Oh, no?

Last week, LeBron said this: “Imagine if you could take Kevin Love off Minnesota and add him to another team and you shrink the [league]. Looking at some of the teams that aren’t that great, you take Brook Lopez or you take Devin Harris off these teams that aren’t that good right now and you add him to a team that could be really good. Not saying let’s take New Jersey and let’s take Minnesota out of the league. But hey, you guys are not stupid, I’m not stupid, it would be great for the league.”

So he didn’t literally say, “Let’s take some of the teams out.” But he certainly explained how it would be great for the league if the Nets and Wolves were stripped of their players to benefit the rest of the NBA. Is there much of a difference? When fellow players in your league disagree with you, you know you said something stupid.

Or do you?

For the most part, when athletes need to “clarify” a previous statement, someone who actually has a clue tells them what to say. From now on, why can’t we just have the idiots read a revised statement off a piece of paper and tell us that they were instructed to say it? Don’t insult our intelligence. Well, whatever you insult, someone will be sure to try and clean it up for you.

The Night We Bore Quitness

‘Twas the night we bore Quitness, 2010.

A big night for Greenwich on ESPN.

Hoops fans worldwide all knelt down in prayer

In hopes that a special King soon would be theirs.

The children are seated, three rows on each side

As Jim Gray calls forth the man soon to decide.

A pink and white dress shirt and a lump in his throat,

The beard that he sports makes him look like a goat.

They waste lots of time, televise mindless chatter,

‘Til it’s time to get down to the heart of the matter.

Palms covered in sweat, hearts beat ever fast.

“LeBron, what’s your decision?” Finally, at long last.

The camera zooms in to an insecure face

That painfully announces which team won the race.

He says, “This is tough”… His verdict within reach!

“This fall I’m gonna take my talents to South Beach.”

One statement has just changed the course of pro sports.

One statement diminishes all the support.

Cavalier fans revolt, all one and the same

Who rage in the streets, burn jerseys, scream names.

“You traitor! You coward! You ring-chasing joke!

You’re Selfish! A Quitter! In Miami you’ll choke!

Once you leave this city, don’t ever come back!

You’re dead now to Cleveland, you ungrateful sack!”

The man in charge even had something to say.

Mr. Gilbert went off in a “comic” display.

His letter to fans received countless reactions.

But LeBron is no runaway slave, Jesse Jackson.

To no one’s surprise, hometown onslaughts pervade

As James moves down south to join Bosh and D.Wade.

His entrance is met there with nothing but glee.

An arena-sized welcome greets its new Big Three.

Let the countdown begin for the upcoming season.

They say winning 70 is within reason.

“Yes. We. Did.”, read posters held up by the fans.

But first we should let the Witness take the stand.

The opener in Boston just can’t get here soon enough.

Little does LeBron know, things will start out very rough.

Forget about the booing and the villain role to play.

The team itself will struggle and need time to find its way.

A month through the schedule comes the Cleveland return.

The decision plays back for all those whom he spurned.

The Quitness, the Lyin’ King, all were betrayed.

The mere sight of him irks the 20,000 paid.

It says “Heat” on his jersey, “6” on front and back,

Red and orange on the sides and a headband in black.

He walks to the table and powders his hands,

Raises up to the sky and hears boos in the stands.

With 38 points, LeBron puts on a show

As the Heat win the third of twelve games in a row.

He says thank you to fans for the “seven great years.”

No apology offered, the King disappears.

Like the Grinch who Stole Christmas, LeBron took their joy.

But the faithful in Cleveland still have their own ploy.

The decision long over, Mr. Gilbert still fights.

“We’ll win a title before you, and all will be right!”

Footage courtesy of a fan who attended the game. Good stuff.
 

Thursday, December 2. TNT, 8:00 EST. The Heat come to Cleveland. What will owner Dan Gilbert do? How about the fans? Will LeBron’s mom attend? Will she bring Delonte West with her? Will all hell break loose? If you don’t have your popcorn ready for this one, you must have burned it like your LeBron Cavs jersey.

While Cleveland has their people saying the right things about James’ return, there is one member of the organization that said, “Honestly, I’m a little bit afraid. Some people don’t care. Their mentality is ‘I’ve got to get this off my chest.’”

Distraught fans are chomping at the bit. But hold on a second. The idea of attacking LeBron is nice, but a little too… predictable. Don’t get us wrong, we’d love to see some hostility– but let’s get a little creative here. Advice to Cavs fans: Go after Zydrunas Ilgauskas instead.

Remember the horse head scene in The Godfather? After Johnny Fontane is denied a movie role by big shot Jack Woltz, Woltz wakes up one morning to find the severed head of his prized racehorse in his bed. Woltz wasn’t harmed, but a message was certainly delivered. In this case, Big Z, once a prized member of the Cavs franchise, is your horse. Send James a message by going after his friend and long-time teammate.

It’s no secret that James and Ilgauskas at least have a positive relationship with one another. LeBron publicly backed Ilgauskas when coach Mike Brown left him on the bench for an entire game, preventing the fan favorite from breaking the club record for career appearances. The two have been together for nearly LeBron’s entire NBA career. When Ilgauskas was shipped to Washington in a trade for Antawn Jamison, it was James who pushed for Cleveland to resign him once the Wizards bought his contract out.

Ilgauskas wrote a letter to Cleveland upon his departure. A nice gesture? Sure. However, it has LeBron’s influence literally written all over it. “The decision to play for Miami was not an easy one to make for either myself of my family…I felt I owed it to myself and my family to chase my dream of winning an NBA championship.” Sound familiar? LeBron has tarnished the reputation of a man who was an even longer-tenured Cavalier than himself. Let him know it!

James will be expecting the boos, the ugly chants, signs, etc. Keep those to a minimum, Cavs fans. Attack the Big Z, who spent 13 years in Cleveland, fighting through injuries and gaining the love and respect of Cavs fans. Make LeBron think that, because Ilgauskas left to follow him to Miami and win a title, Cleveland now hates his good friend just as much.

With more rage directed towards a bench player than the main attraction, the Lyin’ King will get a message he never saw coming. He should feel entirely responsible for the admiration that has suddenly turned into animosity for Zydrunas Ilgauskas. That entire plan, of course, makes one minor assumption- that LeBron James has a heart and/or a conscience. Oh, wait…

The headlines abound: Paul Pierce zings LeBron James on Twitter after Celtics win…Paul Pierce jabbing LeBron James?…Boston Star Takes Twitter Dig at Heat…Paul Pierces LeBron.

Whoa…Pierce schooled The King. Remember that egotistical hour-long special LeBron held when he announced, “I’m going to take my talents to South Beach”? Well, Pierce went down to Miami, beat the Heat, and stole LeBron’s thunder! He totally mocked him! Yawn. We get it. Who really cares? Is that supposed to be clever or controversial?

Like so many of the mundane comments posted by famous figures on Twitter, apparently, we’re supposed to care. In the case of pro athletes, we’re not talking about breaking sports news that insiders may post or insightful comments that a player may provide about himself. We’re talking poor attempts at insults and back-and-forth Twitter wars. Pathetic. By the way, “tweet” is a really wimpy word- which, in fact, fits the tweeter in this case. Just ask Udonis Haslem.

Mr. Haslem attempted to save this non-story with something interesting to say about Pierce. That’s right, he said it- live, in person, to the media! “Paul who?” Haslem shot back. “Man, ain’t nobody paying them dudes no attention, man. You know what studio gangster is? Look up that, look up the definition of studio gangster. I’m here to play basketball. First of all, I don’t tweet. So I wouldn’t know what he tweeted if you guys didn’t tell me.”

First off, give Haslem his props for not tweeting. Are his comments making a big deal about nothing? Basically. But at least he puts a Twitter user in his place. OK, “Paul who?” is pretty lame. Most of us know who Paul Pierce is. However, the rest of that quote is well played. In order to appreciate it, though, we must do our research, like Udonis suggested.

What better place to look up “studio gangster” than Urban Dictionary? Here’s what comes up: “A hip hop artist who may have decent rap skills, but definitely has no street credit; someone who talks hard on their lyrics, but doesn’t do anything they rap about.” Basically, Haslem is saying that Pierce talks a big game, but isn’t very tough on the court. Perhaps “fugazi” (a.k.a. fake tough guy) would be another appropriate term (thank you Tim Thomas and Kenyon Martin). Really though, in fairness to Kenyon, at least he’s never needed a wheelchair to leave the court following a sprained knee, or whatever it was Pierce didn’t really injure.

Newsworthy or not, Haslem actually had a nice comeback for Pierce. If players are going to act like idiots, it’s definitely more enjoyable and authentic to see them go back and forth with spoken words, rather than feud through some kind of sissy instant-message medium. Besides, with spoken words, you have irrefutable sound bytes. With written words, you basically have nothing.

When the Celtics won Game 3 against Orlando in the playoffs last year, Pierce’s Twitter account had a message that said “Anybody got a broom?” Then, to absolve himself of any potential wrongdoing, he claimed his account had been hacked. Did he really tweet that? We will never know. How can you build a story around something without any hard evidence?

Even if Udonis Haslem wanted to type his insult rather than speak it, some of his words certainly would have been lost, literally- because only 140 characters are allowed in one message. It’s awfully fitting that Twitter has a character limit, because so do the idiots out there who think the gibberish these superstars tweet is actually important.

The Russian billionaire has declared that, “If everything goes as planned, I expect us to be in the playoffs next season … and (win a) championship in one year minimum and maximum in five years.”

How will the Nets get the marquee free agents this offseason? “The excitement is with the Nets. We will have a desire to win that is unmatched anywhere in the league. This will be a first-class organization with all the support it needs…I can convince the very best of the best that the Nets are the place they want to be.”

In the late 1990′s SLAM Magazine proclaimed, “Champs by 2001. Count on it.” That was when the Nets were actually decent. Still, the prediction went horribly wrong. Keith Van Horn got worse each year, Sam Cassell was traded for Stephon Marbury, and Jayson Williams traded an NBA career for a jail sentence.

The point is that the Nets are the Nets. Aside from the Jason Kidd era, what has gone right? Even when things were looking up and Keith Van Horn was the savior, they collapsed. Now? Things can’t look any worse, and Prokhorov is insisting everything is looking rosy.

Where do you begin with this one? ”We will have a desire to win that is unmatched anywhere in the league.” Alright, Prokhorov, tell that to the fans after you traded Vince Carter and Ryan Anderson for Courtney Lee. It wasn’t your team then, but you’re still going to have to answer those questions.

“This will be a first-class organization with all the support it needs.”  Right…Where exactly are all those fans, again? You had the worst attendance in the league last year, under 70% capacity per game. Well, there’s a perfect explanation- you only won 12 games. So, winning a title next year would probably solve that problem, right?

Sure, the Nets have plenty of cap space. So do a lot of other teams. Is one crazy Russian guy enough to reel in LeBron James? Oh yeah, LeBron and Jay-Z, part-owner of the Nets, are tight, so that should seal the deal. Come on. All the Nets have to offer in terms of talent is Brook Lopez and hopefully the #1 pick.

Let’s go way back to 1996, when the Nets were all set to draft Kobe Bryant #8 overall. Kobe and his agent, however, had other ideas. They scoffed at the idea of playing ball in the swamps of Jersey, and scared the Nets into selecting Kerry Kittles. Fast forward fourteen years. The Nets are coming off one of the worst seasons in NBA history, have lost most of what little fan support they had to begin with, and don’t have a real home. Newark? Brooklyn? East Rutherford? What do you think Kobe would have done back in ’96 if the Nets looked the way they do now? He probably would’ve retired if the Nets selected him.

So, yeah, forget all that. Put your money on the Nets winning the title in the next five years…at least you’ll get some decent odds- and a nice “Thank you” from your bookie.

The internet rumor mill is telling us that Gloria James is having an affair with Delonte West, LeBron’s friend and teammate. LeBron supposedly found out about this prior to the Cavs’ Game 4 against the Celtics. They went on to lose three games in a row, and the series. Coincidence? Well, probably. But let’s just say it’s not. It’s more fun that way.

Imagine LeBron leaves because he doesn’t think Cleveland has the pieces to win a title. Why does he think that? Because the Cavs went down in the second round, losing four of five games to the Celtics after winning Game 1. Why did the Cavs lose? Because LeBron’s focus shifted after the first few games when he learned Delonte West was sleeping with his mom. Therefore, by the transitive property, Delonte West is soon to become the most hated man in Cleveland.

Alright, now for a more realistic analysis. Let’s see… What could really make LeBron want to go elsewhere? Well, for one, his supporting cast let him down once again in the postseason. Antawn Jamison was terrible at the end of the Cavs-Celtics series. Mo Williams is all over the place. Shaquille O’Neal is useless. The Cavs didn’t have to win the title, but the fact that they went down much sooner than expected makes it seem like there’s a long way to go. As far as the appeal of the city itself, Joakim Noah said it best: “What’s so good about Cleveland?”

The city should probably be panicking right now. It must have been strange for Knicks fans rooting on the Celtics, but Boston did everything they could to help out New York. President Obama, meanwhile, has made it no secret that wants LeBron in a Bulls uniform. Ahh, July 1 cannot get here soon enough.