Quicken Loans Arena is going to be rocking once again this year. By Erik Drost, via Wikimedia Commons

Cleveland is rocking once again. LeBron is back.

For a fan base abandoned by their hometown star four years ago, this is the biggest day in Cleveland sports history. While it doesn’t do much for the past heartbreak the city of Cleveland has suffered, getting LeBron James back is, simply put, the biggest free agent acquisition in the NBA. Ever. James will go down as a top-five all-time player in this league when all is said and done. His move to Miami sparked four dreary NBA years of the Heat dominating the East. Now, the Eastern Conference is wide open once again.

When he left Ohio, the thought of Cleveland ever getting him back was the ultimate pipe dream. It was obvious nobody even considered a return a possibility. All over town, Cavs fans burned the jersey of their prodigal son. Owner Dan Gilbert unleashed a tirade unlike any other I’ve seen from an owner, publicly lashing out at the superstar who spurned the organization and region.

Many blamed LeBron for leaving in the first place for the greener pastures in Miami. He got some of what he wanted there: championships, some kind of validation, a chance to play with two other All-Star caliber players. He also learned that not even that was enough. In the end, James decided that winning a championship in Cleveland is a challenge he was ready to take on, once again.

In his essay on SI.com today, he talked about the past four years as a proxy for college — interesting for the biggest no-brainer high school talent ever. Since he left Cleveland has certainly been forced to grow-up, out of the bubble of Northeast Ohio.

Being from the Central Coast, I had to move away for a few years to appreciate everything about it. (Yes, I just compared myself to LeBron James). The cliche goes that you don’t know what you had until it’s gone. The same goes for places — sometimes a person doesn’t realize what a place truly means until they leave.

In the mean time, LeBron has kept his head down in Ohio. His public relations persona in Akron seems to have remained intact and weathered the storm over the past four years. According to his website, his charitable endeavors still focus mostly on Ohio. Throughout the championship runs in Miami, LeBron kept his roots where they have always been. Despite the rampant speculation that has basically broken twitter and the Internet over the past few days, James chose this time around to take his time and put his feelings into writing — a very wise choice following the dumpster fire that was The Decision.

In many ways, LeBron’s career path is becoming an ideal one. Following an archtypical hero’s journey, he helped grow the Cavs brand in his hometown over the first seven years of his career. After he failed there, he went away, abdicating his regional throne and shunning those who had worshipped him over the past decade. While he was gone, he learned how to accomplish his ultimate goals while Cleveland fell back into “ruin.” Now, Bron Bron will return to try to restore his place as the King of Cleveland and resurrect a franchise he once took to the NBA finals.

LeBron ended his announcement today pretty simply, acknowledging the new challenge ahead of him.

In Northeast Ohio, nothing is given. Everything is earned. You work for what you have.

I’m ready to accept the challenge. I’m coming home.

American sports fans sit, eagerly awaiting the season opener and a chance to glimpse a once and future Cav. After all, doesn’t everyone love a story about redemption?

]]> http://www.fansmanship.com/it-had-to-be-cleveland/feed/ 0 http://www.fansmanship.com/the-decisions-1-year-anniversay-the-lockout-and-why-kyrie-irving-is-a-positive/ http://www.fansmanship.com/the-decisions-1-year-anniversay-the-lockout-and-why-kyrie-irving-is-a-positive/#respond Fri, 08 Jul 2011 21:39:56 +0000 http://www.fansmanship.com/?p=3558 As much as the self-feigned American public revels in a comeback story, we solicit higher ratings for the downfall of one even more.

Watching hopes crumble in a Hollywood (Hollyweird if you’re from Cali) fashion is best suited for an American TV landscape where reality is as popular as a colonoscopy.

Enter the surreal. Worlds where Jersey Shore and steroids are the barometers by which we judge the nature of reality.

The one year anniversary marking the Cavaliers messy fall from grace to that of NBA serfdom is not only a sour topic for its last remnants of fandom, but a juicy one as well.

LeBron James—the God turned dark satanic villain—is the caricature that never sleeps. In fact he is the group of spring breakers who party next door for the entire night: pounding the walls an bumping their jams. 

His desolation of a city is still inconceivable and for that unforgivable, not to mention, his new menage-twois in South Beach is a fornication of talent that is ripping apart the league at its seams.

This fuel for the fire, is a hot topic for sport pundits all across America. Alone James has altered the NBA world forever like a fault line moves the earth’s ecology.

Unfortunately, the organic evolution an NBA champion is now a distant memory for the multi-generational sports fan. For my father it is every reason why he is now more in tuned with a dog and pony show than that of the NBA Finals.

Last he checked the mid-thigh short was far too long, the mullet haircut and the Burt Reynolds mustache trend setting masterpieces and Slice the leader in pop.

But today, good luck finding an athlete whose shorts aren’t slung at the ankles, making a fortune on a series of linked sex tapes or masquerading on an MTV pop reality show.

For this reason alone, I am hopeful that an NBA lockout can help redirect a league that as been starring in a series of Lost. Every which way I turn there is a Tim Donoughy scandal or a new issue defacing the Lakers franchise with a picture of Lamar and Chloe Odom.

The guaranteed contract and the easy movements of the free agent, have defiled the puritanical originations of this great game. Making players work for their money not only holds them accountable, but quite honestly, weeds out the nay- sayers.

If Deron Williams cannot come to the table and arrange his life to help the greater good than I say go, go as far away as possible and never leave Turkey. Sorry Nets fans.

For Cavaliers fans I am eagerly hopeful. The Heatles were ousted by a Mavericks team of role guys, and their leader Dirk Nowitiski is a hardworking floor general with the genuine heart of a champion.

This is sweet revenge for fans that for seven years fell under the spell of LeBron James nicities. Happily, for an entire off-season they get to watch the star wallow in his defunct narcissism and mock his tainted legacy. 

If they are to redirect their own franchise it IS now or never. Sending away a player like J. J Hickson to the Kings for Omri Cassapi was a move in the right direction. Hickson is up for a max contract come next June, and to be honest, he reminded too many fans anyways of LeFraud.

His 13.8 points per game were a freckle on the vast expanse of what Gilbert and many upper management leads thought he was capable of. With the drafting of Tristan Thompson, it was a perfect ridding to head in a positive direction.

Yet this exodus is still in need of a little more magic.

Ridding the bloated contract of equally Hollywood adoring Baron Davis will be difficult but necessary. A player bobbing on 1/4 knee is without question unworthy of the 13 million dollars owed him next season.

His days of leading a team with an insatiable will to get to the hoop are long, long gone, and his oft-uncoachable attitude is grossly distasteful. Watching him come to camp over weight and sit with injuries in Los Angeles was bad enough. But what was worse, was what he did with his free time. 

While “rehabbing,” Davis was guest starring in multiple TV series. Hiring an agent in the process, Davis continued to work on his entertainment direction, while collecting a mega sized paycheck from the Clippers.

Sending the Hollywood cast-off to a playoff franchise in need of a new general or a back up point guard not only frees up cap space to sign free agents in the future but does away with an unneeded headache.

Entering, the number one pick Kyrie Irving, an unproven Coach K disciple, and the team at the least has a new face to adore. Though I am admittedly skeptical of the kid’s hype, I am enriched by his humility to the situation.

Not once has he self-aggrandized or touted his worthiness, but instead, smiled and acted happy at his fortune to play in one of the league’s greatest cities.

This interview on draft night proves the kid’s willingness to play as a part of a team and his desire to “fit in” with the organization. His kind-hearted nature and desire to look past the LeFraud pressures is worthy of recognition.

Most importantly he is extremely gifted. With a wonderful step back jump shot, skilled three point shooting and ability to get in the key for drop off passes to bigs, Irving is the right direction for a team looking to renew itself.

For the City of Cleveland and Dan Gilbert, a new sense of self could be emerging. On the horizon, just one year later, there are coming showers of hope.

Fresh off of one of the worst splits in NBA history, LeFraud will forever be in moral limbo rethinking his divorce from the city that loved him first. 

For the rest of us, and most importantly Cavs fans, clarity and vision are the very things to populate a 2nd anniversary, a revival with far more glory than the one that was here before.

LeBron James’ career has burst into flames, after his self-aggrandizing title prophecies with the Miami Heat ended Sunday in a game six loss to the Dallas Mavericks. The NBA’s darling just one year ago–a mild tempered family man, with the dribble speed game of MJ, and the passing and rebounding finesse of Magic, is not only the league’s most wanted but is now left for another off-season to ponder his lowly 2-8 record in NBA Finals games and dismal 2-6 record in must-win elimination games.

As much as the league has tried to endorse James as the predecessor to MJ’s greatness, one is left to wonder whether he will go down as the games biggest bust. Despite this ever-evolving debate in the eight year relationship fans and critics have had with James, the man himself seems undeterred.

“I pretty much don’t listen to what everybody has to say about me or my game or what I’ve done with my career,” James said. “I don’t get involved in that. This is year after year after year for me. Me as an individual, people write or say what they want to say about me. It doesn’t weigh on me at all.”

This is yet another form of kindling for the LeBron hatred across the country, and is the type of thing that has taken the “King” mantle from James and placed his name among the all-time villains. Something LeBron seems indifferent towards.

“All the people that was rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today,” James said. “They have the same personal problems they had today. I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that.”

Despite the criticisms, LeBron’s mantra is simple: his life is better than yours. Today the man woke up to a multi-million dollar mansion with his family, and is currently sipping prepared pina coladas by an aqua lagoon furnaced by his own personal natural hot spring. As his wife kisses his forehead, his children have the best education money can buy, and his hard-working mother — the one who worked day and night as a single mother — is doing just the same.

So what gives?

“It hurts of course,” James said. “ I’m not going to hang my head low. I know how much work as a team we put into it. I know how much work individually that I’ve put into it, when you guys are not around. That’s something people don’t see. I think you can never hang your head low when you know how much work, how much dedication you put into the game of basketball when the lights are off and the cameras are not on.”

LeBron’s confidence in his work ethic is the saturation necessary to help him get past this on-going bout of losing when it matters most. In fact LeBron seems half-right. In eight elimination games in the playoffs, his career numbers of 29.8 points, 9.4 rebounds, and 7.4 assist would argue his point.

Yet for Cleveland fans and many across the country the problem has never been LeBron’s abilities, rather his inabilities to close out games in the final minutes. Cavs fans are left to ponder not only James inappropriate decision parade on national television, one in which took them from title hopefuls to cellar dwellers, but his final game against Boston in the Conference Semi-Finals where James looked as if he’d quit on the franchise and aloof thereafter.

This loss, whether it be just another loss in a long seemingly successful hall of fame career for James, is vindication for many across America. For Cavs owner Dan Gilbert it was everything he needed to move on with his career. After the loss, Gilbert tweeted: “Old Lesson for all: There are NO SHORTCUTS. NONE.”

The longtime friendship Gilbert and James had, rooted in the franchise selection of the Akron native, continued its bitter feud. Gilbert has never waned from admitting his disappointment in the player he believed was faithful and would help change the course for Cleveland fans’ long drought without a professional title.

This is like the “Young and the Restless,” but better–it is Brokeback Mountain the sequel, starring Jamie Foxx and business mogul Bill Gates. But jest aside, this is the life of a man left to wonder whether his career will ever culminate into anything more than best greatest loser of all-time.

For James and any other NBA great, the tiers of hall of fame stars is a real topic, one of which none of these player can run from. It is like having your name sprawled next to MJ, Magic, or Bird instead of Iverson, Dominique, or Ewing.

And despite the majority, who are beginning to wonder whether James is the latter, the star is limitless in his drive. “The only thing that weighs on me is when I don’t perform well for my teammates and the guys that I play for every day,” said James. Which as of now, seems like the theme to his rocky unabashed career.