At this point, what’s there left to do but look ahead to the 2013-’14 season.
Occasionally there is an interesting story that pops up between free agency and the start of the season. J.R. Smith, Lamar Odom and Kobe Bryant have given us some decent bar conversations.
But when it’s all said and done, this season will be, without a doubt, about LeBron James and his impending free agency.
Don’t buy the hype?
Today alone, stories from ESPN’s Chris Broussard and Brian Windhorst, as well as Yahoo! Sports Kelly Dwyer were posted centering around — guess who — LeBron James.
If you’re sick of it already, my advice, skip ahead to the jump.
From Broussard: “As James and the Heat go for their third straight championship this season, the question of whether James will opt out of his contract and become a free agent in July 2014 will hover over their pursuit. Several other superstars, including New York’s Carmelo Anthony, the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant and James’ Heat teammates Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, also could be on the market. But James is by far the biggest prize of them all. The Cleveland Cavaliers, the hometown team the Akron, Ohio, native famously left in 2010, are believed to be the Heat’s stiffest competition when it comes to acquiring him in 2014. The Lakers, who could have enough salary cap room to sign two max free agents next summer, are viewed as a long-shot competitor for his services.”
“I have absolutely no idea,” James recently told ESPN.com. “I would love to spend the rest of my career in Miami with this great team and great organization as we continue to compete for championships. That’s ideal. But we don’t know what may happen from now to the end of the season. That’s the nature of the business. It’s the nature of not knowing what tomorrow brings.
“I mean, as a kid, I never thought the Bulls would break up. Never. If you’d of told me as a kid that [Michael] Jordan and [Scottie] Pippen wouldn’t play together for the rest of their lives, I’d have looked at you crazy. And Phil Jackson wouldn’t be the coach? I’d have looked at you crazy. But sometimes the nature of the business doesn’t allow things to happen like you would want them to. But we’ll see.”
If we know one thing about James, it’s that he will keep this media circus in town for as long as he can.
Why not?
He’s completely rehabilitated his once unsalvageable reputation. He’s riding a title wave — no pun intended — of career highs: back-to-back MVP’s, NBA titles and Finals MVP’s.
No wonder he flirted with the idea of becoming president of the NBA Players Association. If he could do the unthinkable and lift the leagues harsh salary cap restrictions, he would be walking into the largest contract in the history of professional sports next summer.
While that idea is completely unrealistic, cap restrictions or not, if there’s one thing James’ knows, it’s that he is the most-wanted commodity in sports.While this Covering James since high school, this is something Brian Windhorst knows more than most about: “As he readies for the process to repeat itself when training camp opens in three weeks, James is viewing his potential free agency with a completely different mindset than he did leading up to the summer of 2010. That is to say, he has chosen not to view it at all. As it was going into the 2009-10 season, James can get out of his contract by the following July. As in ’09-10, there are high-profile teams who already have set themselves up to make a run at him a year in advance. Unlike then, though, James is determined not to let it cloud his mind or create distractions with public flirtation. James has vowed not to seriously consider free agency or even talk about it until after this upcoming season with the Miami Heat. He plans to address it, as briefly as he can, on the first day of camp and then try to table it for the rest of the season. He has even squashed talk about it in his inner circle.”
“If you guys want to go to sleep right now and not wake up until July 1, 2010, then go ahead because it’s going to be a big day,” James said to the New Yorkers (in 2010). “July 1, 2010 is going to be a very, very big day.”
While the rhetoric remains the same on ESPN, Dwyer takes a shot at analyzing the impact of James’ decision this summer:
The issue here is that even LeBron James doesn’t know what he wants to do. He has no idea how Wade’s body (31 years of age in technical terms, only) will hold up, he has no clue if opting out will be the best decision for him in basketball terms, and he has no inclination (after two straight Game 7s in the Eastern Conference finals and a Game 7 in last season’s NBA Finals) how the rest of the league will react to Miami’s attempt at a three-peat come May and hopefully June.
It’s true that opting out of the final year of his deal this summer will be the right move for him financially, and he’ll be underpaid even if he is given a maximum deal with Miami or some other suitor, but at this point other concerns are popping up.
Legacy has to be a factor, here. In his discussion with ESPN, James mentions the shock of seeing the defending champion Chicago Bulls broken up following the 1997-98 season, a years-long miscalculation (and then embarrassing public retreat) by the team’s owner and front office that resulted in a seven-year playoff drought. In leaving theCleveland Cavaliers for the Miami Heat, James has already shot the idea of becoming a single-team legend to bits. Now has to decide if Pat Riley has what it takes, moving forward, to sustain a contender around him while presumably paying an increased rate to Mssrs. Wade and Bosh, who could also opt out.
2014 will bring plenty of surprises. The Bulls, Pacers, Nets, Spurs, Clippers, Thunder and Rockets all appear to be formidable contenders at the moment. But in the end, we know, 2014 will be all about LeBron.
Whether we want it to or not.
But for now, More around the NBA…