LeBron's Free Agent dance
The Big Three’s future is unsure with each becoming a free agent this Summer
LeBron James is a content man. If the first championship against a listless looking Oklahoma City Thunder team with the young but precocious Kevin Durant at helm was maybe considered a flash in the pan by the basketball pundits, the way he ruthlessly finished off the San Antonio Spurs, given that one glimmer of hope in the form of the Ray Allen three pointer has validated the faith of rabid Miami Heat fans who believe he is here to stay.
But the million dollar question is, “Is LeBron really going to stay”?
Not comparing Lebron’s looming free agency to Dwight Howard’s, who is probably on a mission to get on the bad side of as many fan bases as he can by the time he hangs his sneakers up, LeBron James has a plethora of options come 2014.
King James is the best basketball player on planet earth. No matter how much Kobe Bryant fans wince at these words, they’re true. The torch has been passed, Lebron has turned into the monster we all knew in the deep crevices of our hearts he could become. The only solace is to try to believe that his accolades do not come at the expense of the teams we love.
In a poetic twist of fate, the validation of LeBron’s greatness came after he beat Tim Duncan. Duncan swept James out of his first NBA finals appearance in 2003 en route to his fourth championship saying the now famous words to LeBron,”One day this league will be yours”.
Ten years later a new, dominant and nigh unstoppable LeBron beat Tim Duncan and the Spurs to win his second consecutive championship.
When LeBron’s contract ends in 2014, he will be the most coveted free agent again, reminding of an encore of 2010, along with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh aka “the Big Three” of Miami Heat. Whether Dwyane Wade succeeds in getting James and Bosh back for a second stint with the Heat is a different story. The main question is whether LeBron still thinks he needs help getting another championship.
This year’s playoffs proved that LeBron can win with good supporting cast rather than an All-Star roster. Chris Bosh all but disappeared from the playoffs and Dwyane Wade was hobbled by his troublesome knee having little or no impact save for Game 7 of the NBA finals in which he looked like his old self. And Miami’s superb season which had them winning 27 game on a trot fittingly culminated in a Championship.
In the summer of 2014, James, Wade, Bosh, Bryant, Carmelo Anthony and Dirk Nowitzki all turn free agents. But the biggest drama will still surround James. LeBron has explicitly said that he will not discuss his impending free agency stating that his sole focus is to win another championship with the Miami Heat, but that has hardly curbed the rumors linking him to almost every NBA franchise.
Nobody can blame the general public for linking James to their teams. Who wouldn’t want a 6-foot-8, 250 pound Demi-God (in basketball terms) with an unparalleled combination of strength and speed mauling their opponent teams on a nightly basis. This whole situation is most unnerving for the Heat fans as this may be the of the, “Heatles” as they know it.
Even though the luxury tax inhibitions make it all the more difficult for Superstars to team up together, deep pocket teams like the Los Angeles Lakers and the New York Knicks would not mind in the slightest paying millions of dollars as a fine if it means getting a player of James’s caliber to play for them.
There will be potential shifts of power in the NBA with each free agent’s decision but no one will have a more polarizing effect than LeBron’s next move. Will he choose greener pastures and take his talents to the Lakers or the Knicks, the two marquee teams of the NBA?
Will he decide to team up with his supposed best friend Chris Paul and join the Los Angeles Clippers or will he choose to return to his old stomping grounds and team up with the prodigy that is Kyrie Irving and try to win back his hometown fans, the fans he enthralled for seven years in Cleveland?
Will he succeed in winning a third Championship with the Heat and decide that Miami is the place he would like to play out the rest of his Hall of Fame career?
The arc that LeBron’s career is taking, certainty in his context is a little sparse. There are a number of equations here and only one variable, LeBron James. His season is going to be overshadowed by his impending free agency almost like 2009, and focusing on winning a championship is going to take an uncanny show of character. But championship or bust LeBron’s, “DECISION 2.0″ will have magnanimous implications in the coming future.