The local media finally had a tag line it could push to a frenzy: "Cavs to Mavs" was the battle cry for all the LeBron haters. As if that would make a difference in the story line that started last summer with "The Decision."
The wound is apparently still raw, if one were to believe the spewing sports talk hosts in that city to the north. Clevelanders must still be avenged, they think, for the unthinkable crime of Cleveland's native son taking his talents to South Beach.
Except he wasn't, isn't, and will never be Cleveland's native son. He's Akron, and he hasn't abandoned his hometown. He just found another place to work. One where he'll recognize the professional rewards that come with his profession.
I'll admit to being one of those who would have liked to see someone else win the NBA title this year, but not because of hating LeBron. I would have enjoyed seeing a medium market team work it's own magic (hint) as a message to the way the NBA does business.
But that said, I also think it'll be great when LeBron visits and has a chance to bring another trophy to show Akron.
The Cleveland LeHaters would like you to believe LBJ never delivered on the championship for the Cavaliers, and that's true. He did, however, do so multiple times when helping bring home state championships to the high school he attended in his hometown. Let's not forget he also shared those MVP trophy days -- twice -- with his friends and family. In Akron.
The whiners would like you to remember the LeBron who stiffs restaurant workers on tips and otherwise displays some of the boorish behavior we often see with other athletes. They would like you to remember the LeBron who would hold up the team jet from away games, the player who demanded (and got) treatment above and beyond from management. Those stories are also true.
What they leave out, however, is a simple fact: LeBron, like so many young people of his age, left northeast Ohio behind to seek greater fame and fortune elsewhere. LeBron is the prototypical child of a region that doesn't seem concerned their sons and daughters take flight unless they throw footballs, hit baseballs or dunk basketballs.
There's no question LeBron's decision to stay with the Cavaliers would have left us with a better season than we got but likely a similar result: still waiting for that trip to the altar.
Does anyone seriously think a repeat of LeBron and Shaq in 2011 would have given us that different an outlook from 2010? LeBron did what champions do: he played the game to win. Dan Gilbert's post-Decision bluster that we'd see a title before LeBron will sound pretty empty by the end of next week.
So fly high, LeBron; play well with your friends and accomplish the goal you set when you realized the road to the title wasn't on I-77 but at the end of I-95. Your critics will cringe when you enjoy the fruits of your labor, but they won't be able to take away that ring. You had the vision it would come, just not here.
Note I didn't say just not here at home. Because Akron's still home, and we've seen LeBron the Champion play out before.
Showing posts with label Cavaliers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cavaliers. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Sunday, July 11, 2010
VIDEO Why They Leave
Nothing like the voice of reason from out-of-town friends to help spur the thinking post-Decision. With all the outrage over LeBron's call to go MIA to play with his friends and win some titles, where's the angst over every other 20-something viewing northeast Ohio in a rear-view mirror?
I'm just as PO'd as the next Cavaliers fan. Not at The Decision itself -- LeBron's got every right to decide where he wants to play. That's what "free agent" means. More on that in a moment.
It was the set up, the way it was done -- breaking away on national television with the entire world watching, relegating "always home" to the same status we've become accustomed to watching "The Bachelor" make up his mind on true love. Didn't expect him to stay, but didn't expect him to be so manipulative about it.
That said, the more I hear the hate talk the more I wonder just where that passion is when talking about the hundreds of thousands of young people who've left Ohio in droves, especially northeast Ohio, the past decades. Between 2000 and 2007, Ohio's own Department of Development reports Ohio added only 114,000 people. Our population grew 1%; the national population grew 7.2%, and it shows as school systems (such as those in Akron) scramble to figure out how to keep the doors open for fewer and fewer students.
This is the free market, folks. We Americans vote with our feet. Ohio's future has been voting no.
We've seen Cleveland continue to fall from a titan of industry and prime example of American manufacturing might to a national joke, the lowest of the worst, almost a third-world country within the most powerful nation on earth. Like Detroit, we used to make what everyone bought; now it seems we can't even buy into ourselves enough to provide opportunity to keep our kids here at home. This video from Reason.tv spells it out in plain English: we're not sick anymore, we're dying.
The same public debate so obsessed with where LeBron went, driving hours upon hours serving up LeBron fare for consumption, won't get the same time or attention targeting northeast Ohio's brain drain. So much talk on things that matter so little, because it distracts us from the reality. Karl Marx described religion as "the opiate of the people," but today's environment proves him wrong. It's sports.
The 2010 Census figures are likely to show what all of us know: Ohio's great cities aren't so great anymore, our beautiful suburbs are just a little tarnished, rural Ohio has no hold on it's people. We act powerless to halt the outflow of talented, resourceful and energetic young people seeking opportunity outside the state's borders.
The answers from our political leadership, both sides of the aisle? Bet on it.
It is ironic the same owner of the team LeBron left -- the same owner who flames the player he so desired to keep in the fold -- sees Ohio salvation in the form of slot machines and casino games designed to take, not make. More attention, time and money spent convincing voters to be like Erie, or Wheeling, or even Detroit and build our future on fleecing those desperate enough to turn dreams into cash fed into machines earning the title "one-armed bandits."
Where's today's John D. Rockefeller wanna-be who built the first billion-dollar fortune? Reading Ron Chernow's Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. offers a lesson; it isn't the titan who built an empire, but the industrialist who also left Cleveland because it just wasn't big enough to handle his business anymore. He left in 1914 dogged by tax collectors who went after this son of Cleveland, challenging his residency in New York, because his wife lay dying over the deadline.
What a great irony; Rockefeller was, in part, hounded for taxes from an opportunistic city and LeBron will benefit from tax advantages from an opportunistic team. Both leave behind where it all started because it just isn't big enough to handle their dreams. They see legacy and dollars; we see moments and pennies.
An economy that once made and exported prosperity now stands in line to be made poorer one spin at a time. This is hope for our future? Colleges and universities willing to make tuition more expensive while bemoaning low college graduation rates? Industry seeing the other side of the fence really is greener? Workers and families going mobile, trading comforts of home for chances to grow?
LeBron James leaving isn't the problem we think it is; it's the template we've built. Sports is a mirror that should make us take a hard look at the story line we're really living.
Northeast Ohio sports fans continue to cry about the Sabathia, Thome, Lee and Ramirez's who leave but don't seem to grasp the loss of businesses who buy those suites and stadium ads means team owners don't have money to land top talent, much less keep them here. Browns fans still hate Art Modell for moving the team, even though public policy (and his own miscalculations) left him isolated to the point where there was no hope at home.
It's ridiculous to think one of the poorest cities in America, where the easiest thing to do is find a view defining us as "rust belt", can afford to attract the kind of talent to build something great again. We can't even do that with our own children much less someone like LeBron. He was a two-time MVP on a team that led the league in wins but still couldn't convince his BFF Chris Bosh to sign and play here. We landed Shaq because of the chance to win a ring for the King; will other world-class players look at Cleveland as opportunity now, or will they take the view the rest of the nation has: poor, poor Cleveland. Great fans, great facilities, but...always but not enough to sign if there's a better deal in a place that dreams big.
It's past time to blame the weather, or some sports curse, or supposedly selfish athletes for our woes. Ask your sons, daughters, nieces and nephews if the plus is really worth missing out on the opportunities elsewhere. Remember for thousands of Ohio families that simple conversation comes with a one in front of the area code because that chat won't be held in their living rooms. They'll be talking on long-distance using the family plan in Texas, and Atlanta, and Carolina because that's where the jobs went.
The future has already left the building.
On the subject of LeBron's decision:
In few other occupations do workers have to start their careers in a city not of their choice, but the choice of others based on the drop of a lottery ball. What other professions have workers prohibited from looking for work with the company they choose? The "free agent" window was opened when Curt Flood argued that athletes were not slaves.
LeBron, Wade, Bosh and the rest of last week's NBA crop exercised this most basic of America values; to work for those we want to work for, to grab the best opportunity we can find, to control our own destiny. This was a schooling in the free market, the American way. The NBA owners built a system where their control lasted only as long as the contract, and these players were smart enough to play the system as well as the game on the court.
The method of the move leaves a bad taste, and will for a long time. But The Chosen One did just that -- choose -- when he had the chance.
As a fan of LeBron, I'd like to see him win his rings, but as a Cavs fan not before we get ours. I'd like him to do well and be happy, but think at some point he'll wish he'd stayed and accomplished his dream here at home. I'd like this experience to serve as a teachable moment to a truly talented guy in his mid-20s as well as the posse of friends he keeps around him that there are better ways to realize a goal than the way this played out.
Most importantly, though, I'd like to see us refocus our energies on the things that truly matter: rebuilding this place we call home into a place where people want to live, work and prosper by their choice and not just because of the way a lottery ball falls.
I'm just as PO'd as the next Cavaliers fan. Not at The Decision itself -- LeBron's got every right to decide where he wants to play. That's what "free agent" means. More on that in a moment.
It was the set up, the way it was done -- breaking away on national television with the entire world watching, relegating "always home" to the same status we've become accustomed to watching "The Bachelor" make up his mind on true love. Didn't expect him to stay, but didn't expect him to be so manipulative about it.
That said, the more I hear the hate talk the more I wonder just where that passion is when talking about the hundreds of thousands of young people who've left Ohio in droves, especially northeast Ohio, the past decades. Between 2000 and 2007, Ohio's own Department of Development reports Ohio added only 114,000 people. Our population grew 1%; the national population grew 7.2%, and it shows as school systems (such as those in Akron) scramble to figure out how to keep the doors open for fewer and fewer students.
This is the free market, folks. We Americans vote with our feet. Ohio's future has been voting no.
We've seen Cleveland continue to fall from a titan of industry and prime example of American manufacturing might to a national joke, the lowest of the worst, almost a third-world country within the most powerful nation on earth. Like Detroit, we used to make what everyone bought; now it seems we can't even buy into ourselves enough to provide opportunity to keep our kids here at home. This video from Reason.tv spells it out in plain English: we're not sick anymore, we're dying.
The same public debate so obsessed with where LeBron went, driving hours upon hours serving up LeBron fare for consumption, won't get the same time or attention targeting northeast Ohio's brain drain. So much talk on things that matter so little, because it distracts us from the reality. Karl Marx described religion as "the opiate of the people," but today's environment proves him wrong. It's sports.
The 2010 Census figures are likely to show what all of us know: Ohio's great cities aren't so great anymore, our beautiful suburbs are just a little tarnished, rural Ohio has no hold on it's people. We act powerless to halt the outflow of talented, resourceful and energetic young people seeking opportunity outside the state's borders.
The answers from our political leadership, both sides of the aisle? Bet on it.
It is ironic the same owner of the team LeBron left -- the same owner who flames the player he so desired to keep in the fold -- sees Ohio salvation in the form of slot machines and casino games designed to take, not make. More attention, time and money spent convincing voters to be like Erie, or Wheeling, or even Detroit and build our future on fleecing those desperate enough to turn dreams into cash fed into machines earning the title "one-armed bandits."
Where's today's John D. Rockefeller wanna-be who built the first billion-dollar fortune? Reading Ron Chernow's Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. offers a lesson; it isn't the titan who built an empire, but the industrialist who also left Cleveland because it just wasn't big enough to handle his business anymore. He left in 1914 dogged by tax collectors who went after this son of Cleveland, challenging his residency in New York, because his wife lay dying over the deadline.What a great irony; Rockefeller was, in part, hounded for taxes from an opportunistic city and LeBron will benefit from tax advantages from an opportunistic team. Both leave behind where it all started because it just isn't big enough to handle their dreams. They see legacy and dollars; we see moments and pennies.
An economy that once made and exported prosperity now stands in line to be made poorer one spin at a time. This is hope for our future? Colleges and universities willing to make tuition more expensive while bemoaning low college graduation rates? Industry seeing the other side of the fence really is greener? Workers and families going mobile, trading comforts of home for chances to grow?
LeBron James leaving isn't the problem we think it is; it's the template we've built. Sports is a mirror that should make us take a hard look at the story line we're really living.
Northeast Ohio sports fans continue to cry about the Sabathia, Thome, Lee and Ramirez's who leave but don't seem to grasp the loss of businesses who buy those suites and stadium ads means team owners don't have money to land top talent, much less keep them here. Browns fans still hate Art Modell for moving the team, even though public policy (and his own miscalculations) left him isolated to the point where there was no hope at home.
It's ridiculous to think one of the poorest cities in America, where the easiest thing to do is find a view defining us as "rust belt", can afford to attract the kind of talent to build something great again. We can't even do that with our own children much less someone like LeBron. He was a two-time MVP on a team that led the league in wins but still couldn't convince his BFF Chris Bosh to sign and play here. We landed Shaq because of the chance to win a ring for the King; will other world-class players look at Cleveland as opportunity now, or will they take the view the rest of the nation has: poor, poor Cleveland. Great fans, great facilities, but...always but not enough to sign if there's a better deal in a place that dreams big.
It's past time to blame the weather, or some sports curse, or supposedly selfish athletes for our woes. Ask your sons, daughters, nieces and nephews if the plus is really worth missing out on the opportunities elsewhere. Remember for thousands of Ohio families that simple conversation comes with a one in front of the area code because that chat won't be held in their living rooms. They'll be talking on long-distance using the family plan in Texas, and Atlanta, and Carolina because that's where the jobs went.
The future has already left the building.
On the subject of LeBron's decision:
In few other occupations do workers have to start their careers in a city not of their choice, but the choice of others based on the drop of a lottery ball. What other professions have workers prohibited from looking for work with the company they choose? The "free agent" window was opened when Curt Flood argued that athletes were not slaves.
LeBron, Wade, Bosh and the rest of last week's NBA crop exercised this most basic of America values; to work for those we want to work for, to grab the best opportunity we can find, to control our own destiny. This was a schooling in the free market, the American way. The NBA owners built a system where their control lasted only as long as the contract, and these players were smart enough to play the system as well as the game on the court.
The method of the move leaves a bad taste, and will for a long time. But The Chosen One did just that -- choose -- when he had the chance.
As a fan of LeBron, I'd like to see him win his rings, but as a Cavs fan not before we get ours. I'd like him to do well and be happy, but think at some point he'll wish he'd stayed and accomplished his dream here at home. I'd like this experience to serve as a teachable moment to a truly talented guy in his mid-20s as well as the posse of friends he keeps around him that there are better ways to realize a goal than the way this played out.
Most importantly, though, I'd like to see us refocus our energies on the things that truly matter: rebuilding this place we call home into a place where people want to live, work and prosper by their choice and not just because of the way a lottery ball falls.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Freedom Means Saying No, Too
t's just astounding watching the vitriol pour out of some people when it comes to someone else making a decision -- and this decision doesn't even really strike home.
It is more than amazing the percentage of college students planning to leave Ohio upon graduation -- 60%, according to some reports -- doesn't make our sluggish vox populi move an inch, but a 25-year old who skipped college and went right to work after graduating from high school? One daring to consider leaving Ohio for potentially greener pastures, leading to so much hate and hurt feelings?
It's pathetic.
The harshest critics of today's LeBron James -- as opposed to last month's LeBron James, who led the Cavaliers to their NBA-best record and what seemed to be a lock for the title so desperately desired by Cleveland sports fans -- owe it to themselves to take a really deep look in the mirror.
What really matters here?
Ohio's had James for seven years as a pro, ten years overall. The basketball world spun around Akron's Chosen One, even when the Cavaliers weren't contending for the title. It was a replay of what Browns fans saw when another young man from Boardman took up the weight of northeast Ohio on his shoulders, to lead the team to Super Bowl glory only to see The Drive and The Fumble dash those prayers on the rocks of Red Right 88.
Bernie Kosar would later get his Super Bowl ring with the Dallas Cowboys, "America's Team." All the love and admiration, in the long run, meant nothing when it came to a now-despised owner and now-admired coach decided it was time to cut their losses over "diminished skills." I remember when Bernie got that ring; fans here were happy for him, knowing it just wasn't going to happen otherwise.
I don't remember 1954, but I wonder if there was a similar outcry when Bob Feller and company stumbled badly against Willie Mays and the Giants and coughed up what should have been a certain World Series victory from the then-most-ever winning team in baseball. Was Feller a traitor, a bum, a guy who took a fall? Nobody in their right mind would ever say that to Rapid Robert's face, much less behind his back. Here's a guy who came out of the cornfields, made Cleveland his home, went to war for us at the peak of his performance for God's sake.
Feller still wears that uniform with pride and accomplishment, and fans still line up and shell out their money to grab a photo or signed baseball. They properly pay tribute to greatness, and effort, and heart.
LeBron James had a 77% chance of playing somewhere else when the 2003 lottery fell Cleveland's way. For once, northeast Ohio had fortune smiling upon our undeveloped, grim shores: the Chosen One would play for us. Home would remain home. But that deal didn't have "forever" written in the fine print.
As King James weighs his options, I can't imagine another case where we would encourage a favorite son or daughter to not seek the best arrangement possible to be the best they could be. If your children were actors, wouldn't you want them on the world's biggest stage? If they were lawyers, wouldn't you want their advocacy in the most important cases? If they could play an instrument or sing like a bird, wouldn't you want them to fly high rather than perform their song in a cage for a select local few?
One of the ugly sides of being a Cleveland sports fan is this recent vicious, personal reaction when we don't get our way. That's ironic, considering we really haven't gotten our way since 1964 -- even counting coming close with Kosar, or nibbling at the dream in 1995 and 1997 in the house Akron's Dick Jacobs built.
Now Bernie's bankrupt and the field we once called "the Jake" isn't even named after the local boy who rescued the hometown team.
It is the way things are; former ballplayers don't get another chance for fame and riches once the carousel takes them farther away from the brass ring. Owners only stand tall when they continue to pay the freight for naming rights.
Current players know all too well that winning isn't guaranteed just because they have talent and work hard, or even enjoy a streak of good luck now and then. Too many variables still make being a winner a crapshoot, especially when the only definition of winner is found in the rings on their fingers.
If the Cavaliers are a place where LeBron James continues to prosper and win a championship -- or two, or three -- then it's where he should be, and my guess is a place where he will want to be. If, however, it's the kind of place where fans so quickly put the entire weight of their dreams and aspirations on a 25-year old's shoulders and then bitterly denounce him when the effort falls short, maybe it's time to take another view: one from a rear-view mirror.
Cleveland fans, keep barking, crying and reaching out to tear down one of the best examples of success we've seen brewed here at home in generations. It'll lead to another drive, and this one will be just what you really deserve.
It is more than amazing the percentage of college students planning to leave Ohio upon graduation -- 60%, according to some reports -- doesn't make our sluggish vox populi move an inch, but a 25-year old who skipped college and went right to work after graduating from high school? One daring to consider leaving Ohio for potentially greener pastures, leading to so much hate and hurt feelings?
It's pathetic.
The harshest critics of today's LeBron James -- as opposed to last month's LeBron James, who led the Cavaliers to their NBA-best record and what seemed to be a lock for the title so desperately desired by Cleveland sports fans -- owe it to themselves to take a really deep look in the mirror.
What really matters here?
Ohio's had James for seven years as a pro, ten years overall. The basketball world spun around Akron's Chosen One, even when the Cavaliers weren't contending for the title. It was a replay of what Browns fans saw when another young man from Boardman took up the weight of northeast Ohio on his shoulders, to lead the team to Super Bowl glory only to see The Drive and The Fumble dash those prayers on the rocks of Red Right 88.
Bernie Kosar would later get his Super Bowl ring with the Dallas Cowboys, "America's Team." All the love and admiration, in the long run, meant nothing when it came to a now-despised owner and now-admired coach decided it was time to cut their losses over "diminished skills." I remember when Bernie got that ring; fans here were happy for him, knowing it just wasn't going to happen otherwise.
I don't remember 1954, but I wonder if there was a similar outcry when Bob Feller and company stumbled badly against Willie Mays and the Giants and coughed up what should have been a certain World Series victory from the then-most-ever winning team in baseball. Was Feller a traitor, a bum, a guy who took a fall? Nobody in their right mind would ever say that to Rapid Robert's face, much less behind his back. Here's a guy who came out of the cornfields, made Cleveland his home, went to war for us at the peak of his performance for God's sake.
Feller still wears that uniform with pride and accomplishment, and fans still line up and shell out their money to grab a photo or signed baseball. They properly pay tribute to greatness, and effort, and heart.
LeBron James had a 77% chance of playing somewhere else when the 2003 lottery fell Cleveland's way. For once, northeast Ohio had fortune smiling upon our undeveloped, grim shores: the Chosen One would play for us. Home would remain home. But that deal didn't have "forever" written in the fine print.
As King James weighs his options, I can't imagine another case where we would encourage a favorite son or daughter to not seek the best arrangement possible to be the best they could be. If your children were actors, wouldn't you want them on the world's biggest stage? If they were lawyers, wouldn't you want their advocacy in the most important cases? If they could play an instrument or sing like a bird, wouldn't you want them to fly high rather than perform their song in a cage for a select local few?
One of the ugly sides of being a Cleveland sports fan is this recent vicious, personal reaction when we don't get our way. That's ironic, considering we really haven't gotten our way since 1964 -- even counting coming close with Kosar, or nibbling at the dream in 1995 and 1997 in the house Akron's Dick Jacobs built.
Now Bernie's bankrupt and the field we once called "the Jake" isn't even named after the local boy who rescued the hometown team.
It is the way things are; former ballplayers don't get another chance for fame and riches once the carousel takes them farther away from the brass ring. Owners only stand tall when they continue to pay the freight for naming rights.
Current players know all too well that winning isn't guaranteed just because they have talent and work hard, or even enjoy a streak of good luck now and then. Too many variables still make being a winner a crapshoot, especially when the only definition of winner is found in the rings on their fingers.
If the Cavaliers are a place where LeBron James continues to prosper and win a championship -- or two, or three -- then it's where he should be, and my guess is a place where he will want to be. If, however, it's the kind of place where fans so quickly put the entire weight of their dreams and aspirations on a 25-year old's shoulders and then bitterly denounce him when the effort falls short, maybe it's time to take another view: one from a rear-view mirror.
Cleveland fans, keep barking, crying and reaching out to tear down one of the best examples of success we've seen brewed here at home in generations. It'll lead to another drive, and this one will be just what you really deserve.
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