LeBron James’ tenure with the Miami Heat has been compared to a man who left his high school sweetheart to have a torrid love affair. Now, he is going back to his first love and the transgression has been forgiven.
He has been “For6iven”.
The problem with that analogy is that as jilted as Cleveland felt, there was no LeBron betrayal. He didn’t cheat, he moved on. A more apt comparison is the one he mentioned in his essay. Miami was something LeBron was always missing, his college experience.
LeBron James graduated from St. Vincent – St. Mary’s in 2003 and was quickly thrust into the role of savior for a city devoid of sport success when the Cleveland Cavaliers drafted him. The kid from nearby Akron whose greatness was evident from middle school would be playing professionally 45 minutes from where he first held court.
Even after years of success, albeit not the ultimate success of a championship, he still never had that college experience. Now the college experience I am talking about involves everything but basketball. LeBron was not mandated to spend a year playing college basketball like Kevin Durant, but even Kobe Bryant moved across the country after he graduated high school. LeBron staying to play within driving distance of his mother’s house was the equivalent of going to your local community college.
Where I am from, community college is referred to as 13th grade and for LeBron, playing in Cleveland was exactly like that. Having been the big man on campus during high school, getting to play in his backyard was just continuing that.
In the well-crafted essay explaining The Decision 2.0, he mentioned that in Northeast Ohio, nothing is given, it is earned. Funny thing is that part of the problem the first time around was that LeBron was allegedly given too much. LeBron James and his closest circle of friends were given free rein in Cleveland and why not? He was approaching messiah-like status and he was going to deliver the championship that had eluded Clevelanders for so many years.
From 8th Grade to his 8th year in the league, LeBron was like the stereotypical star football player in every high school movie ever made. Star quarterback has trouble in school? Things happened to fix that. Star running back has minor run in with law enforcement? Things happened to fix that. In LeBron’s case we have never really heard of any transgressions other then allegations of impermissible benefits when he was in high school. Of course, just because it never came to light doesn’t mean it never happened. I would bet there are a few rugs in Akron with a slight bump, as if somebody had swept something under there.
Being a star in his home town afforded him some protection and insulation. In a place where nothing is given, he was given it all.
But then the cracks started to appear, and like the aforementioned football movie trope, there was an overbearing “father” for who the son was just not appreciative enough.
“Are you not happy with everything I have surrounded you with?”
As he approached the original Decision, the prevailing thought was that LeBron would never leave, he IS Northeast Ohio. He was the biggest fish, but maybe the fishbowl of Northeast Ohio was just too small.
So he left.
That is why July 8, 2010 truly is LeBron James “graduation” day.
And in clichéd movie fashion, the overbearing father screamed at his son. “If you leave, you are never welcome in this house ever again! I don’t deserve this kind of cowardly betrayal! All you do is ever think about yourself. Narcissist!”
Somebody else even went so far as to call him “the whore of Akron”
Despite doing everything within his contractual rights, his actions were seen as a betrayal by those that said they loved him most. But LeBron needed to go off and experience a different way of doing things. He needed his long absent “college experience”.
He needed the Miami Heat.
Oddly enough, his tenure in Miami played out very similarly to a college experience. The first year was a struggle, like a lot college freshman he had a hard time adapting to a new way of doing things. The infamous bump of Coach Erik Spoelstra 17 games in and the belief that maybe it wasn’t going to work out. There was even talk that he would return home, with his tail between his legs. After the rocky start he was able to settle himself and “pull his grades up” and salvage a respectable season.
A solid C+ season.
After that, he bought in. He realized that if this was going to work, he needed to grow up and it needed to happen immediately. It wasn’t until he became the big man on the bigger campus that the team had success leading to consecutive NBA Championships.
The fourth year was when things started to get interesting again. The toll of the previous three years was starting to wear on him and “senioritis” was starting to creep in. Knowing it was another Decision year, he was given more leeway. Much like his run in Cleveland, his entourage was allowed around the team facility with more frequency. While there was very little doubt that the four year journey would be considered a success, it wouldn’t be capped off by a Threepeat. Unfortunately, what would normally would have turned on at the flip of a switch, flickered before completely burning out.
After four years, it was time to decide once again what he was going to do. Would he stay and attend graduate school and take this college journey another step further? Would he explore other avenues, like ones in California or Texas, or would he decide it was time to go back home and start working?
Would he be able to forgive his “father” for the way he had acted after he left? Would the vitriol with which his choice was met be forgotten, or at least set aside? Could he forgive even while the expectation was for him to apologize?
When talking about third graders he sponsors through his foundation in his essay, he hopes they will do exactly what he ended up doing. “Maybe some of them will come home after college and start a family or open a business. That would make me smile.”
Now he is back and starting a new family. Kyrie Irving, Tristan Thompson, Dion Waiters and the prospect of Kevin Love joining the team are all good reasons for optimism. The hope for Cleveland fans is that he can take what he learned during his “college years” and apply it to winning a championship. Miami made the best player in the world better, but did they show him how to replicate it somewhere else.
Is he just going to revert back to his old ways, like it tends to happen when people go back to what was comfortable before. Only time will tell.
There is a reason so many pro athletes look back at their college years as the best moments of their lives. Listening to the countless present and future NFL Hall of Famers talk about the University of Miami, you get the impression that for some their 4 years at “The U” were actually better than making millions in the league and winning championships. They use the expression “It’s a Canes thing, you wouldn’t understand.”
It is like that all over professional sports, and a lot of guys struggle with it and are out of the league or have a hard time finding a spot because of it. It is why guys like Jack Locker and Andrew Luck both risked their status as the consensus #1 overall pick after their junior year to come back for that final year on campus. In both those cases, the gamble paid off differently.
For the sake of all of Northeast Ohio, they better hope LeBron James can achieve the same success he had at the University of Miami (Heat).
July 11, 2014 is the day LeBron’s college years ended, which is fitting because 07/11/14 are also the three years he has lost NBA championships.