Seven thoughts on LeBron going to Miami

1. I really wanted Jim Gray, Michael Wilbon or anyone else on the ESPN dog-and-pony show to ask this question of LeBron:

"You know that you can never go back to Cleveland, right?"

LeBron said all the right things about loving Cleveland and loving Ohio, missing the most important point: he is a complete pariah in that region now. He can never go back. When the Heat go to Cleveland next season, he has to take a private plane to Cleveland that arrives 90 minutes before tip, go straight to the arena and take that same private plane out of town 90 minutes later. He can't do anything more than that.

I think Cavaliers fans were prepared for LeBron leaving. I remember speculating about his departure with buddies over beers and wings on draft night 2003 (and I, even back then, thought the Bulls and Knicks would be coming after him). But to do it in this fashion? By staging a one-hour television event thanks to the persuading of Gray, whose television career has so bottomed out that he's relegated to spending the 2010-2011 season doing sideline for the Sacramento Kings, LeBron became a villain, not just in Cleveland but throughout America. He ripped the hearts out of a fanbase that did everything they could to defend him, to support him, to love him.

The fans of northeast Ohio have had their hearts ripped out more than any fanbase in sports deserves. They haven't won any kind of professional championship since the Cleveland Browns won the 1964 NFL Championship. They endured Michael Jordan crushing them for years and specifically in 1989 and 1992. They endured The Drive and The Fumble and the Mistake By The Lake. They endured blowing a 3-1 series lead in the 2007 ALCS and the Tony Fernandez error that led to them blowing Game 7 of the 1997 World Series. They endured superstars like Albert Belle, Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee leaving. And most famously and importantly, they endured Art Modell taking their beloved Browns to Baltimore.

But none of that pain was inflicted by a native of the region. This time, their hearts have been ripped out by one of their own, one who understood the pain of Clevelanders, one of who was supposed to have felt that same pain. LeBron spoke of wanting to continue living in Akron. Good luck.

2. LeBron's legacy is secure. Forget being one of the all-time greats. When his epitaph is written, LeBron will be remembered as the guy who had to go join another superstar who already had a ring in order to win his own.

While I'm omitting many on this chain, it has to be said that if Michael Jordan and Bill Russell are at the very top of the chain, and the next tier includes Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan, and then a few chains below is Dwyane Wade, even further below that is LeBron.

Let's say LeBron wins five straight titles with the Heat. You know what that would mean? It would mean he will have one fewer than Wade. LeBron joining Wade's team is like Jordan joining Magic in 1988 because he couldn't win a title in Chicago.

The thing I hate about LeBron breaking the hearts of Cleveland most isn't that he's leaving. It's that he's essentially saying "I can't win the championship as the star player." Jordan, Russell, Magic, Bird and Duncan all proved they could. So did Kobe these last two years. Isiah Thomas proved he could do it. So did Bill Walton. And Moses Malone. And Hakeem Olajuwon. Shaquille O'Neal proved he could do it with Young Kobe. D-Wade proved he could do it with Old Shaq. LeBron? He can't prove it. Because from this point forward, LeBron will be known as the guy who decided he couldn't win the title as the undisputed alpha dog and thus joined forces with Wade, another alpha dog (who already has a ring). Jordan, Bird, Magic and Duncan never joined forces with another alpha dog. Neither did Isiah. Or Hakeem. They said "I'm the best and I'm going to prove it by beating all of the other great players in this league." (Or, in the case of Jordan, eviscerating them.)

The only way LeBron can prove that he's capable of that would be if Wade suffered a season-ending injury, missed the playoffs, and LeBron led the Heat to the title. Anything short of that and LeBron has succeeded in maintaining a legacy below that of Jordan, Magic, Russell, Duncan, Bird and Kobe.

From this day forward, LeBron goes down as another Julius Erving, someone who needed another superduperstar to team up with him in order to win a title (and I'm assuming LeBron and Wade will win a title or two or five together). As a result, their legacies aren't what they could have been.

Sorry, but it's true.

3. Why I'm upset that LeBron is with Miami: the absence of really good basketball. As bad as I feel for Cleveland, especially with the ridiculous one-hour special to announce his decision, I don't fault LeBron for leaving them. We all know the hideous roster the Cavaliers have, even with LeBron. It's why they were embarrassed by the Celtics in the playoffs.

But I'm a fan of basketball and as a fan, I have two wishes: to see who the best of the best are (and sadly, LeBron eliminated himself from that upper tier by joining Wade's team) and to see great games and especially great playoff series. Sports are nothing without competition. Let's say LeBron had signed with the Bulls. How exciting would the Eastern Conference playoffs have been with the Bulls (LeBron, Derrick Rose, Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah) and Heat (Wade and Chris Bosh) joining the Magic and Celtics (if they have another run in them) as a power packed quartet in the East? Plus, the bottom four playoff teams could have offered a push with Milwaukee and Atlanta being strong.

Now? Even though Miami has only three players of quality on the team (high quality, admittedly), they are the favorites if they can land anyone of substance. And, honestly, they should win the East. Having a team being far and above everyone else isn't nearly as entertaining as having three or four teams battling it out for the crown. Right now, the Lakers and Heat should be in the 2011 Finals (so long as the Heat can somehow find a supporting cast). And anything else would be an upset. It's unfortunate that the Finals seem so set 11 months before they occur.

4. Don't even try to compare this new "Big Three" to any other "Big Three" as a means of justification. When Magic, Kareem and James Worthy were together, Magic and Kareem were at different stages (except for maybe 1985, when Kareem had a revival in the Finals) and Worthy was never on their level. Plus, Magic and Worthy were drafted into Kareem's team; neither simply signed up for it. When Larry Bird, Robert Parish and Kevin McHale were together, Bird was always the No. 1 guy. The Celtics trio of Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen isn't made up any player who anyone has ever considered one of the all-time elite guys. And while LeBron and Wade are very accomplished, let's not try and pretend that Chris Bosh has done anything to put his name among the other Hall of Famers mentioned; in seven seasons, he's never won a playoff series, never been a 1st Team All-NBA and only once been a 2nd Team All-NBA selection.

However, LeBron (and Wade, to a lesser extent) are held to higher standards than the current Boston guys. LeBron has been considered a potential all-time, top tier guy since he was 15 years old. He's won the last two league MVP awards and singlehandedly taken an otherwise decrepit team to the Finals. This is the only "Big Three" with two guys who want to be alpha dogs. Those others didn't have a second alpha dog. The only time the double alpha dog has ever worked is when it's an inside-outside pairing (Kobe-Shaq, Doc-Moses). It's never worked with two perimeter guys who need to dominate the ball.

5. ESPN killed their journalist credibility with this debacle. Honestly, no one hurt their brand more than ESPN other than LeBron. I feel really bad for the likes of Ric Bucher, Marc Stein and Chad Ford, three guys who worked their tails off on this whole free agency story. In the end, they were trumped by an hour-long special hosted by Jim Gray, who hasn't been able to land a consistent gig with a major network since 2007. Remember the famous Happy Day "Jump The Shark" episode? I sort of feel like this is the moment where ESPN jumped the shark. This is the moment where they went from being the Worldwide Leader in Sports (at least, according to them) to being a national punchline. They've already been hammered by the New York Times.

Gray, who has no credibility left anymore (amazing, given that I once really respected him for asking tough questions, even if I didn't always agree with him for doing so--like the Pete Rose interview at the 1999 World Series), asked 16 different inane questions before asking the only question anyone watching cared about. Michael Wilbon fared much better in his line of questioning but failed to ask LeBron two key questions: 1) Are you aware that you are now a pariah in your home town, another Art Modell to Northeast Ohioans? 2) Given all the backlash you have received for coming up with this show and breaking Cleveland's hearts on national television in the process, do you still think this show was the right way to deliver your message?

Also, did anyone else notice that Chris Broussard was conspicuously absent from their set after LeBron announced he was joining the Heat? Broussard was on ESPN all day, then left once the decision was announced. Broussard is from Cleveland. Was he off crying somewhere after the announcement was officially made? Or off crying somewhere that he was a part of such a ridiculous production? Either way, I wouldn't blame him.

6. No one's legacy takes a bigger hit here than LeBron's (if the Heat win the next five titles, Wade can always say he won one without LeBron) but no one's increased more than Pat Riley's. He coached the Showtime Lakers to four titles, ending a Lakers curse against the Celtics, becoming the first team to win a deciding game in Boston and successfully shifting the Lakers from Kareem's team to Magic's team without having to get rid of Kareem or bruising his ego (even Phil Jackson failed at this with Shaq and Kobe, having to sit out a year and see Shaq be traded for the shift to successfully happen). He then turned an under-talented Knicks team into a championship contender by preaching defense and rough play (which ruined the NBA, because David Stern overreacted and now every bit of semi-physical play results in technical fouls). Then he built and coached a championship contender in Miami around Alonzo Mourning and Tim Hardaway, then did the same with Wade and Shaq, and now has brought in Bosh and LeBron while keeping Wade.

The only thing left for Riley to do is prove he can win a championship against one of Phil Jackson's championship contenders, because he has never done that (the '94 Knicks beat the Bulls but Jordan was off playing baseball and the '06 Heat won the title while the Lakers were in rebuild mode). Riley has proven himself as great an executive as he was a coach. And I think he'll be coaching the Heat by New Year's.

7. Cleveland? They may as well fold the franchise. I enjoyed Dan Gilbert's demolition of LeBron in his statement to the Cavs fans (even if he was completely wrong for putting it out there and comes across worse than LeBron does in writing it) but, sadly, it doesn't mean much. There was all sorts of speculation out there that Bosh wanted to join forces with LeBron in Chicago, New York or Miami, but not in Cleveland, which says all you need to know about the way players view playing in that city.

It's unfortunate but the Cavs are likely to never have an era like they just did. They went to the Finals in 2007 and were a legitimate contender for three years after. They had arguably the best player in the league for the last five years, a two-time NBA. They had the 48 Special in 2007. Now? They have nothing. Their franchise just depreciated by hundreds of millions of dollars. Gilbert's best bet is to try and get rid of the likes of Mo Williams and Antawn Jamison, hoping they can find someone to take them for expiring contracts.

Cleveland is never going to hit the lottery like they did with LeBron in 2003 and they're never going to strike gold in free agency because even LeBron left them despite being a hometown boy who could get more money with the Cavaliers. The team will be fortunate to win 25 games next season.

Byron Scott is probably wishing he had an opt-out clause in his deal, one that allowed him to opt-out if LeBron left.