The South Beach NWO will be coming to Cleveland on December 2nd and as you can imagine this isn’t a “regular” game.
Normally I would say it would be an overeaction for an athlete to be concerned about his safety in a visiting arena, but considering all the things I have seen, since Lebron took his talents to South Beach, he has a right to be worried.
The Cavs and the NBA are worried as well, one of the steps they are taking is banning anti-Lebron gear. Here are the details:
To ensure James’ safety, there will be dozens of extra police officers on hand, both uniformed and undercover. Officers will be stationed inside and outside the arena, and many will be positioned by the Heat bench and at the tunnel where the Heat players will enter the court.
“Honestly, I’m a little bit afraid,” one member of the Cavs organization said. “Some people don’t care. Their mentality is ‘‘I’ve got to get this off my chest.’ There’s so much negative energy around this game. People aren’t excited about the game itself. They’re just like, ‘‘I can’t wait to do something.'”
The team has done research on the various crude and offensive James T-shirts in circulation locally, and officials will be stationed at entrances to make sure no fans enter with such shirts or signs that disrespect James or his family members. They’ll also be in the stands, authorized to take away inappropriate apparel. Fans who have such shirts will be required to remove them and then will be given a Cavaliers-branded T-shirt to wear instead. All inappropriate signs also will be confiscated and officials will be on the lookout throughout the game for inebriated fans or fans who are preparing to throw things onto the court.
I think they are doing the right thing.
If they would have announced this three or four months ago, I might have thought they were being a bit “extra”. But seeing the fan reaction by Cavs fans, I know for a fact there are crazy people out there who would like to do harm to him.
He is just a basketball player, but he has struck a deep nerve with some people, so better to be safe than sorry.
The last thing the NBA needs is a situation where Lebron is put at risk by a crazed fan.