by RB Capuz

Created on: October 28, 2010

Back in July, the world was shocked to hear that LeBron James has decided to “take his talents” to the Miami Heat. A lot of people have questioned his “Decision”—the career move itself and, especially, the way he has done it. I’ve been a fan of James since Cleveland Cavaliers drafted him in 2003. They’ve had a pretty good run in those seven years (sans the Larry O’Brien trophy). But a lot of people were a bit disappointed to know that the man they all expected to bring the franchise to new heights left the ship before it sank.

Watching Michael Jordan playing for the Chicago Bulls as I was growing up, I had a vision that this young lad from Akron could be the next MJ of the NBA. Kobe Bryant has a much better sense of leadership, but I think James is the better overall player (stats considered). But this is not about who’s better individually because the game of basketball is a team game and we all know that Kobe has five rings to his name (thus adding five more championship banners to the Staples Center).

Having said that, I think that a lot of people has criticized James for what he had done—myself included. Even Dan Gilbert, the Cavaliers owner, lambasted James for purportedly turning his back on the Cavaliers even before Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Boston Celtics ended. We called him traitor and selfish—among other things—and burned his jersey on national TV.

Let’s try to put ourselves in James’ shoes. He has taken less money when he moved to Miami and will be sharing the spotlight with other All Stars like Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. He mentioned a couple of times that this is still Wade’s team and that he is just here to help the franchise win championships. That is not something that falls under the “Selfish” category, at least not in my book. In Cleveland, he can have about $30 million more. But after “The Decision”, the hometown hero became the most hated villain in Ohio, particularly in Cleveland.

When we are put in a situation where we have to decide what’s best for us, should we worry about what other people say? In this case, I think we, the Cleveland Cavaliers fans, are much more selfish than he is, because we don’t want him to leave our team. The guy is not perfect, both on the court and in real life—but so are we. His new Nike commercial (deemed by some as Nike’s effort to salvage the image of James) says it all. At the end of the day, we are only spectators. It is the players who play the game.

Last night, Miami Heat’s big three faced the big three of the Celtics (Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen). And while James and the Heat displayed some flashes of brilliance, the Celtics prevailed. Only time can tell if James’ decision was right. Until then, we will all be waiting.

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