Jim Turner
Turnersportsdesk.com
July 9, 2010
What happens when you give a me oriented, attention whore 60
minutes on the nation’s premiere sports network? Absolutely nothing that helps
the game of basketball or sports in general. What bothers me more than anything
is how ESPN decided to go along with this garbage disguised as news. Where is
the news judgment? Who stood up to ask what has this guy done to deserve a
primetime infomercial for a decision that only affects five cities? Even more
importantly who stood up to ask how this individualism helps a team sport?
Where was NBA Commissioner Stern? How about protecting the integrity of a team
sport by making sure you don’t turn hardworking fans off with a 60 minute
infomercial.
By comparison another equally talented NBA superstar, Kevin
Durant simply tweeted his contract extension. If LeBron wanted to make this
low-key all he had to do was keep it low key. James attempted to disguise his
infomercial with charity work by donating the proceeds to the Boys and Girls
Clubs. While that is a nice gesture he could have just stroked a check like
most Americans that quietly donate to charities.
So what did we learn? LeBron will go to Miami but he will
have to carry the burden of even larger expectations with him. Now if LeBron
fails to win the excuse of having no quality teammates is gone. Dwayne Wade is
the real deal and Chris Bosh is a very good player in his prime. If the Self
proclaimed King cannot get it done how can ESPN criticize James with any
credibility since they helped create this monster? ESPN could have said no. Let us hope they learned from this and will not allow it to happen again.