-->LeBron James is King of What?
We all get to Witness LeBron James' Decision
When I first heard about LeBron James doing a one hour ESPN show entitled The Decision with all of the advertising revenue going to charity, I thought “cool” good for him.
The whole world is watching this guy and his decision and at least he’s capitalizing on it in a way that actually does some good. The Boys and Girls Club will be the recipient of the revenue which could be in the neighborhood of $540,000, possibly more.
The Boys and Girls Club is trying hard too with a press release on their home page and a Facebook Fan page that includes a poll for voting on which team you’d like to see him play for.
So cheers to the Boys and Girls Club but is it jeers to LeBron? I presume the format will be interview style with highlights from his career, discussion about this past season’s playoffs and what he hopes to find in his new home (or his usual home if he stays put).
How is this anything other than a huge ego stroke? Is he the King of basketball or the King of his own personal branding? It’s guaranteed he’ll be selling boatloads of Tshirts as soon as he announces his new team with his new jersey.
The Celtics did a pretty good job of keeping this guy bottled up during the playoffs this year. (Total disclosure I’m a HUGE Celtics fan!) So he is not unstoppable albeit pretty darned hard to slow down.
And if he and the NBA really cared about charity they’d take the sale of jersey’s from the first week and donate that to the Boys and Girls Club too.
What do you think?
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Nothing more than a gigantic ego contest. I don’t know of any free agent who has tried to control the situation around their free agency any less successfully. This has to be the 2nd most annoying non story of the year.
As far as basketball is concerned, Miami did a great job at a pr coup. They trumped his decision by signing the 2 other top tier free agents before their signing could be an also ran / afterthought. Either he joins dwade and bosh in Miami, either way, it appears Miami is the big winner here.
Excellent point Aaron :-)
There is so much else going on in the world, indeed our country, that is demanding of our attention that this seems to me to be obscene. I live in the Cleveland area and I understand the economics of it all but REALLY? Let’s donate the proceeds of the jersey to New Orleans families who have been forced out of work by the oil spill or to Haiti or SOMETHING that truly matters. (The Boys and Girls Club certainly matters too.)
Well, the talk of the Internet world these days is about marketing and branding. It seems Lebron James is an expert at it.
In full disclosure I am Knicks fan, so for me it would be great if he went to the Knicks. I can’t see why Lebron would want to go to Miami. First, he would essentially become Scotty Pippen to Dwyane Wade’s Michael Jordan. The Heat is Wade’s team. Second, the Heat will have nothing but league minimum players after the Big 3. There’s no way they win a championship with that. Third, between the three of them they’ve averaged nearly 19 shots per game. One of them (I assume Bosh) is going to have to see their scoring average take a big hit in order to free up shots between all three.
In addition, LeBron James will be tagged as somewhat of a punk by choosing to join Wade, who already has a championship ring. Kind of like A-Rod taking a backseat to Derek Jeter in order to get a championship ring with the Yankees. Except A-Rod doesn’t go around calling himself “The King.” If the Heat do win a championship, Wade will have that many more than LeBron James.
Linda great comment and certainly there are other news items far more worthy than some rich guy picking a team to play for.
Jay, excellent break down of the Miami situation, I see you point and I agree with you. Is LeBron more interested in a ring or being the best player he can be? It’s a good question.
The NBA needs this. They’re struggling, teams are struggling, they need a huge publicity event and Lebron’s deal is the right event at the right time to really help the league out.
I’d say the NBA is the architect of most of this hype and Lebron has agreed because it can help out a charity. Otherwise it would just be a standard press conference announcement like all the other big free agents.
BTW its not like the players come up with these nicknames for themselves. Shaq started calling Pierce “The Truth”, for example.
Yeah, but his twitter name is @KingJames … so he might not have picked it, but he likes it …
In fairness to James, he was dubbed “King James” actually while he was still in high school. But yes, he does seem to like the title.
Which is why I don’t understand a potential move to Miami. At that point, he is merely a prince.