LeBron's Karma Conundrum

Rumors are swirling that LeBron James will announce tonight on prime time TV that he will be joining Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh on the Miami Heat. While this potential 'South Beach Big Three' will surpass Beantown's older version of KG, Ray Allen, and Pierce, LeBron's departure from Cleveland concerns DBSF for other reasons.

In particular, the way in which LeBron has handled his free agency doesn't seem to bode well for his karma. Consider the following:

(1) The "poor" (poor is in quotes because the team is coming off back to back 60+ win seasons) state of the Cavs' roster is all James's doing. With no regard for building a long-term dynasty LeBron demanded various high-cost free agents every year in hope of winning a title that year. James is responsible for bringing in such disastrous free agents who's names won't be mentioned but rhyme with "Molly Fezerbiak", "Fonyell Larshall", and "N'Queal Mo'Neal".

(2) LeBron had his endless team of advisers (aka friends and old AAU coaches) set-up an hour-long Thursday night prime time segment on ESPN to force the sports world to relish in his greatness in what cannot actually be more than 30 seconds of LeBron saying what team he will play on next year (and, perhaps a la a high school signing day, adorn a hat of said team). So what to do with the remaining 59.5 minutes of television time? Surely commercials can eat up 20-25 minutes of it, but the rest will require ESPN producers and interns to create montages of what is little more than 30+ minutes of LeBron James' televisual fellatio. Me, me, me, me, me, Meeeeeeeee!!!

(3) James will be making his announcement in Connecticut not his hometown of Akron, Ohio. (Grant it, this isn't such a big deal but Connecticut is full of hedge fund managers, and other guys who made billions shorting the financial collapse they created five years prior with reckless lending. Akron has like Arby's HQ and three Tastee Freez's. They can use a little more economic stimulus than than Connecticut, which has Brook's Brothers vending machines outside of most gas stations--which they probably call 'petrol stations' to come off sounding European/ classy.)

(4) LeBron's "advisers" (see above not on bro's/ AAU leaches for insight on quotes) are rumored to already be calling other sought after free agents to recruit them to Miami (as if two other phenoms isn't enough to win), and inquiring about what needs to be done to move Miami's higher cost, less desirable players, like Michael Beasley (a third year player and former number two overall pick . . . should Miami move Beasley DBSF believes this could come back to haunt the team . . . assuming of course Beasley can limit his affinity moments of psycho-rational-logical relapse [i.e., being "crazy"]). That's funny DBSF never remembers Jordan putting together an All-star team** to win his six rings. Jordan was like, "yeah give me Ron Harper, Bill Wennington, Luc Longley, and Steve Kerr and I'll get the job done."

Who knows what will happen? DBSF still believes that LeBron will stay with Cleveland (not matter how many rings he wins with the Heat, it will always be one less than D-Wade has and, thus, it will always be D-Wade's team). However, it might be interesting to look at one other super-star, Grant Hill, who left his team at his peak and then because of bad karma (okay, an ankle injury that may or may not be related to karma) had a career that had the potential to be legendary but fall to far, far more mundane proportions. (Grant Hill averaged 20+ ppg, 9-10 rbg, and 7ish apg with the Pistons. Now he puts up Richard Jeffersonesque numbers.)


**Anyone who says "but Scottie Pippen was an all-time great NBA player" need only look at Pippen's performance with vs. without Jordan. If Sebastian Telfair played with Michael Jordan he'd be a perennial all-star.