Miami Community Must Keep LeBron James’ Future In Mind

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Jun 24, 2013; Miami, FL, USA; Miami Heat small forward LeBron James rides through downtown Miami during the Heat Championship celebration parade. Mandatory Credit: Robert Mayer-USA TODAY Sports

LeBron James

As a Heat writer, everything (especially this year) begins with LeBron. Since there has been plenty written about LeBron recently, let’s review:

  1. The Hairdo (or lack there of) – Sorry, don’t care, if he want’s to go bald, go bald, if he wants an Afro, go for it. But please LeBron, keep the head band. Every time you’re not wearing it, for a brief moment I think that Joel Anthony is capable of playing basketball.
  2. The Police Escort– There’s been quite the guffaw in the media over LeBron receiving an escort by Miami-Dade police to the Justin Timberlake/Jay Z concert. In fact, an officer has been disciplined in conjunction with it. My hope is that the officer’s disciplinary hearing went something like this: “Officer, we are formally disciplining you for escorting Mr. James during the concert. Although people with the slightest modicum of sense would think that bending over backwards to assist THE SINGLE MOST ECONOMICALLY IMPORTANT PERSON IN SOUTH FLORIDA is a good idea especially when within a year he can choose to leave, there are some people out there that are, well, IDIOTS, and unfortunately, some of those idiots have actually been elected into local government, or are paid to write for our local media. Many of these people are the ones that think it’s a bad idea to publicly fund a stadium renovation that will mean at least $1 billion in revenue for South Florida. But to keep them, and their troglodyte followers happy, we’re going to reprimand you for escorting Mr. James. Keep up the good work.”
  3. LeBron and Greg Oden at the Heat facility – Seriously, Greg”s actually the older brother/dad, right?
  4. Magic Johnson and LeBron’s Top 3 – First let me say, I don’t even know who is in LeBron’s top 3. I don’t care. I do think it’s funny, though, that Magic Johnson cares so much. Wasn’t Magic at the top of the list of former NBA greats lighting up LeBron for leaving Cleveland and joining D-Wade? But NOW he wants his respect. C’mon man, at least LeBron didn’t bring up the fact that you would have returned to Michigan State, rather than being drafted by the lowly (at the time) Chicago Bulls.

As for LeBron’s continuing denial that he’s thought about his opt-out at the season’s end, he has. And everything we do as a community has an effect on whether he returns or not. I was in Orlando during Shaq’s final year with the Magic, and believe me, the hostile environment created by the media and fans there had an effect on his decision to leave.

LeBron is an asset to our community. Let’s treat him like he is.

#LET’S GO HEAT