It will be a one-hour special at 9:00 pm ET, at that! http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=Av6gq8I1nNYPCxY7c7IQA9M5nYcB?slug=ap-courtinglebron or http://yhoo.it/b1179h

Can you say media whore? I hope he leaves!

He's had a huge head since high school - but he hasn't won us a championship, has he? Or walked on water? Or turned water into wine? The way people (i.e. the media) fawn all over him is sickening. He'll make a gazillion dollars wherever he goes. He IS a media whore. :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

He's had a huge head since high school - but he hasn't won us a championship, has he? Or walked on water? Or turned water into wine? The way people (i.e. the media) fawn all over him is sickening. He'll make a gazillion dollars wherever he goes. He IS a media whore. :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

Ironically...how his arms are spread as they are...they look like they're ready to be crucified!

We still don't know who LeBron James will play for, but we know when and where he'll make the announcement. ESPN will air a live one-hour special featuring LeBron's announcement to be shot from Greenwich, CT. While not officially in any of the NBA towns that wooed LeBron last week, one has to wonder about picking a location that close to New York and the Knicks practice facility.

This has to be especially concerning since LeBron has gone out of his way in the past to make Akron, his hometown, the focal point of huge events in his life - specifically his two MVP Award press conferences. LeBron also held his free agent meetings in Cleveland - in the offices of his marketing firm LRMR. It goes without saying that LeBron leaving his element to make such a big announcement is a bit of a surprise.

Should it be? Perhaps not. Just this week, LeBron has re-launched LeBronJames.com, and started tweeting from his Twitter Account. It is a far-cry from the private LeBron we have grown accustomed to. Perhaps all these changes are going to lead to the big change everyone in Cleveland is hoping to avoid.


http://www.fearthesword.com/2010/7/7/1557144/lebron-will-make-announcement-from

On one of our local stations (FOX 8), they are actually have a countdown clock on the corner of the screen until this press conference. No wonder this guy has an ego the size of Jupiter. :rolleyes:

This guy is nothing but a media whore. I'd be shocked if he returns to Cleveland. Why have a news conference if you are? I know one thing...if I was a Cleveland fan, I wouldn't want him back. It's clear that he doesn't care about that city. All he cares about is himself. If I was a fan, I'd boo him every chance I got even if he was on my team. One thing I don't forget is disloyalty. The guy hasn't even given Cleveland one title and he thinks he's all that. I'm tired of hearing about him.

At least in other parts of the country you are not bombarded by non-stop coverage like we are here in Northeast Ohio. It just makes me sick. You won't believe how many polls are being taken about LeBron here and the majority of responses are "don't let the door hit you on the way out". I for one won't be shedding any tears. He never won us a championship, did he??

ESPN will air a live one-hour special featuring LeBron's announcement to be shot from Greenwich, CT.

I remember when Barry Sanders retired in 1999 from the NFL's Detroit Lions, he made his "My desire to exit the game is greater than my desire to remain in it" speech from "across the pond" in England.

I'm ready to see where he goes. But an hour for interviews is crazy.

Well is anyone getting anything special to eat for it tonight? This is just like the SB. J/K :lol:

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/nba/heat/2010-07-08-lebron-james-decision_N.htm

LeBron James says he'll join Wade, Bosh with Miami Heat


GREENWICH, Conn. (AP) — LeBron James (FSY), the NBA's reigning two-time MVP, ended months of speculation and suspense by telling the world Thursday night that he'll play basketball for the Miami Heat next season.

The move will unite James with the other prized free agents from the 2010 offseason, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, in Miami.


James said he made his final decision when he woke up Thursday morning and that his main motivation was to "win, win now and win for years to come."

In the hours before his choice was revealed, the sports world spun out of control with speculation and rumors, including some reports that he had told his inner circle he is leaning toward the Heat.

James, Bosh and Wade entered the pros in the same year, the respective Nos. 1, 4 and 5 picks in the 2003 draft. They went their separate ways: James to Cleveland, Bosh to Toronto and Wade to Miami, where he won a championship partnered with center Shaquille O'Neal in 2006. That year, James, Bosh and Wade all signed matching contracts to make sure they were all unrestricted free agents at the same time. They also won gold medals together at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Season-ticket sales for the Heat's coming 41-game season were suspended Thursday afternoon after the entire supply of available seats were sold out. Not every seat has been released for sale yet and some will be held back for single-game purchases at the 19,600-capacity arena.

ESPN televised James' decision live from a Boys & Girls Club in Greenwich, Conn., a group with which James has a relationship. Frank Sanchez, the vice president for corporate and partner relationships for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, said James approached the organization last weekend about using its location for his big show, titled The Decision.

The TV special should raise at least $1 million to help refurbish gyms under a program that James' foundation will help direct, and kids from the Greenwich club were invited to attend the announcement, Sanchez said.

James, in a T-shirt and shorts, showed up at a tournament of high school stars at Cleveland State University in midafternoon with former teammate Damon Jones (FSY). James nervously chewed his fingernails while watching some high-schoolers play. He stayed a little more than an hour before heading off in a white Bentley, presumably on his way to the airport.

He did not speak to a reporter, but said "thank you" to some coaches in the stands who wished him luck.

In Greenwich, fans and media set up their own camp across the street from the Boys and Girls club more than five hours before the announcement. More than 15 satellite trucks lined the streets, and about two dozen fans with beach chairs and coolers settled on a patch of grass, hoping for a glimpse of James.

With the possible exception of Los Angeles Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant (FSY), James is the NBA's premier player, but his legacy cannot be fulfilled until he wins a championship.

I only have one word for him - TRAITOR!!!!!! :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

Wow! That is going to be some big time team.

Hope the door smacks him on the way out!! :wave:

What's the feeling in Ohio right now Monika?

Hope the door smacks him on the way out!! :wave:
I was listening to the radio today and they talked to a reporter from Cleveland. He said that LeBron will be the 2nd most hated person in that city after Art Modell. :eek:

They showed footage of people burning Lebron's Jersey in Cleveland.

Wow, feel bad for the city of Cleveland

Wow, feel bad for the city of Cleveland


Me too, they were saying not only was he good for the Cavs, but also important to Cleveland's economy.

Me too, they were saying not only was he good for the Cavs, but also important to Cleveland's economy.
That's the main reason I feel bad - that the Cleveland economy and business owners will suffer.

What's the feeling in Ohio right now Monika?
Mainly - ANGER and BETRAYAL.

Mainly - ANGER and BETRAYAL.


totally understandable

http://cleveland.sbnation.com/2010/7/8/1560112/lebron-james-jersey-burning-cleveland-cavaliers

by Ben Golliver

During ESPN’s “The Decision” broadcast Thursday night, the network broadcast video of Cleveland fans burning LeBron James’s Cavaliers jersey in response to his decision to sign with the Miami Heat next season. Here’s the image.

Asked for a response to the burning jersey, James stated, “I can’t get involved in that…I wanted to do what was best for LeBron James.”

That last sentence really says it all, doesn't it?? :rolleyes:

That last sentence really says it all, doesn't it?? :rolleyes:
A grossly overpaid professional athlete whose selfish and self centered? Sadly there is no surprise in this. :rolleyes:

Gee, what's gonna happen the two games the Heat come to Cleveland?

Something that should be mentioned was that he took less money to go to Miami. He didn't take Cleveland's max deal. I guess he felt Cleveland would never win a championship. That I agree with LeBron.

And this decision to be aired on TV was Jim Gray's idea. Not that I liked the idea or anything, just saying.

Gee, what's gonna happen the two games the Heat come to Cleveland?
I predict the Cleveland faithful will get UGLY. Let us not forget when Albert Belle returned to Jacobs Field for the first time after leaving the Indians for the $$$$$$. :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

Something that should be mentioned was that he took less money to go to Miami. He didn't take Cleveland's max deal. I guess he felt Cleveland would never win a championship. That I agree with LeBron.

And this decision to be aired on TV was Jim Gray's idea. Not that I liked the idea or anything, just saying.

Heat won't be winning the Championship either, honestly, I think he should have went to the Knicks, they have a better chance of winning the Championship than the Heat do! Since I am a Magic fan and I can't stand Lebron and the Heat, Lebron joining the Heat makes me hate the Heat more! Magic will destroy them year after year!

Born here. Raised here. Played here. Betrayed here.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...simmons/100709

Originally Published: July 9, 2010
Welcome to the All-LeBron sound-off
By William J. Simmons
ESPN.com

Five thoughts and then we'll turn it over to my readers, because honestly, they did a better job of summing up last night's LeBacle than I ever could:

1. One of my first ESPN.com columns was titled, "Is Clemens the Antichrist?" It covered how my relationship changed with Roger Clemens as a Red Sox fan -- in five years, he went from my favorite baseball player to my least favorite athlete in any sport -- and how the turning point happened in 1996, when Clemens signed with Toronto and showed no remorse at the ensuing news conference.

I still remember seeing that Blue Jays cap squeezed on his fat stupid face for 45 solid minutes, waiting for him to throw Red Sox fans a bone, waiting for him to say anything that would make me think, "Regardless of how this turned out, the past 12 years meant something to me," or "Just know that this happened because of Boston's front office, not their great fans." He only threw us a couple of canned comments, the same way someone would throw table scraps to a dog. I remember how angry it made me. I remember wanting to whip my remote control through the television, then realizing that I couldn't afford a new one. I remember taking down my autographed photo of Clemens' 20th strikeout against Seattle and sticking it in a closet. I remember thinking that I would never like sports quite as much ever again.

So when Clemens went to Toronto, got in shape, won two straight Cy Youngs and forced a trade to the Yankees, really, a column called "Is Clemens the Antichrist?" became inevitable as soon as I found a bigger forum to write it. I hated that guy as much as you could hate a professional athlete without things getting creepy.

And you know what? What LeBron did to Cleveland last night was worse. Much worse.

It's one thing to leave. I get it. You're 25. You don't know any better. You're tired of carrying mediocre teams. You want help. You want the luxury of not having to play a remarkable game every single night for eight straight months. You want to live in South Beach. You want to play with your buddies. I get it. I get it. But turning that decision into a one-hour special, pretending that it hadn't been decided weeks ago, using a charity as your cover-up and ramming a pitchfork in Cleveland's back like you were at the end of a Friday the 13th movie and Cleveland was Jason ... there just had to be a better way.

I blame the people around him. I blame the lack of a father figure in his life. I blame us for feeding his narcissism to the point that he referred to himself in the third person five times in 45 minutes. I blame local and national writers (including myself) for apparently not doing a good enough job explaining to athletes like LeBron what sports mean to us, and how it IS a marriage, for better and worse, and that we're much more attached to these players and teams than they realize. I blame David Stern for not throwing his body in front of that show. I blame everyone.

We are already fools for caring about athletes considerably more than they care about us. We know this, and we do it anyway. We just like sports. We keep watching for moments like Donovan's goal against Algeria, and we keep caring through thick and thin for moments like Roberts' Steal and Tracy Porter's interception. We put up with all the sobering stuff because that's the price you pay -- for every Gordon Hayward half-court shot, or USA-Canada gold-medal game, there are 20 Michael Vicks and Ben Roethlisbergers. Last night didn't make me like sports any less -- my guard has been up since 1996 -- it just reinforced all the things I already didn't like.

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.

2. One silver lining for LeBron: No other professional athlete in any team sport could have generated the interest that he generated last night. No baseball player, no football player, no basketball player, no hockey player. He truly is the King ... of something.

3. I posted this clip on Twitter last night, but it's worth posting again: the 1996 Bash on the Beach. I won't even tell you the context (a reader will explain in a few paragraphs). Just watch what happened, listen to the announcers and choke on the irony.

4. Michael Jordan would have wanted to kick Dwyane Wade's butt every spring, not play with him. This should be mentioned every day for the rest of LeBron's career. It's also the kryptonite for any "Some day we'll remember LeBron James as the best basketball player ever" argument. We will not. Jordan and Russell were the greatest players of all time. Neither of them would have made the choice that LeBron did last night. That should tell you something.

5. Sports shouldn't mean this much.

I promise more thoughts later in the month. See, there's an incredible basketball story here that really has no precedent: Only when Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant played together in 2001 and 2002, after Kobe had ascended to top-three status and Shaq hadn't drifted out of that group yet, have two of the best three NBA players played on the same team. I have no idea how Miami will fill out the team, or whether you can win a championship by being so good offensively that defense, rebounding and role players don't matter. We're about to find out.

I am not ready to think about it yet.

For now, let's relive the 12 hours from 9:30 p.m. PT through 9:30 a.m. PT from the e-mails that drifted into my mailbox. As always, thanks to everyone who took the time to write in.

I heard today that Lebron, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh take up 85% of Miami's salary cap between them. I can't imagine how the Heat can build any kind of team around these guys. Like the above article says where will the defense come from? And what about role players? Unless they can find 9 guys who are willing to play for almost nothing (and I guess that's what they're banking on!) they are in big trouble!

He also has bought into his own hype - if he couldn't dribble a ball, he'd just be another unknown kid growing up poor in Akron. A good thing about him leaving is that the nicknames "King James" and "The Chosen One" (puke:) will no longer be used here.

I am no fan of Kobe Bryant, but at least he has shown himself to be a team player, a leader and has several rings to show for it. LeBron may be a great player, but he is no team player and is certainly no leader. LeBron only cares about LeBron - and Miami will see this in short order.

.

He also has bought into his own hype - if he couldn't dribble a ball, he'd just be another unknown kid growing up poor in Akron. A good thing about him leaving is that the nicknames "King James" and "The Chosen One" (puke:) will no longer be used here.

I am no fan of Kobe Bryant, but at least he has shown himself to be a team player, a leader and has several rings to show for it. LeBron may be a great player, but he is no team player and is certainly no leader. LeBron only cares about LeBron - and Miami will see this in short order.

Just be happy that he is leaving, he is overated and he has not done jack squat

He never got us a championship!! :mad: :mad: :mad:

He never got us a championship!! :mad: :mad: :mad:


He did get them to the championship round so I can say he is overrated.

He did get them to the championship round so I can say he is overrated.
But we never got the RING!!! :mad: :mad: :mad:

But we never got the RING!!! :mad: :mad: :mad:


Spurs just had the better team that year

Spurs just had the better team that year
No argument there, but LeBron just gave up during this year's playoffs opposite Boston. No one on the Cavs seemed to have any energy or enthusiasm or anything. They just seemed apathetic. ohno:

LeBron only cares about LeBron - and Miami will see this in short order.

Caring about yourself = bad?

Caring only about what others think = good?

Caring about yourself = bad?

Caring only about what others think = good?
Even in his high school days, he was an egomaniac. In the Cleveland/Akron area, we were bombarded by CONSTANT coverage of him before he even went into the NBA.

.

.
i love it. :rofl:

i love it. :rofl:
So do I, but I wonder how they REALLY feel. :rofl:

.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=ApELfNiNjC3K.fe6Z8lTFJe8vLYF?slug=aw-lebrondecision070910

By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports
Jul 9, 11:20 am EDT

They ended up with that split-screen of the King’s jersey burned live on his infomercial, as this sad, lost robot sat in a leafy suburban gymnasium with children as props and the world watching, those empty eyes masking a lost, dazed LeBron James. This was the champagne shower for the Championship of Me, an exercise in self-aggrandizement and self-loathing that will have far-reaching implications for the NBA and James. What a spectacle, what a train wreck.

As the worst idea in the history of marketing unfolded, James looked trapped somewhere between despondence and defiance. His bumbling buddy Maverick Carter had walked him into the public execution of his legacy, his image, and there was a part of James that clearly wished he could turn back through the doors and hide. Only, it was too late. No going back now. James goes to the Miami Heat, Cleveland goes into a basketball Hades and LeBron’s legacy becomes that of a callous carpetbagger.

“His brand is [bleep] now,” one high-level NBA official said late Thursday. “He’s destroyed everything.”

The Championship of Me became the Championship of Flee, because LeBron James doesn’t believe he can be the centerpiece of a title team. He needed Dwyane Wade, a closer, far more than Wade needed him.

Yes, he’s ruined everything. What a wonderful idea: Divorce your childhood sweetheart on national television and tell her, hey, I’ll let you keep the “We are all Witnesses” billboards lording over downtown Cleveland.

“I’m taking my talents to South Beach,” James said, and it was like time stopped because – even for him – this was a moment so devoid of reality and free of concern of consequences. South Beach? He wasn’t picking a basketball team as much as a party. He’s 25 years old, and yet somehow this felt like a cloistered teenager picking a party school for college.

Yes, James will take his talent to South Beach and leave his soul in Cleveland. His hometown won’t hate him as much for leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers as for the way he left them. Leaving never would’ve been easy, but he went out of his way to humiliate them. LeBron James can never go home now. He’s the Browns leaving town, The Fumble, The Shot, all rolled into one colossal disappointment.

Now, Clevelanders truly see it for themselves: He was a fan of the Cowboys, the Yankees – never the Browns and Indians. He was a frontrunner, and he just made the most frontrunner move in the history of the NBA. Off to Miami with Riles, D-Wade and Chris Bosh.

New York would’ve been hard, and maybe Cleveland would’ve been the hardest. With those state tax laws in Florida, he isn’t taking less money with the Heat. He’s just taking less risk and less burden in his championship chase.

“This whole idea that he makes his own decisions, that [bleep] went out the window with this,” one NBA executive said. “Someday, he’s going to look back at this and not believe that he let those kids at LRMR talk him into doing this. This idea that he’s his own man … Come on, he’s a follower. And he’s following all the way to Miami now.”

This was the train rolling down the tracks from miles and miles away, and James never saw it coming. He should lose his obsession to become the richest athlete ever, because the people surrounding LeBron James are much more likely to leave him broke than a billionaire. Someday, he will fire his business manager Maverick Carter for turning the two-time MVP’s free-agent moment into Geraldo and Al Capone’s vault. Carter used the cover of charity for a historically horrible event and completely destroyed the credibility of his client.

So now people are cheering Dan Gilbert’s manifesto tearing apart James, but no one contributed more to what the world witnessed on Thursday night than the owner’s enabling of James and his inner circle for seven years. Gilbert is the biggest con going, a man who makes his fortune peddling mortgages, and he’ll make his next on casinos in downtown Cleveland. He sells illusions for a living, and now he’s selling the biggest of all: that he’s a victim here, that James betrayed everyone. That’s a lie, and no one ought to dare buy it.

Everyone searching for a scapegoat here – Mike Brown, Danny Ferry, Delonte West – well, just understand that it was the man screaming loudest with LeBron out the door, the man most determined to deflect blame onto him now.

Now, Gilbert is the tough guy with James leaving the Cavs behind? Listen, Ferry and Brown always warned Gilbert that giving James everything he wanted – giving it when and where and how – wouldn’t be the way they would keep him. LeBron didn’t respect them because they never demanded it.

Gilbert always believed he should do everything James wanted – hire his buddies into jobs, throw them on summer-league rosters, allow him to do those stupid pregame choreographed dances – that James would love him, that he would never leave. Only, James is a taker, and he took and took until he had bled Gilbert and that franchise to the bone.

So now, Gilbert unleashes the most revisionist and self-serving screed that a scorned owner’s ever done. Gilbert is a bully and a baby. As much as James, Gilbert revealed himself, too. He asked for this humiliation and deserves it. Only those fans in Cleveland don’t deserve this. They were loyal, true, and ultimately they must know Gilbert lashed out to make James the villain for a most self-serving reason: to avoid the blame himself. Damn right James quit on the Cavaliers in that playoff series, but that was because Gilbert was always there to make it easy for him. All those times Ferry and Brown warned the owner they had to make stands with James, that they had to force him to have some level of respect within that organization or there would be an ultimate price to pay.

And here it came on Thursday night, in this bizarre, sad set-up that turned LeBron James into a caricature. His puppet seems more human than him. Listen, James’ people tried to leak this story to soften the blow on Cleveland, but here was the problem: He’s so insincere, and they’re so over their heads, that most of us were uneasy with believing what they were selling in the hours leading up to Jim Gray holding everyone hostage. There had to be an agenda, a bait-and-switch, and yet source after source within LeBron’s world insisted: He’s leaving. He wants out. They had been doing this for weeks, even months. So, armed with that knowledge, why would they ever stage this event to rub it in the face of James’ hometown? Lots of stars have moved on, but never one that had such a unique history with a town, a city, a franchise.

We kept writing it with qualifiers because deep down a lot of us doubted his courage to leave that cocoon. He would make Cleveland feel like it had lost him, and then swoop back into town and be celebrated all over again. Only, LeBron’s people were telling the truth. He was gone. He was always gone. He never considered staying, and that’s the most frightening part of all.

For the hand-wringing out of Gilbert and James’ apologists who protected him – and who would still be protecting him had he simply said, “Cleveland,” on Thursday night – they need to stop with this nonsense that somehow LeBron James has transformed into someone else. This is him, and it’s always been him. He’s a creation of our times, of an industry and system that wants to manufacture the next M.J. at the expense of a young man having a sense of himself.

So there was LeBron James, the MVP, the man of the hour, sitting in the middle of his own “Truman Show” on Thursday night. His personal network ran his commercials and celebrated his greatness and let him hijack a platform to build his brand and break hearts. He can never go home again now, and he can never completely rebuild what he let his cast of buddies talk him into losing that night. He’s taking his talents to South Beach, and the kid going away for the first time will have some party down there. After all these years, it was clear he had been coddled and protected and ultimately prepared to do one thing: Take the easy way out. Wherever he was going, he looked conflicted, lost and completely confused.

What a spectacle, what a train wreck.

What a shame.