Let’s play a game of hy pothetically speaking, shall we?
Suppose for the purpose of our game you were good — very good, damn good — at whatever you did for a living. You have several things going for you: 1) You’re on the open market sooner rather than later. 2 ) Your name is known far and wide. 3) Just about every organization where you’re able to ply your trade wants to hire you.
Fortunately for you, your current job includes plenty of traveling, with ample opportunities to see first-hand all the other sanctuaries salivating over the prospect of enlisting your services.
You show up at the door of one of those swooning suitors, and there’s just once small problem. The place is in ruins, smoldering from an alarming Wednesday night fire ignited by the previously winless Pacers!
Welcome to LeBronland. James and the Ohio Players invade the Sexual Harassment Hacienda tonight, meaning Madison Square Garden — for once — converts from a place to flee from into a place to be seen.
And while anyone who’s anyone (over-under on attending Yankees is 25) is coming to ogle LeBron (does he dare don his favorite baseball team’s championship chapeau?), he can’t help but high-beam the homeys.
After he toys with them again, of course. In LeBron’s stirring final peep show here last season, his statuesque figures — 52 points, 11 assists, nine rebounds — outstripped Kobe Bryant’s electrifying 61-point escapade (surpassing Bernard King’s new-Garden record) two nights before.
Originally, LeBron was credited with 10 rebounds, but a subsequent check of the game tape disclosed he’d been erroneously awarded one by the anti-Feets Broudy in the closing moments, so the NBA invalidated his triple-double.
Superintendent of his own solar system, LeBron is guaranteed to leave no loose ends unaccounted for this enchanted evening. What should Knicks fans be rooting for tonight and for the remainder of this season regarding LeBron? His team’s utter self-destruction?
Apparently there’s no need to wish that much bad luck on the Cavaliers. A source close to Dan Gilbert claims the Cavs chairman is terrified anything less than a second trip to The Finals will result in LeBron’s exiting stage east to New York.
A still darker inner-sanctum belief is that a favorable Supreme Court decision — a franchise first title — is needed to ensure LeBron remains rooted to his home state.
Then again, in LeBron’s mind, would getting crowned fulfill such fidelity? Would winning one for the city of Cleveland give him the freedom of mind to fly the coop?
On the other hand, it’s hard to envision LeBron defecting when there’s a throne to defend. Conversely, a cut-throat competitor might rationalize his exodus by accepting the ultimate challenge of resurrecting the Knicks and the Garden from the dead. Imagine what it would be like (for us and LeBron) playing off Broadway 41-plus games a season. Imagine how hot a ticket that would be.
People would come from everywhere and pay anything to see arguably the most exciting player in the game strut his stuff at basketball’s most famous venue.
Who would you rather gawk at in person?
(Until a championship flag is raised on LeBronland, Kobe must be judged better, especially coming off a fourth championship. Still, his jump shooting and post-up moves are so efficient his entertainment value perceptively has slipped.)
A more enlightening question (and answer) is who would LeBron rather have gawk at him? Ego officially has been entered into the equation. Regardless of how much more the Cavs can offer than rival suitors ($25 million or so), money will not influence him to stay put because there are plenty of ways to get it elsewhere, especially in New York.
To me, LeBron’s biggest issue or non-issue is ego. He gives the impression he’s above craving adulation outside his comfort zone of family and friends, many who’ve become partners in a mixture of dependable and entrepreneurial enterprises.
Nevertheless, grounded or not, who wouldn’t be tempted by the image of performing before similar star-power celebrities from every walk of life and then doing business or pleasure with them afterward?