LeBron was B.S.'ing Trevor Ariza. Ariza detected it, which is why he sidestepped the lure/myth of "playing with LeBron" for a REAL long-term plan in Houston.
My issue with fans in Cleveland and Miami is that your biggest stars -- LeBron and Dwyane Wade -- obviously don't want to play for you. Yet you continue to support them.
Maybe there's the "as long as they're on my team, I'll root for them." Which is fine, to a point. But nothing suggests these players have any loyalty to your team. So why support them?
If they really wanted to stay, they could simply re-sign -- tomorrow -- and lock in their careers with their current teams. Let their current teams build title contenders around them.
Instead, they are playing coy -- Wade went so far as to preemptively frame his leaving as the Heat's fault for not building a contender around him (they WON a title building around him...you'd think he would give them a little credit for that).
There is nothing enjoyable about basketball's two biggest stars playing out lame-duck years in cities they appear to have every intention of bailing on, come next summer.
I recognize that if fans turn on them now, the players are definitely gone. But that would be buying into the player-generated myth that they are considering sticking around to begin with.
I guess the only thing left for Cavs and Heat fans is to enjoy this one final year of watching brilliant players up close. There is some consolation in that -- better one last year than nothing.
Complete SN column here. More later.
-- D.S.
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Umm yeah, your last paragraph is EXACTLY why the fans of the Cavs/Heat will support LeBron/Wade...because they still wear the uniform! To attack those fans as blindly supporting their "lame-duck" players and then to tell those fans all they have to look forward to is one more year is kind of you answering your own question. No?
Should Cavs fans turn on Shaq because they pretty much know this is a one-and-done year for him?
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