That's No Way To Treat The King

After watching last night's Cavs Heat game there is something I gotta get off my chest because it has been driving me crazy.  First of all, everyone should know that I love Lebron James.  He is in my mind without-a-doubt the best player in the world and could very well be the best player that has ever played.  Unless you have spent the last year in a cave, you have probably heard something about Lebron's "decision" this summer.  For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about I will sum it up quickly for you.  Lebron James was the best player in the world as a high school player and was drafted first overall by the Cleveland Cavaliers.  He played there for 7 years and this summer when his contract ran out with the Cavs he decided to leave and join the Miami Heat.  His decision to leave was a live one hour special on ESPN.  Ever since the decision, Cleveland fans have totally turned on Lebron and now hate him for "leaving."

Ok so last night the Heat played in Cleveland for the first time since he left.  There was big hype about how the Cleveland fans would treat Lebron now that he is no longer a Cavalier and this is how it went:

Fast forward to 2:40

The entire Cleveland crowd booed every time he touched the ball.  They held up all kinds of posters calling him a quitter and a traitor.  There were multiple times where the crowd chanted profanities at him.  In all of the sports I have watched in my life I have never seen a player get as much hate as he did from the Cleveland fans.

After last night I am convinced that the people in Cleveland are the stupidest people on the planet.  I understand that they are mad that Lebron left their city but their hatred is totally misplaced.  In the 7 years that Lebron played for the Cavs the 2nd best player they were able to get is Mo Williams, who wouldn't even start on a lot of teams in the NBA.  Can you expect someone to win a championship by themselves?  Jordan didn't do it, he had Pippen who is one of the 50 greatest players of all time.  It became painfully obvious in the playoffs last year how dependent the Cavs were on Lebron.  He was their entire team.  Have you ever been in a situation where there were huge expectations for you and you had to do all the work?  It's not very fun and can be extremely stressful.  All of you foreign missionaries know what that is like.  Ever had a companion that just couldn't speak the language?  At first it doesn't bother you but then after a while you start to think, "why am I so tired all the time?" And you start to realize it's because you are having to do all the work.  You kind of get used to it but then one day you go on exchanges with another capable missionary and you think, "wow this is fun, I wish I had a companion that could speak."  Well that's what happened to Lebron.  He played with Dwade and Bosh for the olympic team and he realized the cavs don't speak a word of slovak, and Bosh and Wade, well they're fluent.

The Cavs keep talking about how Lebron "betrayed" them.  I don't understand what they mean by that because to betray someone implies that there had to be some sort of loyalty there in the first place.  Now when he was under contract and they were paying him, he was loyal to the Cavs and he played his heart out for them, but when he is no longer under contract by them what was his loyalty to the Cavs?  Everyone just assumes that since he grew up around there that that means he has some sort of connection with Cleveland.  Well the fact is he's not from Cleveland, he's from Akron which is about 40 minutes away. Lebron himself has said before that growing up the kids in Akron didn't like Cleveland, and they didn't consider that to be their hometown.  40 minutes may not seem like much, that's about the distance from Utah Valley to Salt Lake.  Would you expect someone who grew up in Salt Lake to feel connected to Provo or vice versa?  Of course not.

Another thing is Cavs keep talking about "after all they did for Lebron" how could he leave them like that?  After all you did for him???  Oh yeah you must be talking about when you reached out to a poor high school kid who no one thought would ever make it in the NBA.  You gave him a chance and he grew into the best player in the world through your help.  Oh wait no that's not what happened.  What happened is you were one of the crappiest teams in the NBA and happened to get the 1st pick of the draft and the best player in the world happened to be living 40 minutes away.  Any team in your place would have done the exact same thing you did and signed him to a max contract.  The ONLY difference between you and the other teams is that David Stern happened to pick out a ping pong ball with your name on it.

I just wish the foolish people of Cleveland could see what really happened here.  You had an opportunity to have the best player in the world play his entire career in your city, but your terrible basketball organization forced him out.  They just assumed that he would never leave them no matter the fact that they had a terrible coach, and awful players.  All the Cavs had to do was get Lebron an average team and they could win a championship.  They had seven years to do it and they best they could come up with was Mo Williams and a washed up and out of shape Shaq.  Do you think Lebron wanted to leave Cleveland??  Of course not. I'm sure he would have much rather stayed there his whole career and he would have if he thought they had a legitimate shot at winning a title.  Seven years was enough for him to realize that with that organization a title was going to be impossible, even for the chosen one.  I just wish the people of Cleveland could understand what really happened here because then they would see that they were betrayed, not by Lebron, but by their pathetic excuse for a basketball franchise.

So if you didn't watch last night's game you are probably wondering how Lebron handled the boos and ridicule that was yelled at him every time he touched the ball.  This video sums it up pretty well...


Yeah as you can see those Cavs fans really got to him.  They actually got in his head so bad that he sat and watched the entire fourth quarter on the bench.......... after scoring 38 points.