#LeBronToClev: The Letter

By Joe Mags

After months of speculation, then weeks of deliberation, LeBron James is coming home. Pickinsplinters will be looking into the impact of The Decision 2.0 all week long. Follow our coverage using the hashtag #LeBronToClev.

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After wasting hours of each summer day refreshing my Twitter feed and watching talking heads banter about why LeBron James could go here or why he should go there, I am still reeling from the news that the world’s greatest basketball player is leaving the Miami Heat amidst a run of four consecutive trips to the NBA Finals.

Although the Heatles were 2-2 in those Finals appearances, and this most recent exchange with the San Antonio Spurs was a total beat down – well, now we know it was an annihilation – they were the first team since the 1980s to play in four straight Finals. That’s a historic mark. All things considered, even if Chicago had come through on their pursuit of Carmelo Anthony or Kevin Love this summer, Miami would have been in the conversation to return to the Finals for a fifth year in a row. No team in the Modern era of basketball has ever done that.

So it was a surprise that he left Miami. It just wasn’t a surprise that he is heading back to Cleveland, not after reading his letter anyway.

James’ letter with Lee Jenkins of Sports Illustrated is impeccable. The Decision in 2010 will always be a part of the LeBron James story, but his explanation of the last four years in the letter strips away much of the venom from his dismount four years ago. 

If his sour press conference with Jim Grey was Troll 2 then Friday’s letter was Best Worst Movie – an explanation for why he left for Miami and now why James wishes to make such a profound change.

My relationship with Northeast Ohio is bigger than basketball, LeBron writes. While it is fair to calculate LeBron’s return to Cleveland as a brilliant calculation on how to win more basketball games, there is an awesome sincerity to LeBron’s words. The choice to team up with Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and Pat Riley in Miami was about basketball – winning more games, competing for championships, playing at a higher level with a better supporting cast.

But after four years and an impossible amount of maturation as an international superstar, LeBron is now in a place where he wants to do more than just win basketball games.

He’s from a part of the country that has been suffering for decades, not just in athletics, but economically. Akron and Cleveland are classic Rust Belt cities – areas in the Northeast United States that have lost devastating amounts of business and industry. When LeBron describes his “responsibility to lead” and that his presence can mean more to Northeast Ohio than it does in Miami – an elite market that will thrive with or without him – I read him loud and clear. 

Being from Syracuse, another Rust Belt city trapped underneath the forever cloudy skies of Upstate New York, I see what can happen to a city devoid of successful figures and role models. People from cities like ours are desperate for something to root for, and in cities like Cleveland and Syracuse, sports can be something very amazing for a community. It can inspire, it can create jobs, it unites the people together on week nights and Sunday afternoons.

Here he is: A giant planet of a celebrity, a budding billionaire, and the most popular American athlete in the world. After four years of actualizing his basketball dreams with the Heat, and making money hands over fist, it’s impossible for someone like James to forget that his hometown is still drowning in poverty.

When LeBron was on the Cavaliers, it didn’t really matter that they weren’t winning championships; that pressure was unfairly placed on LeBron by the national media – and how disappointing, for Cleveland, it was that national pressure that finally reached a boiling point in 2010 and pushed LeBron toward a “national” city and away from Northeast Ohio.

With LeBron James in a Cavs jersey, the boys and girls of Northeast Ohio had a hero they could cheer on, and the cities of Akron and Cleveland had a team that was winning basketball games, playing competitively and was a threat to make a championship run each year. 

If Syracuse didn’t have Orange basketball then I truly don’t think the city would be standing. More than business, it creates a feeling of self-worth. This is our team. This is our city. 

LeBron James now realizes that he took that away from the people of North East Ohio in 2010. Now he is giving it back to them in 2014. 

Final Note on LeBron’s letter: How incredible was his comparison between his four years in Miami and young people spending four years at college? This is a guy who gets it – who has taken a lot of time to properly phrase how he feels.

Of course Miami was his college experience. Unlike other young people, at 18 he was starting his career as a national sports icon. He didn’t have four years to find himself because he was paid millions of dollars to represent an entire organization. I wasn’t ready for that at 18. Were you?

It’s no wonder he needed to take the time in Miami to discover just how special he was. Playing with his friends who doubled as the best teammates he had ever played with, for a coach that put together an elite scheme around his playing abilities, and under a front office with a championship pedigree, LeBron became a whole other type of player in Miami – a physical and mental force seldom seen in the game of basketball before.

Now he gets to take what he learned in Miami and apply it to his hometown. Way to go, LeBron.

Joe Mags (@JoeMags_hoops) is a staff writer for pickinsplinters.com and interning for the Watertown Daily Times. Peace, love, recycle and ball.