THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

The recent ESPN show “The Decision” was a brilliant and really funny satire of celebrity -obsessed culture.  I hope we see more shows like this.

Really, the only way to react to this “story” is to play it for laughs: http://www.slate.com/id/2259925/

Living in New York, I get to enjoy the coverage of the New York tabloids, which at first simply assumed, based on no evidence or reasoning higher than the sixth grade level, that James would go to the Knicks, and then were outraged when he didn’t.  By doing this, they displayed the whineyness and sense of entitlement that are among the worst features of this city.

Fans have unconditional religious loyalty to their team, and they hope the player will share in that loyalty.

But ... as you say, the player’s circumstances sometimes make him unable to stick around.  It’s a different situation.  You love your Mom; you love your Dad; but just because you want them to stay together doesn’t mean you have the moral right to demand it.  Your want does not create an obligation on their part.

And, again, as you rightly say, guys like LeBron are treated like slaves, forced to sign with one particular team.  I don’t really see how you can demand LeBron’s loyalty to Cleveland when he didn’t choose to form the bond by his own free will.

No, LBJ doesn’t owe anyone anything—except that there’s a little thing called common decency. He could have personally called the Cavs owner or GM before going on air to tell him he wasn’t returning and to thank him for the past seven years of employment. He could have acknowledged that Cleveland fans did love him and cared about him to a remarkable degree and told them that even though he’s leaving, it had nothing to do with them. There are non-BS ways of making people feel better about your decisions that affect their lives—even if they’re not okay with it, they’ll feel better—and LBJ showed that he didn’t care one iota about common decency. Worse still, he damaged his own brand, which undermined the whole purpose of the spectacle. Now, he’s more like Roger Clemens or A-Rod than anyone else: people respect him as a tremendous athlete, but few, if any, are fans of him the individual.

Should Lebron and other athletes have the right to sign wherever they want? Well, yeah, of course; they want money, they want to win, they can do whatever the f-ck they want. I don’t think anyone’s arguing that.

Do we as fans have the right to evaluate them as human beings? Well, yeah, of course; we can graft whatever sort of meaning onto famous athletes that we want - we can do whatever the f-ck we want.

Look, I don’t think anyone’s criticizing Lebron as a basketball player, a businessman, or a professional athlete. For the unctuous, clueless, inconsiderate way he handled himself we criticize him: as a shitty human being.

I cant begrudge a mega rich 25 year old for wanting to relocate from Northeast Ohio to Miami beach. but this spectacle he put on was a terrible idea, if from nothing else but for LeBron’s self interested marketing purposes.  you’re going to make ‘the decision’ that will disappoint or enrage 95% of the NBA’s fans, doing it as quickly and quietly as possible should be the optimal plan.  stringing everyone along and throw yourself a 1 hour long televised party to announce your crushing of several large fan bases seems blatantly wrong.

so I totally agree that LebBron should be able to pick whatever team he wants and do whats best for him.  they way he did it, however, was to me, pathetic, (ESPN being equally pathetic in their complicity) and I have no problem with LeBron being the villain of the NBA, which many people are now proclaiming him.  on the other hand I don’t really care about the NBA so the fact that LeBron and the Heat will have giant targets on their backs all year long may make for some entertaining sport and I actually may have to watch a game or two.

3/4: agreed.  The fact that the league forced you to sign with Cleveland doesn’t mean that you treat the fans and team like crap.  It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t appreciate the positive experiences you’ve had there.  It doesn’t mean that you don’t return the fans’ love.

All I’m arguing is that the fans have no moral claim on him to stay in Cleveland.  That’s all.

I agree that he could have and should have applied common decency.

What is the proper response to lack of common decency?  Owners stomping their feet that they lost their favorite toy, fans burning jerseys, and Dallas Braden blowups?  And what will assuredly be boos all year every time you see him.

The best response is that you give Lebron James a b!tch-slap, and then move on.

The real villain in this whole thing, IMO, is ESPN.  They cannot try to pass themselves off as a news outlet of any sort when they are willing to whore themselves out for an hour as a player’s personal press corps.

It has been apparent for years that ESPN wants to be part of the stories it reports on, but it has never been more plain to see then it was last night.

On another note, I do not support the childness of the Cleveland fans, but it is worth noting where they are coming from.  Cleveland has not won a major sports title since 1964 despite fielding three teams (at least since 1970)--and that one isn’t even celebrated by anyone outside of Cleveland because of the NFL’s whitewash of its pre-Super Bowl history. 

Yet here, nearly miraculously, was a local player who just so happened to be the best basketball prospect in anyone’s memory.  He was not called the Chosen One for no reason.  He was the one who was destined to finally break through the wall, to give Cleveland its championship.  Twice the team has looked liked the NBA’s best team in the regular season, only to fold in the playoffs.

I’m not saying that those expectations and hopes were fair, that they all should have been thrown on LeBron’s shoulder.  They plainly weren’t.  Still, I may be a little biased, but I think that all things considered, this has to be one of the biggest kicks in the gut that an athlete leaving a team as a free agent has ever delivered.  That doesn’t excuse Dan Gilbert or Cavs fans, but this is not just ARod leaving the Mariners.

"Worse still, he damaged his own brand”
“but this spectacle he put on was a terrible idea, if from nothing else but for LeBron’s self interested marketing purposes”

I’m not so sure about this part.  He sure got everyone talking about it and interested in his decision.  One of my friends who came over for the NBA Finals Game 7 (and then left partway through, because he legitimately didn’t care) came over last night and wanted to see where Lebron was going.  ESPN is certainly interested and experienced in growing Lebron’s image, and they went along with it.  There’s the whole idea that for a celebrity, there’s no such thing as bad publicity....I mean, I’m no expert, but I see plenty of reasons to think he expanded his brand image here.  Plus, consider it not from the viewpoint of what serious sports fans feel right now - but rather, growing his name among casual fans, growing his brand internationally (this is really, really big and right now Kobe is by far the #1 brand internationally), how people are going to view this long term (maybe this kind of behavior becomes the norm and we all move past criticizing him for it?), and all the subconscience aspects of brand marketing…

Anyways, I personally wasn’t a fan of how he handled it, I just don’t see a reason to be upset about it.  I avoided all the speculation/rumors about it, and didn’t watch the announcement, and that was good enough for me.  I’m sure as heck going to tune in to watch the Heat play come the regular season/playoffs, though.

What is the proper response to lack of common decency?

For me it will be to not cheer for him/root for him/feel good when he accomplishes something.

I’ve always been more of a baseball and Indians fan than a fan of the Cavs. But, I root for Thome, Manny, CC, VMart, etc. to do well on their new teams. I liked them when they played for Cleveland, and I didn’t see any reason for that to change when they left.  I wouldn’t root for them against the Indians, but other than that, why not?

I would have gladly done that for LeBron as well. But the ESPN show was cruel enough that I won’t be happy for him if he wins in Miami. I won’t hate him, but I won’t love him either.

#8/Patriot

Good points re ESPN.  I would add that, hopefully, anyone who still harbored the notion that ESPN is a news organization or that sportswriters are journalists had that notion solidly beaten out of them over the past week.

by the way, did anyone notice the font choice employed by Cavs owner in his ill-advised tantrum letter to fans?  I’ve never seen a more hilarious application of Comic Sans in my life. 

and remember when LeBron quietly signed a two year extension two years ago?  even if he was going to change teams, why didn’t he just do that?  Call the Cavs owner before hand, explain his position like an adult and then buy some ads and air time thanking his hometown fans.  ta-da!  no one can fault him for doing whats best for his career and anyone who complains about it looks like a selfish immature fan (not that they still don’t now).  instead, LeBron steal’s a chapter from Brett Favre’s “how to piss off an entire league’s fanbase” playbook.  I mean this guy make’s A-Rod’s free agency look quaint and humble. 

no such thing as bad publicity? maybe, but this looks pretty bad to me.

Oh yeah and agreed with ESPN’s total embarrassment as a supposed sport journalism outlet.

But the ESPN show was cruel enough that I won’t be happy for him if he wins in Miami. I won’t hate him, but I won’t love him either.

You knew it was going to be cruel.  Why watch it?  Why not just wait for the twitter news?

i read Alan Sepinwall for TV coverage but he nails the whole “Decision” thing in it’s entirety.

http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/whats-alan-watching/posts/lebron-james-the-decision-a-review

"no such thing as bad publicity? maybe, but this looks pretty bad to me.”

Well of course it reflects poorly on him, but the point is it still grows his image.  That’s what the saying is supposed to reflect - that even negative publicity generates interest and markets the celebrity involved.

#15 B: that’s exactly why Mel Gibson is so pumped up about all the publicity he’s getting now, right?

http://www.nba.com/cavaliers/news/gilbert_letter_100708.html

Ugh.

I’ve always said that dogs and people get along so well because dogs can’t talk and we control every aspect of their lives. Remove the fence from the backyard and lose the chain, and a dog’s loyalty decreases rapidly.

Now, the 3 guys in this situation have all taken less money in order to play together. That’s a different situation than say Jeter, ARod, and Teixeira.

Cleveland was hoping that LeBron would stay for the most money, and continue to try and be a one man team. I find it most interesting that the REAL ‘decision’ was Bosh refusing to play in CLE. That was revealing.

The Celtics signing the Big 3 and NYY signing CC, AJ, and Teix are all examples of this trend.

We tend to think of athletes the same way we think of dogs. I’ve cheered for Pujols for a decade, therefore ge owes it to me to resign with StL. Problem is Pujols has free will, and will choose to do what he wants, instead of what I want.

Maybe I just can’t fully appreciate the negative effects because I didn’t watch any of the show and haven’t seen any highlights (well, clips I guess would be a better term from the sound of it), but if there’s a positive in this for LeBron, I think Gilbert’s reaction might end up cutting out some of the negativity for LeBron outside of Cleveland.  His comments in both the open letter and in an AP interview afterwards make it really hard for me to feel bad for his team.  Being upset at how LeBron chose to handle his leaving Cleveland is one thing, but Gilbert made it pretty clear that he does not seem to appreciate anything LeBron did for him or his team (which is more than they did for LeBron), and also that he is delusional.  If he is actually sincere in his comments, then I don’t see any way LeBron staying there could have been a good decision for him.

That’s not to say LeBron’s choice in how to handle the situation wasn’t terrible, but Gilbert’s reaction makes me feel pretty ambivalent that he, his team, and its fans were disrespected.  In the end, he may have done LeBron a pretty big favour as far as salvaging the PR repercussions.

Here is more on the over-the-top coverage of the NYC tabloids on the “story”:

http://gothamist.com/2010/07/09/ny_papers_hate_lebron_but_cleveland.php#comments

Well, Lebron isn’t Mel Gibson, nor have his actions been anything like Gibson’s, so if you really think this hurt his publicity, by all means, make the case.  I’m skeptical.  I think his brand image, long run, has gone up, and I’ve given some reasons why, and in general, yes, I do believe the more people talk about you the more it markets you as an individual.

#21 B: i always took the ‘no such thing as bad publicity’ concept to only apply to attention starved celebrities, B listers trying to move up to the A list.  though the actions are not comparable, i concede that, Gibson and LeBron are both already on the A list.  everybody already knows who they are, and in both instances what they’ve done lowers their estimation in most people’s eyes.

and i totally get the backlash against the backlash.  the athletes are not totally beholden to their fans.  just like famous author’s dont OWE their fans the books they might want them to write.  but i still contend that LeBron’s ‘decision’ event was a poorly planed and executed fiasco and will do nothing to help his career in the long run.  i dont have too much sympathy for Cleveland and the burning jersey bits are way to far.  but LeBron still comes across as a jerk, not because of his decision, but because of the pathetic handling of the decision.

Reminds me of John Lennon saying The Beatles were bigger than Jesus Christ, and so, there was a movement to burn their records.

And Lennon had to do a non-apology apology.

There are fools, like Lebron, guys who say foolish things, like Lennon, and weasels, like Jay Leno.  Save your contempt for weasels.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNzYqzHmJss#t=2m50s

Maybe, Ken.  I guess I see it as similar to the Favre situation - of course we all got tired of that, but after what, 3, 4 retirements, ESPN was still making it a big focus?  I mean, they aren’t idiots, they count how many hits their various articles get, they track their TV viewership...that they still promote it suggests to me that it’s effective marketing, even if many of us sports fans get annoyed by it.  I definitely did not care for this whole episode, and I think the same or worse of Lebron for it personally...I just don’t think it was a bad move from the perspective of marketing his brand (which, of course, is not the only thing that matters or he should be judged by).

i think thats where we differ, when I compare LeBron to the Favre situation I see both athletes making terrible decisions and lowering their market value.

Interestingly enough, Favre has actually been able to capitalize on that negative press by doing commercials that parody his perceived flaw (the habitual retirement indecisiveness).  It could be possible for LeBron to take advantage of the publicity of his perceived flaws in the same way, especially since he seems like a pretty good-humoured guy who wouldn’t have an issue with making light of himself for commercial or entertainment purposes.

I don’t want to try to predict how this will affect LeBron financially or in any long-term way, because I have no idea, but the comparison to Favre, and the way Favre has capitalized on his negative press, is interesting to me.

So, LBJ will soon be hosting SNL and making a spoof where he holds a TV special to announce that he’s switching from Charmin to Scotts?

Making fun of yourself always seems to work for athletes. Favre, Manning, etc.

Once you make jokes at yourself you remove the opp for others to do it.

I could see LeBron doing something funny like this.

Many fans and members of the media need to get a little perspective. LeBron is the worst person in the world right now but no one (except bitter Cavs fans) will care when the season starts.

He announced his decision only a week into free agency and only a day after the other major players. So he announced it in a primetime special--why is that so despicable? ESPN had been wall-to-wall LeBron for a week--why shouldn’t he attempt to leverage that and exert some control over the situation?

As for Gilbert: yeesh. What an ugly, irrational load of garbage. Good luck bringing in players to Cleveland after that.

I love how Dan Gilbert accused James of quitting and being a coward, etc.  Yet, Gilbert was offering a man he accused of quitting on his team and a coward over 20 million a year to play for him?  What does that say about Gilbert?

Tango/#13

I watched it because I had deluded myself into thinking that there was a chance that all the Miami reports had been an elaborate ruse to make the announcement that he was staying in Cleveland more dramatic.

I stopped watching after he said he was going to South Beach.

I’m pretty much meh on the whole thing. I’m just glad that Carlos Santana is awesome and that Fausto is having a decent year.

I find it humorous that fans outside of Cleveland - and in Cleveland - are upset because James has done what they have always advised free agents to do: to sign with a team NOT based on money but based on a “chance to win.” That is what fans say whenever a player like A-Rod signs a huge contract.  It allows fans to hate these players, but it also creates a league equilibrium whereby each team has its share of talent.  Whether due to a team’s financial constraints or due to the league’s regulations, teams cannot sign multiple superstars at top dollar, and therefore the league will enjoy a relative distribution of talent.  So when James decides to take a pay cut, the fans cannot believe it and are outraged that one team can now be this strong (although they like to point out that the Bulls - the Bulls? - are the East’s true powerhouse).  But of course what James did is exactly what they have been criticizing athletes for not traditionally doing.

I don’t really understand this labeling of James as a “shitty human being.” James wasn’t signing with Cleveland and I cannot imagine anyone honestly believing that he would, at least based on anything but blind faith.  Gilbert has been on James’s case dating back to the NBA playoffs, having called James out for “dogging it” (when James had been playing with an injury).  James wouldn’t talk to Tom Izzo, and then Izzo withdrew from Cleveland’s coaching search.  James, Wade, and Bosh were meeting to discuss the prospect of playing together, and then Wade and Bosh signed in Miami.  Everyone has been riding James about not winning a championship, so naturally he will be concerned about joining a strong team.  Cleveland is a dump (sorry; it is) and James loves the city of Miami.  Anyone dumb enough to not put two and two together deserves his lifetime of eternal disappointment and frustration.

Fans never cease to amaze me by making grand proclamations about a player’s intelligence, character, and personality based upon actions which have very little to do with any of those traits.  I suppose that fans have very little o judge a player’s character on, and fans must judge players because when all is said and done fans want sports to be more than sports.  I would like though for fans to consistently apply the Shitty Human Being Maxim, so that whenever we observed offensive or uncouth behavior, such as breaking a promise, half-assing a lesson plan, or maybe joking at someone’s expense in front of a crowd, we labeled that person a SHB, and we refused to remove our label no matter how much time had passed.

"outraged that one team can now be this strong (although they like to point out that the Bulls - the Bulls? - are the East’s true powerhouse)outraged that one team can now be this strong (although they like to point out that the Bulls - the Bulls? - are the East’s true powerhouse)”

That’s one of my favorites. When they’re not busy telling you that LeBron’s “legacy” will be tarnished even if he wins championships in Miami (presumably because he put himself in too easy of a position), they’re telling you that Miami isn’t even as good as Chicago.

Nobody thought Wade + Bosh and whoever else they could patch together would be much more than a 50-win team. So LeBron inserts himself into a 50-win team and his championships are meaningless but Jordan wins 6 with a 55-win team and he’s the greatest ever? That’s not a hypothetical--the Bulls literally won 55 games the year after Jordan retired for the first time. Their supporting cast was even better for the second championship run (the Rodman-Kukoc years). Of course, Jordan didn’t get there through free agency but that’s nothing more than a historical accident.

@minesweeper ...

I agree. Not only that, but a lot of us have probably said “LeBron is being wasted in Cleveland, he should get out.”

Cleveland is just like the other smaller city midwest franchises like Indiana, Milwaukee, etc ... no big free agent WANTS to play there. CLE was hoping LeBron would be the one to tolerate living there in order to bring the hometown crowd a title.

So, [1] he gets to play with stars that he never would have gotten to play with in CLE, and [2] he gets to live in Miami. Nuff said.

I do agree with others that the whole “Decision” special was ridiculous.

But, we’ll all soon forget it because [1] LeBron will be LeBron (MVP candidate), and [2] like we really care about the fate of the Cavs .... like we care about the Pacers, The Bucks, etc.

The Cavs owner just made himself easy to ignore.

I’m not sure if anyone has brought this up, but LeBron also could’ve left at the end of his rookie contract. He hasn’t been much of a “slave” (in the way Tango uses that word) for a while.

"I’m not sure if anyone has brought this up, but LeBron also could’ve left at the end of his rookie contract.”

He would have been a restricted FA.  This is the first time he’s been unrestricted.  Going back to the issue of how this affects his brand...well, I’ll throw this out there:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=5371061

I like the last paragraph of that article - they just had to mention Kobe despite his being completely irrelevant to the article.  And of course, like usual they ignore the whole “there are 12 players on a team” concept and give Kobe individual credit for what his team accomplished....

Actually, there seems to be some sort of factual errors in that article.  3rd most watched program, with the Pro Bowl being one of the top 2?  Do they maybe mean the Super Bowl?  If Game 7 was more watched than “The Decision”...why wasn’t it in the list?  Confusing.

”...making it the third-most-watched program on *CABLE* television this year.”

A couple days ago, I saw a replay of LBJ’s interview with Larry King from over a month ago. And things have turned out consistent with what James said in that interview. He said it wasn’t about the money, because he’s already set for life. He said it’s about winning. Both because winning is fun (why work so hard when you no longer have to, just to experience the frustration of losing), and because his eventual perceived place among the all-time greats will be strongly influenced by his number of rings.

And he ended up being perfectly consistent with that in his decision. He apparently took less $ to play on a team with 2 other big talents who he likes and admires. He (probably correctly) believes that in the NBA the top-end talent is the biggest factor in winning.

Also, he came off in that interview as a reasonable and thoughtful person. I assume that he has more of an ego than he displayed there, and that came into being with the ‘decision’ special. That he may have handled it poorly with Cleveland may be true, but judging from D Gilbert’s reaction, there was probably a lot of baggage there. So I give him a pass there.

This entire thread is a great representation of why I come here.  Tons of different contributions, all filled with very rational thinking.  Far different than what I’ve read on this topic in the MSM.  Once again I’m grateful that this blogs exists.

About 10 commenters have already said bits and pieces of exactly what I was thinking, so I’ll add only this, which I haven’t seen yet:

This entire spectacle will ultimately make Lebron stronger.  If the biggest criticism of Lebron (vs. Kobe) is that Lebron lacks a “killer instinct” in games, this will help give him one. For the first time in his life, he’ll be lustily booed in a lot of places.  For the first time in his life, he won’t be universally liked.  That has a way of thickening a man’s skin and making him not give a sh!t what anyone thinks of him, which in turn makes him a better competitor, IMO. Kobe developed that over time when the public turned on him after the rape allegation and the public fued with Shaq. In the long run the adversity made him a more focused, ruthless player...and I think it will have the same effect on the formerly happy-go-lucky Lebron.

”...making it the third-most-watched program on *CABLE* television this year.”

I’m assuming that’s in response to my questions about the article I posted’s accuracy.  Wasn’t Game 7 of the NBA Finals on ABC?  Wasn’t the Super Bowl on cable TV?  How could the Pro Bowl be the #1 most watched program and the Super Bowl not make the list?  I’m still confused by the article, it doesn’t seem to make any factual sense, though I guess the important point I was making still works - people WERE interested, it did help expand his image.

@39 - I have to say, I’ve never been a fan of discussions on things like “killer mentality”.  Always struck me as the kind of analysis that people will listen to, but falls apart under actual scrutiny (think Jim Rice = most feared hitter kind of thing).  When I watch Kobe play, I see a guy who tries to do too much in certain [generally important] situations and often makes bad decisions that end up hurting his team (and the stats do seem to support this)…

Super Bowl was on Cable?!?  You might be thinking of the Half-time Lingerie Bowl.

Maybe I have no idea what’s considered cable?

Broadcast TV: ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox. 

Cable TV: Whatever stations broadcast Law and Order reruns.