It is official, LeBron James is coming home! Welcome back to Cleveland, King James. Great day for us Clevelanders!

We'll see.

I just can't imagine the PR he'll have to face if he does that. He will never be one of the greats switching towns just to win championships.

4 years ago you guys were burning his jersey and calling him filthy names and wishing he would die of a horrible disease. Now you want him back? Lol the best of humanity!

Not official. "Sources" have been mostly split and also mostly imaginary.

Cleveland is not big enough for the both of us. I am Johnny Football and I own Cleveland! Stay in Miami, Lebron!

Will Dan Gilbert write LeBron another letter?

Lost and found wrote:

4 years ago you guys were burning his jersey and calling him filthy names and wishing he would die of a horrible disease. Now you want him back? Lol the best of humanity!

Idiots did that. I have never hated LeBron. I hated Dan Gilbert and the rest of his hapless front office for not building a team around the best player ever.

Although... wrote:

We'll see.

I just can't imagine the PR he'll have to face if he does that. He will never be one of the greats switching towns just to win championships.

I think Cleveland is the ONE place he can go that won't result in a PR hit, actually. He'd be going home, after the Miami PR debacle, to a team that's not great. He's be THE man again, and would be going to a team for reasons people can relate to (wanting to go to his home team, and his original team), rather than to take a short-cut to a championship (like with Miami).

We'll see if it happens, but as an ardent LeBron hater, I'd hate him a fair amount less if he went back to Cleveland.

Although... wrote:

We'll see.

I just can't imagine the PR he'll have to face if he does that. He will never be one of the greats switching towns just to win championships.

And here I thought the whole point of team sports was winning championships. Silly me.

Let's see, when Red Auerbach found clever ways to assemble strong teams, he was heralded as a genius, but when three great players [well, 1 great player, 1 almost great player and 1 good player] sacrifice near-term earnings to assemble a championship team, they're selfish monsters. Boy, these NBA stars sure are uppity nowadays.

There is no truth to this. No matter what happens, Cleveland will endure the continuation of it's championship drought. Good luck!

bball fan wrote:

Lost and found wrote:

4 years ago you guys were burning his jersey and calling him filthy names and wishing he would die of a horrible disease. Now you want him back? Lol the best of humanity!

Idiots did that. I have never hated LeBron. I hated Dan Gilbert and the rest of his hapless front office for not building a team around the best player ever.

Cool - couldn't agree more.

dkny64 wrote:

Although... wrote:

We'll see.

I just can't imagine the PR he'll have to face if he does that. He will never be one of the greats switching towns just to win championships.

And here I thought the whole point of team sports was winning championships. Silly me.

Let's see, when Red Auerbach found clever ways to assemble strong teams, he was heralded as a genius, but when three great players [well, 1 great player, 1 almost great player and 1 good player] sacrifice near-term earnings to assemble a championship team, they're selfish monsters. Boy, these NBA stars sure are uppity nowadays.

Absolute straw man arguments. Selfish monsters? Uppity? What?

The goal of a GM is to win championships. The goal of a good player is to win championships. The goal of the "best player of all time" is to be the clear reason your team wins championships. Collusion between players to take the path of least resistance to a championships is not the action of the "greatest player of all time". This is why a lot of people got upset, because they saw LeBron on a path to being the greatest, and the Miami decision was a clear divergence from that path. It was frustrating to his proponents and detractors alike, because it would forever muddy the water of this conversation because any championships he won would be debated on their "worth".

A lot of people have mellowed on their disdain for LeBron in the last year or so. A lot of this is because it's pretty clear he's not headed towards the "greatest of all time" category anyway. He'll likely end up in the second tier, with Shaq, Kobe and a slew others, if he continues on his path. Maybe he'll prove people wrong and win several more championships as the main cog of a solid, but not handpicked with superstars, team and re-enter the GOAT conversation, but I don't see that happening.

i don't pay attention to basketball. But why the hell would he go back to Cleveland?

Didn't he leave Cleveland because they weren't winning any championships. And didn't they win like 2 of the last 4 championships in Miami? Why is he leaving Miami? Just because they lost this year? And why would he go back to a team that can't win, unless Cleveland is like way better now or something?

uphill run wrote:

No matter what happens, Cleveland will endure the continuation of it's championship drought.

The Browns have won two Super Bowls since moving to Baltimore. Does that count?

no way wrote:

i don't pay attention to basketball. But why the hell would he go back to Cleveland?

Didn't he leave Cleveland because they weren't winning any championships. And didn't they win like 2 of the last 4 championships in Miami? Why is he leaving Miami? Just because they lost this year? And why would he go back to a team that can't win, unless Cleveland is like way better now or something?

Perhaps he saw that the end doesn't justify the means? And that simply "winning championships" isn't all it's cracked up to be if your home town hates you and nobody thinks you can do it without a boatload of help (whether justified or not).

I think he's trying to make amends for what he sees as a mistake made by a 25 year old. I think he regrets everything about "The Decision", from the actual choice, to the way it was presented.

xcv wrote:

And that simply "winning championships" isn't all it's cracked up to be if your home town hates you and nobody thinks you can do it without a boatload of help (whether justified or not).

Speaking of boatloads of help, the year after Jordan quit to play baseball, the Bulls won 55 games and should have gone to the finals if not for some very questionable officiating in the Eastern Conference finals against the Knicks.

The year after he, Pippen, Rodman, and Phil Jackson all left, the Bulls had a better record than the Cavaliers did the year after Lebron left.

Michael Jordan would have won as many championships in Cleveland as Lebron did.

Thank you for explaining what I meant. Seems as this guy just thinks people like to hate on Lebron. Fact is, Lebron saw no future in Cleveland. He saw himself getting old and not winning any championships. So he went to Miami where it was an easy shot to take a couple NBA titles. Going back to Cleveland because you suddenly think it's easier to win there just makes people think even less of him. As you said, path of least resistance.

Jordan will always be in the conversation because he did what he did with ONE team. Never wavered. Yeah, he had the stint at the end of his career, but he just wanted to see if he could still play.

Bill Russel, same thing.

I beat a guy who beat Pernfors and another guy who beat John Roddick. So much for your proximity to his "camp."

You've lost me. You think LeBron would be a better player and in some sense a better person if he had stayed in Cleveland, made more money and tried [but almost certainly failed] to win championships with a second-rate supporting cast?

To me, that would have been the easy way. Stay near home, make easy money, put up impressive stats, probably not win. And of course people would have criticized him if he had done that.

I think going to Miami was the right call. I certainly don't think he handled the announcement of that Decision in the right way, but that's a different issue.

As to where LeBron stands in the GOAT discussion, I don't have a strong opinion. He's certainly a great player with a unique set of attributes - bigger than Jordan, Kobe, Dr J with many [although not all] of their skills; similar size to Magic and Bird with more athleticism but not quite their level of passing skill. I would say somewhere in the top 10.

I'm curious - who do you see as the NBA GOAT?

p.s. LeBron is a superstar, D Wade was a superstar four years ago but isn't now, Chris Bosh was never anything more than a very good player. The claim that putting those 3 players together somehow created an unbeatable juggernaut was flawed from the outset.

You added the last two parts, maybe that's why you're lost, you're creating your own narrative. Chasing championships by going to the location he thought would give him the easiest shot clearly tarnishes his legacy. Malone and Barkley would have never joined Jordan in their prime to win an easy championship - they were too big of competitors. How big of a competitor someone is weighs in on the GOAT conversation. The GOAT conversation isn't simply "who is the greatest athlete/has the most talent of anyone who played the game", or LeBron would clearly be towards the top.

I agree that LeBron has the potential to be in the top 10, but I don' think that he is there yet. In no particular order, I have Wilt, Kareem, Russel, and Jordan as the top 4, and I'd have a hard time arguing with you on any of them. Next you'd have Magic and Bird, then it starts falling off.