Saying goodbye in kind

True landmark moments don’t come around too often. Events that change the course of history or an entire peoples perception or realities simply CAN’T come around too often, we’d be living in a world with constant upheaval if life changed at the drop of a hat. Yesterday’s LeBronathon was one of those moments. No, LeBron announcing he was going to the Heat on ESPN didn’t alter the course of history (as far as we know anyways), but is anyone ever going to look at sports and athletes the same way again? The idea that modern sports fandom is ultimately nothing more than rooting for laundry isn’t a new concept but neither has it ever been so plain to see, dangled mockingly in our faces. What happened? Yesterday LeBron James did his best to murder sports in the state of Ohio. His home state, the state his friends and his family live it. The state he grew up in.

I’m as sarcastic and cynical as the next guy but even I feel bad for Clevelanders. No sports fan deserves the emotional pain that LeBron has caused them over the past 2 weeks. It’d have been one thing if the pain was a necessary evil, an exorcizing of the demons so to speak that would allow all parties to move on. It wasn’t.

At this point I can’t imagine many people other than the very young or very naive thinking that LeBrons decision to go to Miami wasn’t made until the morning talk with his Mom. Clearly there is some basis to the rumours out of the 2008 Olympics that there was some pact between Bosh/Wade and LBJ to play together.

Still, if LeBron was even 50% sure he’d be leaving Cleveland, how could a native Ohioan risk destroying the lives of the people he grew up with, the people he lives(d) with. He’d have to have been completely blind to not see the potential damage that he would be doing to his loved ones, his former classmates, the teammates he played with growing up by leading the Cavs along, then ultimately dumping them at the alter. He had to have been able to see what such a move would do to his family, his friends, his co-workers and the employees of the Cavs. Hell the dude who goes grocery shopping for him, let alone the people who have loved and supported him for 9 years (yes, maybe he was only a Cav for 7, but he was a celebrity and a cause celeb in Ohio for at least 2 years previous). He could have even made two LeBronathons, the first to announce he was leaving Cleveland, the second to announce a team. ANYTHING to mitigate the damage of his leaving and dumping HIS team and HIS city, live, as the world watched.

On it’s own, with no LeBronathon or anything, his leaving the Cavs puts their existence in Jeopardy. This was obvious to everyone, everyone but one man apparently. If he isn’t as egotistical an ass to not be able to see the bomb he was about to drop, then he simply didn’t care. Didn’t care what anyone thought of him, didn’t think of what it’d do to the state of basketball in his home, didn’t think of a potentially very real and very dangerous situation he was created. Clearly, he is more important then basketball fans in the Midwest. They were lucky to have the opportunity to pay ridiculous prices to see him not win a title while wearing his jersey and emulating his every move. They were lucky to be along for the ride. Time to get off.

Fair warning: I am a casual Heat fan. I consider Miami to be a 2^nd home and support all their teams from The U to the Marlins. Obviously I don’t care even half as much about Miami as even the Suns, let alone the Raps but still, I’m happy that the Heat will be good and I look forward to watching and supporting them. That said I truly believe yesterdays announcement special was a tipping point in how athletes will be viewed by their community. If there was any athlete who could REALLY ‘get it’, now just on the court or field but in the stands and on the street, it was local boy made good King James. If even he not only didn’t ‘get it’ but could act so callously, so selfishly and with complete disregard of not just his time with the Cavs but his life as an Ohioan, who can we trust?

Sure there are guys like Kevin Durant, who without fanfare signed an extension with Oklahoma City, even leaving an opt out clause on the table, but we all know whether we want to admit it to ourselves or not that we are more surprised at KD’s acting without fanfare then LeBron’s embracing that same hype and media buzz.

After all, now that LeBron has set the precedent are we as a society naive enough to think every narcissistic athlete won’t try to pull the same stunt? It’s not like the world is short of narcissistic athletes. The NFL might be safe from this new phenomenon, simply due to the lack of impact that a single player can really have on the game (though god knows Dion Sanders would have been on that like a fat kid on cake). The NHL might also be safe from this, due more to a different cultural attitude that seems to prevail in the sport as well as how much less money is involved compared to the other Major sports. It’s the Basketball, Baseball and Soccer players that are going to go nuts. You don’t think CC Sabathia is kicking himself right now for not thinking of this first? Or A-Rod? Hell, the majority of the Yankees and Red Sox could do it. What do you think will happen when Jayson Heyward becomes a free agent? What if Cristiano Ronaldo hit the open market? Half the world could be shut down.

What’s going to happen when LeBron hits free agency again? Assuming the Heat win multiple titles, it’s unrealistic to expect 3 superstars to continue to take less money to win. Conversely assuming they don’t win anything it’s unrealistic to expect 3 superstars to continue to take less money to win. No, no matter what LeBron will hit the open market again in between 3 and 5 years. As will Bosh.

I don’t know what will happen when he’s back on the open market, but I know a few things. Firstly, I know people won’t be surprised by ANY decision and everyone will be expecting the worst. Secondly I don’t know if fans will put themselves in a position to get hurt like Clevelanders got hurt ever again. The North American sports world woke up this morning 10x more cynical then it was when it woke up yesterday. As a sports fan, I hate this. I love being optimistic. I love hearing my friends say “Eric, in all our years of knowing each other I’ve learned 2 things. 1) you know a LOT about sports. 2) you are totally incapable of evaluating any Toronto team”. Some might take offense to a statement like that, I look at it with pride. I don’t understand how people watch sports without that passion.

James and I have a longstanding argument about what makes sports GREAT. To me the passion is what makes sports great, the rollercoaster ride of living and dying with your teams. The hope, the jingoism, the xenophobia, the irrationality, the prayers, the impossible sadness, the terrifying lows, the dizzying highs and the creamy middles all mingle with the tension and poetry of the actual competition to make it mean THAT much more. I know some of those characteristics aren’t exactly considered the ideal values for people to have, but you know what? That’s what sports is! It’s about saying “my city is better than your city”. You find it offensive, I think So You Think You Can Dance is on.

It didn’t used to be like this. I may be youngish but I know how sports used to be made up of mostly local players due to economic considerations. Athletes had lives and full time jobs, they weren’t making enough money to warrant moving cities simply to play a game, so teams had to find local guys to play. Back in the day it really WAS Toronto vs Montreal in hockey. Nowadays, athletes come from all over the world and coagulate under one common logo and colour scheme for contracts with more 0′s than the code this site’s written in. Sure we pretend the feeling of belonging and the passion hasn’t changed, that sports today is the same thing it was, but in our heart of hearts we know it’s not. I know that they’re only representing ‘my’ city because my city offered them the best opportunity to maximize their potential for money and fun.

I don’t begrudge them that at all, I would do the exact same as them, as much as I wish I’d act differently. And that’s fine, as long as they’re still carrying the banner for my city I could care less where they’re from. It’s not like the majority of North Americans are natives, we’re all immigrants from somewhere at some time. We all move cities, and provinces or states, or even countries. In fact I’d go so far as to say in this day and age I’d say it’s pretty rare for a person to call one city home for their entire lives. That’s not what this is about though.

What we learned yesterday is that it’s not just non native athletes who see sports as purely a business decision anymore, it’s the local ones too. The principles that built big sports, a neighbourhood creating local clubs that come together and challenging other clubs for local supremacy, the winner ultimately picking up the flag of their community and representing it in their field of battle wherever that battle may take them, is dead and gone and it’s not coming back. Part of that vital connection between athletes, teams and fans has gone with it. I’d lament the passing of the ‘pureness’ of sport but I’m 25 years too late to jump on that bandwagon.

What worries me is that this morning I asked myself the question, if I could go back to when I was 5 and do it all over again would I invest so much time, energy and money in sports? Would I give half the emotional investment? The answer sadly, is no I wouldn’t. I’ve known for years that ultimately sports wasn’t really worthy of the pedestal it’s placed on, the love its supporters show it. I’ve KNOWN that. And yet, I ignored that feeling in my gut that I was wasting time and energy, I continued to hope that it wasn’t ALL of sports that was being corrupted, merely one aspect of it.

Yes the almighty dollar runs the show. The money was inexorably tied to pro sports and while it may not have been ideal situation, it was an acceptable compromise. They make a lot of money, we get great arenas, awesome TV’s with great HD feeds, hours and hours and hours of entertainment and talking points and some fun. We get something to love, to hope for, to look up to, to aspire to. This morning we woke up to the realization that the money isn’t merely a part of sports, it IS sports. That’s not what I signed up for. That’s not what any of us signed up for.

Like in any bad relationship, I can’t just wake up and not love sports. I can’t. Sports is part of my DNA, I’ll love all competition till the day I die. Yet I can feel in my bones that I don’t CARE nearly as much about any sport, any team as I did yesterday. The images of jerseys burning, of baseball games being paused while everyone, fan and player alike watched with bated breath to see what would happen. The images of bars around North America, maybe even the world, full of people speculated and hoping and praying, and all of them coming away disappointed, hurt, let down and a little more jaded is… I don’t know how to describe it other than saying that the sports world lost the last vestiges of its innocence yesterday.

I’ve put a lot of thought into what my reaction would be to this whole fiasco if I was a Clevelander. The only conclusion I can come to is that I’d stop watching basketball at least, potentially even sports in general. If the greatest player in the world, who happens to be a local kid, who carried the local team to the finals, to 2 MVPs, could cut and run in the bloodiest way possible, what is left for you to hope for? Remember what sports is about; pride, nationalism, honour and hope. We knew pride and nationalism/patriotism walked out that door a long time ago, now I guess I have to go pour one out for honour and hope.

The only hope I’m holding on to right now is that the chain of events that LeBron has started doesn’t end in the disintegration of the major sports in general. That a profound the disconnect between Fans and Players will cause us all to go “wait, I could NOT spend $100 on tickets, go to a buddies house with a 24, order a pizza and some wings, play some cards, pause, fastforward or rewind at our whim and spend $20 on the game!” With how economically top heavy the league is, if fans decide to slow down the turnstiles, decide they’d rather invest in a TV than a jersey, the advertisers will follow. And then what happens? Well, eventually the whole thing topples over or collapses. The jig would be up.

The real problem we’re facing now is that for the life of me I can’t come up with a single good reason why that scenario would be a bad thing for any of us.

AP Photo/Mary Altaffer

In the fourth episode of the podcast, I discuss several Eastern Conference teams with Julian and Wagman. It should be noted that we recorded this on Monday night, before AI and the Sixers thankfully snapped their horrible losing streak. I attempt to defend Nate Robinson, Wagman is shocked by Larry Hughes’s recent performance, and we all discuss Rudy Gay potentially joining Dwyane Wade in Miami next season. And yes, I messed up when talking about Rajon Rondo’s “dirty” plays last season – he hit Hinrich, not Rose.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

Remember how crazy the West was 2-through-9 last year? We knew no one would catch the Lakers, and we knew you’d have to win close to 50 games to make the playoffs, but we had no idea how everything would shake out in the end. There was one great team in the conference, a bunch of very good teams, and then a whole bunch of crap. No Western team won between 29 (Golden State) and 46 (Phoenix) games.

Well, the East is even crazier than that this year, but the action is all in the middle. I see three teams that should easily win more than 46 games as presently constructed and only two that might finish with fewer than 29. That’s almost what happened last season, but what’s even more interesting is that, if forced to predict team records this season, I’d argue that there are ten Eastern teams that could hover around the 40-42 win mark.

Here’s a look at the big clusterfuck:

Atlanta Hawks

2008-2009: 47-35. 10th in offense. 11th in defense.

You might wonder why these guys are on the list, as they had home court advantage in the playoffs last season. They’re also the only team on this list that was above-average on both ends of the court last season. Plus, they’ve got continuity – in re-signing Mike Bibby, Zaza Pachulia, and Marvin Williams, they’ve kept their core intact. Adding Joe Smith and Jeff Teague should improve their bench, too. Still, I see a couple of reasons why they could slip back in the standings. First, there’s the Jamal Crawford signing. At first glance, this seems like a positive move. He is, if only slightly, a better player statistically than Filp Murray, the man he is replacing. However, he is allergic to defense. Murray isn’t great at that end of the court either, but I’d rather have him out there than Jamal. Additionally, Murray was only out there for 24 minutes a night, which is what he’s been used to as a sparkplug scorer off the bench. Crawford has been accustomed to a more prominent role and has received significantly more minutes than that since 2003-2004, which leads me to question how this will work out. There are two potential problem scenarios here – having a bad defender on the court for too long, or having an unhappy Crawford cause problems in the locker room. In addition to all this, I see a second challenge in the way of Atlanta getting back to 47 wins, one that faces all of the teams I will cover here: other teams have improved. Atlanta went 26-7 against the other nine teams on this list last season and I believe this will be a significantly more difficult thing to do this time around. Even if they are still the best of the group, there is a smaller gulf between the Hawks and the teams who finished beneath them in the standings last year, one that might not make up for the fact that they are clearly a couple of notches away from being an elite team. Unless their young talent and/or coach Mike Woodson provides the club with improvement from within, expect a step back.

Miami Heat

2008-2009: 43-39. 20th in offense. 11th in defense.

If Jermaine O’Neal plays like he did in the first half of the decade for Indiana, and he manages to stay on the court, this team can improve. Reading the reports in Miami might make you seem optimistic about this, but I’m here to remind you that this is the same exact stuff we heard in Toronto last year. I truly hope Jermaine will be more than a half-decent jump-shooter and shot-blocker this season, but I remain very, very skeptical. Even if Jermaine O’Neal remains average, though, shouldn’t Mario Chalmers and Michael Beasley improve enough to add some wins? I’m not sure. Chalmers is a nice piece but I don’t see him being much of a game-changer this season. Beasley is more interesting – this is an extremely talented kid that deserves a bigger role than he had last season. If they park him on the block and give him the ball, he can score at will. With more minutes and more touches this season, he could help the Heat win more games. I’m worried about him, though, because Erik Spoelstra is going to try to play him at the 3. This is not his position. He’s going to struggle to guard 3s and he’s going to have a tougher time scoring. If they don’t get more offense out of Beasley and O’Neal, I think they could drop in the standings even if Wade turns in another MVP-level season – the drop-off on the defensive end from Marion/Moon to Beasley/James Jones/Q-Rich is huge.

Philadelphia 76ers

2008-2009: 41-41. 19th in offense. 13th in defense.

This team has some good players and a good coach, but there’s no way to know if they’re going to put it together, or put it together in time to really make a mark. They struggled integrating Elton Brand last year – we knew it would take some time to integrate a traditional post player into their athletic, fast-paced, turnover-causing attack, but didn’t think it’d be so difficult that everyone seemed relieved when the team’s best player was sidelined with an injury. Since last season, they’ve lost their starting point guard in Andre Miller and haven’t done much about it. Sure, he was lazy at times, but he was solid and, no, Jrue Holiday is not a replacement. This season we’ll see some improvement from Philly’s young guys, we’ll see a lot of Andre Iguodala handling the ball, and we’ll (hopefully) see a much more effective Elton Brand than we saw for bits of the 2008-2009 regular season. With the time it’ll take for this team to properly learn Eddie Jordan’s offense, though, and its still-obvious lack of shooters (even with Jason Kapono on the roster), I find it difficult to imagine them separating themselves from the pack in the East.

Chicago Bulls

2008-2009: 41-41. 14th in offense. 18th in defense.

Having John Salmons and Brad Miller around for the full season will help. So will having Luol Deng back. It even seems like Taj Gibson can contribute. So, why am I not projecting a big leap? Well, for one, they lost Ben Gordon. Complain all you want about his shot selection and his defense, but he is a very, very good player who the Bulls haven’t replaced. Before you scoff at the contested jumpers he puts up, realize he is an incredibly efficient scorer – his TS% of 57.2 is absolutely an elite number for a shooting guard, on par with that of Brandon Roy and Dwyane Wade. I’m not going to argue that he is a great defender, but Scott Skiles was able to effectively mask his defensive deficiencies for years. Please don’t think of Jannero Pargo as an adequate replacement. Still, with improvement from Derrick Rose, Tyrus Thomas, and Joakim Noah, this team might have the highest ceiling of any on this list. To finish at the top would require a fantastic coaching effort, though, and with Vinny Del Negro at the helm I am definitely not counting on it.

Detroit Pistons

2008-2009: 39-43. 21st in offense. 16th in defense.

Do not count on the Pistons finishing 21st in offensive efficiency next season. With Ben Gordon, Charlie Villanueva, and Chris Wilcox joining Rip Hamilton, Rodney Stuckey, Tayshaun Prince, Will Bynum, and Jason Maxiell, new coach John Kuester has plenty of scoring options to work with. Kuester is the man who re-worked the Cleveland Cavaliers’ offense last season, when they jumped from the league’s 19th-best offensive team to its 4th-best. Even though they’ve been absolutely great in previous years, Allen Iverson and Rasheed Wallace hurt the Pistons on both ends of the floor last year. The long jump shots and sub-par defense we saw from these two last season is the reason we have the term “addition by subtraction”. Detroit fans should be expect a much more functional locker room than the one Michael Curry dealt with last season, plus potentially one of the league’s top offenses. This is all good stuff. There’s a reason I’m not expecting an enormous jump in the standings, though: defense. Charlie V. and Ben Gordon will be huge boosts on the offensive end of the floor, but these guys will never be mistaken for defensive stoppers. Same with Wilcox. They’ve brought Ben Wallace back, but at this point in his career I’d argue that Kwame Brown is a more useful defensive player. I would be very impressed if Kuester managed to keep this club at around the league average next season, that’s what it would take in order to move into the upper echelon of the conference, even if these Pistons are up there with Portland in terms of offensive potency.

Indiana Pacers

2008-2009: 38-44. 17th in offense. 19th in defense.

I’m not going to tell you that the Pacers are more talented this year. They’re not – swapping Marquis Daniels, Rasho Nesterovic, and Jarrett Jack for Dahntay Jones, Tyler Hansbrough, and Earl Watson shouldn’t get any Pacers fan excited. Here’s the thing, though: these downgrades don’t prevent Indiana from winning a few more games than last year. Brandon Rush had a killer end of the season, Roy Hibbert was already a very effective center in his rookie campaign, and T.J. Ford is better than what he showed last season. I’d bet on all of them being more consistent this season. You have to hope that T.J. can stay healthy and Hibbert will cut down on the fouls, but the potential is there for 3/5ths of the Pacers starting unit (at least until Mike Dunleavy returns) to show considerable improvement. In addition to this, Danny Granger will continue the ascent to stardom that got him an All-Star berth and the Most Improved Player award in 2008-2009. I’m not fond of the Pacers’ overall plan or long-term outlook, but I won’t be at all surprised if they’re in the thick of the playoff hunt next season. I’d encourage you to pay attention to this team even if they’re not, though, as Jim O’Brien’s club played at the 3rd-fastest pace of any team last season and were a ton of fun to watch.

Charlotte Bobcats

2008-2009: 35-47. 27th in offense. 7th in defense.

The Bobcats wanted that 8th seed last year more than perhaps any franchise I’ve ever seen. Eschewing the bottom-out-and-get-draft-picks plan, coach Larry Brown pressured management into acquiring veterans Raja Bell, Boris Diaw, Vladimir Radmanovic, and Juwan Howard in the hopes of having the Bobcats’ most successful season yet. To his credit, he technically did that, as the Bobcats had previously never eclipsed the 33-win mark. Brown managed to impart his defensive wisdom on the young and old on the roster, making Charlotte one of the league’s best defensive teams by the end of the season. While I think none of this was/is in the best interest of the team’s future, I expect the Bobcats will make another charge at a low playoff seed in 2009-2010. This time, the vast majority of the key players are already used to Brown’s coaching style and this could translate into a few more wins. It’s a shame they took a step down by trading the solid Emeka Okafor for the chronically-injured Tyson Chandler, but they gained some ground by adding some much-needed wing scoring in Flip Murray and Gerald Henderson. If their defense sustains and they make some strides on the offensive end (a good start would be increasing D.J. Augustin’s minutes), then they’ll be in the mix.

Milwaukee Bucks

2008-2009: 34-48. 23rd in offense. 11th in defense.

You’ve got to love Scott Skiles, at least for the first few years he coaches a team. Even though they were overmatched some nights last season, the Bucks always competed. Even with guys like Luke Ridnour and Charlie Villanueva playing major minutes, the Bucks maintained an above-average defense and avoided toiling in the league’s cellar. Now, though, after losing three of their best players in Villanueva, Ramon Sessions and Richard Jefferson, can they be better? I say yes. The most impressive part about what Skiles accomplished last year in Milwaukee was the fact that he did it with Michael Redd and Andrew Bogut missing more than half of the season. With these guys coming back, expect a big jump on offense. And even though the Bucks failed to make any headline-grabbing news this summer, they did add some pieces to try to make up for what they gave away. Hakim Warrick, Kurt Thomas, and Carlos Delfino can contribute right away and they hope to get contributions from Ersan Ilyasova, Brandon Jennings, Jodie Meeks, and Roko Ukic as well. All this, plus the presence of the defensive-minded, brilliantly-named Luc Richard Mbah A Moute! I must say, there are plenty of reasons to be excited about the Bucks.

Toronto Raptors

2008-2009: 33-49. 22nd in offense. 22nd in defense.

Kelly Dwyer was right when he said last year’s version of Jose Calderon was only at full strength for about a third of his 68 appearances. This is the single biggest reason why I expect the Raptors to make a jump from their terrible record last season. As a Raptors fan, it pained me to watch Jose last year. This guy who couldn’t move laterally, couldn’t turn the corner on the pick and roll, and couldn’t get the proper lift on his three-point shots was not the same guy I had seen running the point in TO the year before. The guy I had seen before was a danger to shoot at all times, ran the offense perfectly, knew when to attack, and made his teammates much better. Sure, he wasn’t an all-world defender, but he wasn’t a liability on that end, either. This All-Star-worthy version of Calderon is the man who I expect to be running the team this year, and this is why I project them to jump into the playoff picture. In Jarrett Jack, Rasho Nesterovic, Amir Johnson, and Antoine Wright, the Raptors have a much-improved bench and the addition of Hedo Turkoglu into the starting lineup alongside Chris Bosh, Calderon, and Andrea Bargnani could give Toronto one of the most potent offenses in the league. Hence, there is optimism in Toronto. Don’t believe the 50-win nonsense, though – this team is still too weak defensively and at the 2-guard spot to approach that number. That is, of course, unless Bargnani drinks some magical defense-and-rebounding juice and Jay Triano does a Stan Van Gundy-esque job of getting his weak defenders to play intelligent team D.

Washington Wizards

2008-2009: 19-63. 26th in offense. 29th in defense.

I’m sure you know that this is a completely different team to the Wizards of last year. With a healthy Gilbert Arenas and Brendan Haywood, last year wouldn’t have been the nightmare that it was. Add Randy Foye and Mike Miller to the lineup, plus the coaching of Flip Saunders, and you have a team that will likely make a bigger jump than any other in 2009-2010. With a starting 5 of Arenas, Foye/Miller, Caron Butler, Antawn Jamison, and Brendan Haywood, opposing defenses are in for long nights against the Wiz. The problem, of course, is that opposing offenses may be in for easy nights. As great as this Wizards team looks offensively, with the aforementioned top six plus Fabricio Oberto, DeShawn Stevenson, Nick Young, JaVale McGee, and Andray Blatche, they look bad defensively. I love Flip, but he is more of an offensive guru and I doubt there’s a coach in this league that could make this bunch into a decent defensive group. If he does, they’re better than most teams here. If he doesn’t, as I expect, well… What do you get if you’re league-best on one end and league-worst on the other? Another middle-of-the-pack club.

What does this all mean? Well, all of the above teams are flawed. Flawed enough that they won’t approach the win totals of Cleveland, Orlando, and Boston if those teams stay relatively healthy. It also means they all have talent, though, and they’re all capable of beating better Western Conference teams on a random night in February. We know that, with trades and injuries, things will change for these teams and how they rank in comparison to each other as the season goes along. When we near the end of the season, though, I’m sure it’ll be a right mess trying to figure out which teams will make it into the playoffs and which of those will be lucky enough to get the 4th and 5th seeds and avoid facing one of the aforementioned juggernauts in the first round. Sure, the vast majority of these teams won’t play a game in May or June, but they will provide us with some pretty damn good basketball during the regular season. For a guy will be flipping from game to game on League Pass every night starting in two and a half weeks, this is something to be excited about.