"....he didn't want to come here, you can't hate on that." - Spike Lee on Lebron James to the Heat(ESPN interview, Heat @ Knicks pre-game 12/17/10)
If the Knicks biggest fan can let it go, maybe the rest will follow? Probs not...
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Why should anyone care what Spike Lee think of his fellow celeb's spurning of New York? I say screw LeBron and, at the same time, I thank him for giving me (and countless other lapsed NBA fans - I hadn't watched a entire quarter of NBA basketball in about a decade before the Knicks-Celts 4th quarter last week) a reason to care about the NBA again.
ReplyDeleteEarly in his career, I had actually been relatively impressed by James - his maturity and charisma, especially for someone so young, was noteworthy. But by flipping the proverbial bird to the people and city who supported him from the beginning, while simultaneously running from the bright lights and intense scrutiny of NYC, LeBron accomplished two things:
He personified the reasons so many otherwise diehard sports fans have been unable to stomach the NBA since the turn of the century. And on the flip side, he re-opened the door to our interest in the sport by giving us a villain with enough talent to fuel our motivation to watch and to care. To root against. To seek new NBA heroes to pit against him.
For those of us once avid Knickerbocker fans, this didn't take long. By failing to be our hero, he has played a significant role in creating one in Amare Stoudamire.
So, screw you LeBron. And, oh yeah, thanks!
Nobody was "running from bright lights and intense scrutiny." The Knicks were LeBron's 4th choice, at best. An afterthought. It was always between Cleveland, Miami and Chicago, and Jimmy Dolan's pitch was a curious little sideshow that never altered the equation in the slightest.
ReplyDeleteThis comment represents a particularly sad, deluded kind of New York-centrism.
But other than that, I largely agree with it. Screw LeBron. He could have had something special in Chicago.