjw9v5jq298v5j · #6 07-09-2010, 07:16 AM

I live in Wisconsin, but most of my family is in Ohio, including my grandma (nearly 80!) who lived about two blocks away from where Lebron grew up in Akron. I mean let's not forget the amount of sports heartbreak Cleveland has been through in the last 50 years. The only thing that comes close is the Bills losing 4 straight Super Bowls. This is just too much to take...look, they had thought that he would probably leave, but the way it was done with the one-hour TV special was so incredibly bush league that the people of Ohio probably will never forgive him. This is almost like what we went through with Favre (obviously very different situations, but the same sense of betrayal). The Cavs (and Cavs fans) gave him everything they possibly could. The team wasn't just Lebron + a bunch of no-talent losers the way the KG-era T'wolves were. And I honestly do feel like Lebron straight up quit on the team during the 2010 playoffs. No fire at all. He looked as though he expected to lose and couldn't wait to be out of the building.

I do find Miami puzzling; first of all, I don't think they'll necessarily be a favorite to beat the Lakers next year, because James/Wade/Bosh are going to log so many minutes it'll be crazy - they need a Derek Fisher type guy and they don't have one. Secondly, it begs the question, would MJ ever do something like this? Essentially you got the best player in the NBA following Bosh, who the media is making out to be some kind of supermegastar player, when he's really only a third-tier star; not even really on the level of Nash/Rose/Nowitzski. That's just unheard of. Chicago would have made a lot more sense. So would staying in Cleveland.

Personally I hoped the man would come to Milwaukee...I honestly feel like the Bucks + LeBron would trump the Heat right now!!

34958hq439-qjw9v5jq298v5j · #7 07-09-2010, 07:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eikman

i don't get it. is this an American thing? sports stars change teams. for whatever reasons. so what.

Ummm, I can't really think of one sports star changing teams that was even remotely like this...

Reigning 2-time MVPs in their prime do not just change teams. This is basically unheard of. The last MVP to leave their team was Moses Malone nearly 30 years ago. And he certainly didn't request a one-hour special to do it. He had to know all along that Cleveland fans were the ones who cared most about him and would be the most disappointed if they weren't picked by a HUGE margin. Don't want to make the Favre comparison but at least he didn't request a fucking prime-time special.

BrotherLovesDub · #8 07-09-2010, 09:46 AM

or you could say, 'at least he didn't put it on twitter'

new times, innit? why do you care so much? i guess i've seen lots of people the last 24hrs who only casually follow basketball getting their panties in a bunch of this and it just seems like artificial anger. remember when arenas and stadiums were named after the city or team? don't like lebron? don't watch games where he's playing or root against him. he donated every penny of the proceeds to the boys and girls club. he's got managers/agents etc. i doubt he personally came up with the idea of the tv show to announce but even if he did, big fucking deal.

34958hq439-qjw9v5jq298v5j · #9 07-09-2010, 10:00 AM

Whats wrong with twittering it? I'm not upset really but the people of Ohio are and have every right to be. In the end it's just James making a spectacle of himself, a blantant ego move that none of the players he's often compared to would even consider. You know the way ESPN is going to be about this, the Heat is going to get the Laker treatment now for the next 5-10 years, barf.

But discounting that, the more I think about his decision to join the Heat, the less sense it makes. It's okay to have two superstars on your team like Kobe and Shaq, but one has to be a center!! What do the Heat have...two forwards and a shooting guard, with no money leftover to sign a decent center? Has this model ever worked? Yes they can have the Jordan/Pippen thing going but LEBRON WOULD HAVE TO BE PIPPEN!

34958hq439-qjw9v5jq298v5j · #10 07-09-2010, 10:11 AM

Okay: more accurately, the reason why this is so despicable is because he essentially destroyed the Cavs and the fans of Cleveland - he made up his mind and did not even let his former team know until his one hour special, and by many accounts it looks like he had his mind made up weeks ago, even as he was saying things like "Cleveland is the frontrunner" on national TV. By waiting until July 8 he basically hung Cleveland out to dry since they had no idea whether they should persue one of the other big free agents. You know, the city he said he will always love. Now all the good free agents are locked up and the Cavs didn't even get a chance. Sure he has the right to do it but it's pretty damn classless and you know damn well that Jordan would never pull anything remotely like this.