Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Love Me, Love Me, Say That You Love Me

LeBron James is going back to Cleveland, saying he didn't realize four years ago how important the people of Northeast Ohio were to him.
Many people are viewing this as an admission on his part that he made a mistake four years ago when he chose to leave the Cavs for the Heat.
I think he is making the same mistake this time around, only he's doing it in a better way.
Let me explain: First of all, I am talking only about the decision with a lowercase d. The Decision, the TV special, was a complete disaster and at least he learned that lesson this time around.
But the lesson he didn't learn, is that you can't make people happy by doing what you think they want you to do.
I believe LeBron chose Miami four years ago because he thought that's what people wanted and what he needed. He thought he needed to win championships in order to be considered one of the all-time greats. And he was willing to take less money to do it. And he was right, he won two titles and four conference championships in Miami. But he never got the adulation he wanted and desired, in fact the opposite was true. Even excluding the Decision, people were angry that he abandoned his home fans and assembled a super-team.
Upon seeing that his two titles didn't bring him the love respect and adulation he desired LeBron tried to reverse course and go back to Cleveland.
It would be an admirable move, were he really sincere about his intentions. But all he wants is the love. He doesn't really care about the people of Northeast Ohio who felt betrayed by him. He just wants people to stop saying bad things about him.
Well, it's not going to work.
There are always going to be haters and being a person of prominence, they're always going to attack everything he does.
But if he really wants to turn those of us who are mostly agnostic to him (love his play, ambivalent about his personality) he should be less concerned with what we think and more concerned with winning those titles for the people of Cleveland.

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