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July 8, 2010
LeBron mania to be resolved tonight, as nation will learn superstar's destination in prime-time special; Nets' chances drop
Atlantic Yards Report
Basketball superstar LeBron James's final choice of a city and team--er, sports entertainment corporation--will be revealed tonight in an hour-long special on ESPN, capping the mega-hype and drama that started months ago and ramped up a week ago when teams could approach him directly.
Given how the chess pieces have fallen in the past week--Dwayne Wade joined by Chris Bosh in Miami; Amar'e Stoudemire signing with the Knicks; Carlo Boozer signing with Chicago--the free agent-less Nets have lost ground, despite what the New York Post inaccurately hyped July 3 as Nets insider: Meeting with LeBron 'spectacular'.
(The self-serving, unidentified "insider" was referring not to the meeting but the team's pitch: And the Nets were the first team to try to impress James with a presentation one team insider dubbed “spectacular” after getting reviews from those involved.)
...Going too far?
[The Star-Ledger's Dave] D'Alessandro thinks things have gone way too far:
So now he’s ready to announce his decision. The free agent market in any sport is always a shameless function of ego, and one week of this was enough. Now the grand prize, a young man who refers to himself as The King, has concluded his vainglorious quest to keep our attention as he decides that he is either going to take one billionaire’s money or another billionaire’s money.
Buzz Bissinger, who with James wrote a book about the star and his high school teammates, told the Times:
“I’m disappointed because I think he’s handled this terribly,” said Buzz Bissinger, who helped write James’s 2009 biography, “Shooting Stars.” “I hate the idea that he is the king and that all these grown men have had to go grovel in front of him. It’s a side of him I didn’t see before.
...Some sobriety
In a Next American City essay July 2 headlined Cities to Lebron: “We Need You”, Ferentz Lafargue looked skeptically at the campaign for James, suggesting that the numbers bandied about regarding the local economic impact were not to be trusted.
New York Times columnist Clyde Haberman wrote June 29 about the impact of transit cuts on the poor, and looped in the buzz of the moment:
For example, on Thursday the fabulously wealthy LeBron James, a Cleveland basketball player, becomes a free agent. Some prominent New Yorkers desperately want him to play here, and they are throwing all sorts of freebies his way as inducements. After all, why should a zillionaire pay his own way? That’s what the less illustrious and the less affluent must do.
The courtship of Mr. James is supposed to fill us with civic pride. The good news is that we will have more time to read about it while we stand on the subway platform waiting longer than ever for an overcrowded train to arrive.
NoLandGrab: LeBron James? Yawn.
Related coverage...
NetsDaily, $32 Million and No One to Take It
The salary cap figures are out and the Nets now have $32 million--$31.929 million to be specific--in cap space with 10 players under contract (two partially guaranteed). If this was July 1, that would be a good thing, but it's about to turn into July 8. Not so good.
After striking out on Carlos Boozer, it now appears that David Lee won't be available either. Unless LeBron James chooses the Knicks, he'll likely be dealt in a sign-and-trade to the Warriors as early as Friday. The hope that James will choose the Nets is now very unlikely, with the the betting be he'll either stay in Cleveland or head to MIami to join the other Golden Ones.
So what do the Nets do now?
NLG: Make another run at the NBA record for futility?
slayer2022 via YouTube, Mikhail Prokhorov recruits Lebron James
Posted by eric at July 8, 2010 10:42 AM