It’s been a little more than a week since LeBron James went on his prime-time, hour-long show “The Decision” reared back and kicked the city of Cleveland square in the nuts.

In the ensuing days, the Cavaliers and the city of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame couldn’t rip the pictures of their new villain down fast enough, trashed the carefully preserved rose corsage from the 2007 Finals, and set their Facebook profile to “single.”

Cav’s owner Dan Gilbert took it one tiny step further, writing an open letter so visceral and incendiary that the NBA fined him $100,000, and that was for a letter written in comic sans font, not “Angry Bitch” font.

As the team and the city bid their frigid farewell to their self-proclaimed former king, the waters in Cleveland are far from calm. Conversely, after the blunt stab to the back, LeBron gave the knife another twist, arriving in South Beach a day later to meet the Heat.

The new “Big-Three” were lowered down onto a stage in their uniforms, arms crossed, with pyrotechnics display that would make the Black-Eyed Peas envious.

“It’s not a dynasty, it’s a Dyna-three,” shouted the public address announcer, in a scene befitting of the self-aggrandizing that in seconds washed away a near decade of good will James had built up.

After the smoke settled from the South Beach party for the self-proclaimed Dyna-Three, James was said to have gone house shopping and may have picked up the $45 million mansion that mysteriously came off the real estate market just hours after “The Decision”.

What does your Airness Michael Jordan, a man who stayed loyal to his Windy City and has six NBA Championship rings think of all this? Jordan was chased down recently and with very little coaxing let the world know LeBron took the easy way out, a path he would never have considered.

“There’s no way, with hindsight, I would’ve ever called up Larry [Bird], called up Magic [Johnson] and said, ‘Hey, look, let’s get together and play on one team’. In all honesty, I was trying to beat those guys.”

Jordan went on the say “I’m a competitive guy” possibly implying LeBron either lost or lacked that quality.

Now that the city of Cleveland, Jordan and every blog in America has weighed in; the fact is that Cleveland, who was on the verge of an NBA title the past several seasons, is now even further removed from a true chance at its first championship since 1964.

LeBron showed a side of himself that none of us, except Skip Bayless, may have wanted to see–the self indulgent, naïve, obtuse side of his personality. I liked LeBron, I like the NBA and although I’ve never been to Cleveland, I wanted him to choose loyalty, you know the word he has tattooed alongside his left torso for the world to see. But I also get why he made the choice he did.

What I disagree with is the contingency claiming he took the easy way out. He didn’t.

The Cavs may remain viable, only because of Gilbert. Even with the fire-breathing tirade, the hallow promise of a world championship before LeBron wins one, and the petty move of having one of his company’s, Fathead, sell life-size stickers of LeBron for $17.41 – signifying the year Benedict Arnold was born – Gilbert has come out of this better than James. Way better.

All it took was 24-hours for James to ignorantly throw out all the good will he had accumulate over the past decade of his meteoric rise from high school to now.

“The King’ went from castle to outhouse after making perhaps the worst public relations decision since Spencer and Heidi Pratt got in front of a rolling camera.

Dan Gilbert Spanks LeBron James, Literally – Sports Climax

LBJ and “The Decision” – Sports Climax

Used with permission of the author.

Theo is a staff reporter and feature writer for the Marin Independent Journal where he covers local prep and college sports. As an Associate Production Manager for ESPN, he helped produce Sunday Night Baseball among other national ESPN and ABC Sports telecasts. In addition to his contributions to Sports Climax, he is a columnist for Examiner.com and is the play-by-play voice for Sonoma State University baseball and softball.

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