NORMAN — The LeBron James Show finally came to an end last night with what we can only hope was the season finale. It was billed as “The Decision.” The unprecedented hour-long special carried on ESPN allowed LeBron to announce to the world what NBA team had the honor of signing him for the next five to six years.
The winner of the LeBron sweepstakes was the Miami Heat. He will be joining friends and fellow Olympians Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh on South Beach as he tries to win his first NBA title.
“I can’t say it was always in my plans, because I never thought it was possible,” James said. “But the things that the Miami Heat franchise have done, to free up cap space and be able to put themselves in a position this summer to have all three of us, it was hard to turn down. Those are two great players, two of the greatest players that we have in this game today.”
The losers were Chicago and New York, who trotted out big names to lure King James to their cities. A bigger loser was his home state of Ohio, where he had played for the past seven years. There is already talk of the city going into a deeper economic depression with the loss of their only valuable asset.
“It’s heartfelt for me,” James said. “It’s hard to explain. Those 20,000 plus fans have seen me grow from an 18-year old kid to a 25-year old man.
But this is the greatest challenge for me to move on.”
But the biggest losers are those of us who were forced to sit through LeBron watch day after day. So-called NBA insiders speculated hourly on what each statement really meant, who was going to visit him next, who was he recruiting to join him and what he wanted his legacy to be. It was almost Brett Favre-like, sadly.
Conversely, you had a player like Kevin Durant who also had to sign a new contract this summer. However, the 21-year old scoring champion quietly signed a 5-year extension to stay in Oklahoma City earlier in the week He let his fans know with a simple message on Twitter. No cameras, no hour-long specials, no entourages leaking rumors and no breaking news scrolling across the TV every five minutes.
I don’t want it to make it sound like I’m putting this all on LeBron. If I were in his situation, I may have tried to do the same thing. I actually respect him more for choosing the Heat. He put winning above all else when it came down to his final decision.
As the days rolled on, my disgust moved from the 6-foot-8, 260-pound two-time MVP to much of the media organizations who blew his team search out of proportion.
Yes, I am talking specifically about ESPN. They have done everything possible to keep LeBron’s name in the national conversation. His recruitment got more coverage than the NFL Draft, the Final Four and the NBA Finals. I was half expecting to see his name flash across the screen during the World Cup every time a goal was scored.
What this entire saga has proven is that celebrity is more important than achievement.
It allows you to get a reality show when your only claim to fame is that you slept with the right person. It can also hijack an entire summer with every media outlet reporting on your movements.
I’m sure this story will drag on throughout the summer and maybe even bleed into the start of football season. Hopefully then, we can get on with real action on the field, and not this fake drama off of it.
Michael Kinney 366-3537 mkinney@normantranscript.com
