The Decision. An hour long TV special devoted to LeBron telling everybody what he had planned on doing since the 2008 Olympics. Admittedly, The Logic of Choice is a bit late on getting to this news but we never claim to be breaking stories.
Lebron James will join his b-ball frat brothers in the heat of South Beach this fall. Is anyone surprised? Well, anyone except the cursed region that is Northwest Ohio? I don't think so. Our news cycle is soo fast now that we knew with a strong confidence that Lebron was ditching his snow boots for a gold chain, open shirt, and chest hair? (Oh, wait he already has all that? Maybe he should get some flippy floopies.)
I want to briefly discuss the social media and news cycle impact on this story and a bit about the basketball. There are plenty of places to read more about the basketball issues. I'll link a few at the bottom.
For a moment, imagine that James came out of high school in 1983 instead of 2003. The Decision would have taken place in 1990 instead of 2010. How would it have been different? Remember that Jordan had not quite yet taken his place as best of all time (with no apologies to Kobe). Would Lebron's decision to head for Miami have been in everybody's thoughts for the last year. I don't think so. We would have read about Lebron going to Miami in the morning paper, or maybe would have seen in it on Sportscenter or a local news cast if you lived in a potential Lebron destination city.
I watched The Decision live and was logged into Facebook and Twitter just to see how much instant reaction went up. I haven't seen either one blow up like they did since the 2008 Presidential election. Almost my entire Facebook news feed was LeBron-centric and every tweet that went up was about the "king". What would have happened in 1990? Maybe I would have discussed it with a few of my friends at work or school. Our opinions to be reevaluated in 6 months after the Heat have played half a season.
This is not an indictment on our social media society or the fast news cycle. I love instant information and communication. I just want to remind everybody that 20 years ago, nobody outside of Cleveland, Chicago, and maybe NY would have been wadding their panties over Lebron's decision to go play basketball with his friends at the beach. (Not to mention taking less money to do so.)
Now on to the basketball portion. Can the Heat win a title (or eight, as James mentioned at the Heat pep rally) with two superstars (James, Wade), one top 15 player (Bosh), mediocre point guard (Mario Chalmers), and a spot up shooter (Mike Miller), and a bunch of alleged scrubs? I don't know-maybe Chicago got a lot better, Boston is still a dangerous playoff team, Orlando is too if Howard dunks and everybody else hits threes. Oh, and the Lakers are still pretty good. One thing you can pretty much guarantee, the Heat will be a top 3 Eastern Conference team for the next six years, barring a series of unfortunate injuries (or fortunate of you live in Cleveland). These guys will have fun. They will score many points. They will win many games. Will Lebron get what he is chasing? Who knows what he even really wants.
One more guarantee. The Heat will break the record for most Sunday afternoon ABC appearances.
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