Bron made that shyt a partnership.
i cringe at the thought at a partnership with gilbert but that's a different issue entirely.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Response On Lebron Return To Cleveland
- Thread starter Big Boss
- Start date
i cringe at the thought at a partnership with gilbert but that's a different issue entirely.
HamAndEgger
All Star
saying lebron should make his decision about basketball only isn't faulting him for helping his community. I never said "lebron shouldn't do anything for his community and he's stupid for doing so"
NYC Rebel
...on the otherside of the pond
Yes you are. You found FAULT in it being a PART of his decision to return.
Dog....this question says it clearly!! Dude finds a FAULT in being an activist and you're dapping that?
Is he a basketball player or community activist? it should be all about basketball
I must have overlooked that part. There's nothing wrong with doing both.
I think his #1 priority should be basketball but it shouldn't be the only priority.
But you do realize how this is different than saying "his focus should be on basketball and basketball only"
I just feel for a basketball player of his caliber he should go to a situation where he can win and enhance his legacy. Everything else to me shouldn't be a high priority THAT DOES NOT MEAN i find fault in it. I just personally don't think it should be apart of his decision making process.
Yup, and still a win for both parties.
NYC Rebel
...on the otherside of the pond
I figured you did. Dude made it a major priority in his decision to come back. Why would ANYONE point that part of his decision to return as a flaw?
That's what @Jplaya2023 is doing.
then let me cleanup or restate my point.
I have no problem with him doing good in his community and wanting to enrich it.
When it comes to him picking a team to play for however i don't feel like helping the community, or returning home should play a part of it. His decision should be about which team gives me the best chance to compete for titles year in and year out.
HamAndEgger
All Star
But damn...Kareem wanted to be a NY Knick?? 
Cleveland was the ONLY option he could realistically return to without hurting his legacy/brand (and actually enhance it). He has 2 rings now, so the haters can't use that argument against him.
Going to another team other than Miami or Cleveland would really be bad for his legacy and brand. Rich Paul and Bron knew this.
And winning one chip in Cleveland alone would be greater than what he did in Miami with Wade and Bosh.
But damn...Kareem wanted to be a NY Knick??
shyt, he's from there. still has his house in Harlem too.
So Kareem sets it off by trying to prove some sort of intellectual bonafides by name checking and quoting Thomas Wolfe and Ella Winter.
States a weirdly ambiguous argument: Bron seems sincere, but maybe some people think he isn't; therefore his homecoming isn't truly a homecoming - or is it? Maybe. Maybe not. Yes and no.
Then this is just a bunch of gobbledygook:
To some skeptical residents, LeBron’s return to Cleveland is less that of the prodigal son’s triumphant return home than the straying husband who abandoned his longtime partner to chase a younger, hotter, firmer slice having second thoughts. Having realized he traded a deep love for a sweaty romp, he’s coming home with a bouquet of roses in one hand and a diamond bracelet in the other, begging forgiveness for his foolish mistake of lustful youth.
I mean, I guess. But really it seems like this is sports, not romance or marriage, and everyone - residents, teammates, the owner, fans - are pretty damn thrilled Bron is back. Also, he didn't trade a deeper love for a sweaty romp - the nikka exercised his right as a free agent and won some championships. Terms like "foolish mistake" and "lustful youth" seem both overwrought and inapplicable given the reality of the situation.
Then Kareem switches back to argue against himself:
All that doesn’t make LeBron’s desire to return any less sincere. Who hasn’t at some time or other hurt those we loved? And it takes a lot of courage to return to what many Clevelanders might consider “the scene of the crime.” LeBron is one of the best players in the world. He could have gone anywhere, but he chose Cleveland, knowing he would have to endure a firestorm of criticism. Had he stayed in Miami or gone elsewhere, he would have been hoisted on shoulders and paraded through the streets. That testifies to his sincerity.
Still rocking with this lame romance analogy and a bizarre reference to the "crime" of free agency, but whatever.
Then he drops a personal anecdote that doesn't seem particularly relevant to LeBron's own experience/situation:
I’ve had some experience with wanting to go home. After playing with the Milwaukee Bucks for a few years at the beginning of my career, I had a longing to return to New York City. Oscar “The Big ‘O’” Robertson had retired, and without him we had come in last, with no significant draft picks and little hope of turning things around the next year. I didn’t go to the press to negotiate for more money or a better deal. I went to the owner and we had an amiable chat. We shook hands and kept it between ourselves so the team could make the best deal for them and me because we each felt loyalty to the other.
So in a different era, with an entirely different brand of sports media, different economics, and different everyfukkingthing, Kareem went to his owner to request a trade to New York. There were smiles, handshakes, and loyalty. I'm hearing Archie Bunker and his wife crooning "Those were the days" as I read this part.
Then, yet anther personal anecdote that has very little relevance to LeBron's situation.
My attempt to return home failed because New York had no players Milwaukee wanted. Instead, I went to Los Angeles (a second home, since I attended UCLA) along with Walt Wesley and the Bucks got four players in exchange: Dave Meyers, Brian Winters, Elmore Smith and Junior Bridgeman.
So you can't go home again... When the team at home doesn't have assets to trade for you. But you can go to your second home when that team does have trade bait. And this is pertinent to LeBron making decisions as a free agent because... Well... You know... Because Kareem scored a lot of points and is a legend and he's using a lot of words, y'all.
All of a sudden:
When LeBron left Cleveland he celebrated it as the Exodus from Egypt and enslavement, and that arrogance left a bitter taste in his fans’ mouths.
nikka what? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Dude just wrote that sentence. Like for real. Not on a messageboard, but for TIME. Good lord.
It was like showing up at a party with his new girlfriend when he knew his ex would be there. Tacky. Even his return to Cleveland might have been seen as more from the heart, as he states in his essay, if it had just been announced as a fait accompli instead of the press and fans waiting in anticipation for the word to come down from the mountain inscribed on tablets.
This is some serious projecting, some purple ass language, and some really weird reasoning.
LeBron’s return to the Cavaliers is good for basketball.
So far the big homie 'Reem done shytted on Bron, expressed ambivalence toward Bron, and saluted Bron. Dude has had a debate with himself as if he were 5 different people with different takes.
Each game now comes with a movie narrative attached: underdogs, redemption, forgiveness. I certainly will be watching. But the “coming home” narrative has been a little too orchestrated to silence the critics and slighted fans. But I think this passage from Wolfe’s “You Can’t Go Home Again” sums up LeBron’s dilemma: “He had learned that in spite of his strange body, so much off scale that it had often made him think himself a creature set apart, he was still the son and brother of all men living. He had learned that he could not devour the earth, that he must know and accept his limitations. He realized that much of his torment of the years past had been self-inflicted, and an inevitable part of growing up. And, most important of all for one who had taken so long to grow up, he thought he had learned not to be the slave of his emotions.” In that way, LeBron can come home because he’s grown up and realizes that being away from home made it that much more valuable.
Okay, Bron can come home. And he has a strange body. Or some shyt. Now Captain Lew has made his stance clear, so I can stop speculating as to what his point is and -
But in another way, LeBron can’t go home again.
Damn it, man.
At least not to the home he once knew. They may be grateful and joyful, but they are also wiser. Like the betrayed spouse, they will have to wait and see, they will have to be wooed, they will have to be convinced that his sincerity, to quote “Porgy and Bess,” ain’t a sometime thing.
Or, like people with some sanity, they will have to recognize they are fans of a business we call sports, and in that business teams and players cut ties with each other all the time, and no one is entitled to any single player regardless of where he is born or drafted, and they'll just be thrilled because the best player in the NBA will be suiting up for their favorite team again, with the added bonus that he might be serious about spreading money around town and investing in bettering conditions and opportunities for residents.
That shyt was an overwrought, doubletalking, melodramatic bag of hot nothing.
I'm slightly hurt by this, man. I will write some over-the-top shyt for comedy, but I try to always make a clear point, and speak to substance rather than melodrama.
That being said, I can admit that I've had my own issues with letting LeBron just be LeBron instead of projecting onto him my own expectations of how much better he could play in certain games or how he could've handled certain things both on and off the court. It's time to let all that bullshyt go though. He won his rings, decided to go back home, explained why, and I'm bored by all the weird reasons people are still finding to assail his character and shyt. I wish him nothing but greatness and success in Cleveland.
States a weirdly ambiguous argument: Bron seems sincere, but maybe some people think he isn't; therefore his homecoming isn't truly a homecoming - or is it? Maybe. Maybe not. Yes and no.
Then this is just a bunch of gobbledygook:
To some skeptical residents, LeBron’s return to Cleveland is less that of the prodigal son’s triumphant return home than the straying husband who abandoned his longtime partner to chase a younger, hotter, firmer slice having second thoughts. Having realized he traded a deep love for a sweaty romp, he’s coming home with a bouquet of roses in one hand and a diamond bracelet in the other, begging forgiveness for his foolish mistake of lustful youth.
I mean, I guess. But really it seems like this is sports, not romance or marriage, and everyone - residents, teammates, the owner, fans - are pretty damn thrilled Bron is back. Also, he didn't trade a deeper love for a sweaty romp - the nikka exercised his right as a free agent and won some championships. Terms like "foolish mistake" and "lustful youth" seem both overwrought and inapplicable given the reality of the situation.
Then Kareem switches back to argue against himself:
All that doesn’t make LeBron’s desire to return any less sincere. Who hasn’t at some time or other hurt those we loved? And it takes a lot of courage to return to what many Clevelanders might consider “the scene of the crime.” LeBron is one of the best players in the world. He could have gone anywhere, but he chose Cleveland, knowing he would have to endure a firestorm of criticism. Had he stayed in Miami or gone elsewhere, he would have been hoisted on shoulders and paraded through the streets. That testifies to his sincerity.
Still rocking with this lame romance analogy and a bizarre reference to the "crime" of free agency, but whatever.
Then he drops a personal anecdote that doesn't seem particularly relevant to LeBron's own experience/situation:
I’ve had some experience with wanting to go home. After playing with the Milwaukee Bucks for a few years at the beginning of my career, I had a longing to return to New York City. Oscar “The Big ‘O’” Robertson had retired, and without him we had come in last, with no significant draft picks and little hope of turning things around the next year. I didn’t go to the press to negotiate for more money or a better deal. I went to the owner and we had an amiable chat. We shook hands and kept it between ourselves so the team could make the best deal for them and me because we each felt loyalty to the other.
So in a different era, with an entirely different brand of sports media, different economics, and different everyfukkingthing, Kareem went to his owner to request a trade to New York. There were smiles, handshakes, and loyalty. I'm hearing Archie Bunker and his wife crooning "Those were the days" as I read this part.
Then, yet anther personal anecdote that has very little relevance to LeBron's situation.
My attempt to return home failed because New York had no players Milwaukee wanted. Instead, I went to Los Angeles (a second home, since I attended UCLA) along with Walt Wesley and the Bucks got four players in exchange: Dave Meyers, Brian Winters, Elmore Smith and Junior Bridgeman.
So you can't go home again... When the team at home doesn't have assets to trade for you. But you can go to your second home when that team does have trade bait. And this is pertinent to LeBron making decisions as a free agent because... Well... You know... Because Kareem scored a lot of points and is a legend and he's using a lot of words, y'all.
All of a sudden:
When LeBron left Cleveland he celebrated it as the Exodus from Egypt and enslavement, and that arrogance left a bitter taste in his fans’ mouths.
nikka what? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Dude just wrote that sentence. Like for real. Not on a messageboard, but for TIME. Good lord.
It was like showing up at a party with his new girlfriend when he knew his ex would be there. Tacky. Even his return to Cleveland might have been seen as more from the heart, as he states in his essay, if it had just been announced as a fait accompli instead of the press and fans waiting in anticipation for the word to come down from the mountain inscribed on tablets.
This is some serious projecting, some purple ass language, and some really weird reasoning.
LeBron’s return to the Cavaliers is good for basketball.
So far the big homie 'Reem done shytted on Bron, expressed ambivalence toward Bron, and saluted Bron. Dude has had a debate with himself as if he were 5 different people with different takes.
Each game now comes with a movie narrative attached: underdogs, redemption, forgiveness. I certainly will be watching. But the “coming home” narrative has been a little too orchestrated to silence the critics and slighted fans. But I think this passage from Wolfe’s “You Can’t Go Home Again” sums up LeBron’s dilemma: “He had learned that in spite of his strange body, so much off scale that it had often made him think himself a creature set apart, he was still the son and brother of all men living. He had learned that he could not devour the earth, that he must know and accept his limitations. He realized that much of his torment of the years past had been self-inflicted, and an inevitable part of growing up. And, most important of all for one who had taken so long to grow up, he thought he had learned not to be the slave of his emotions.” In that way, LeBron can come home because he’s grown up and realizes that being away from home made it that much more valuable.
Okay, Bron can come home. And he has a strange body. Or some shyt. Now Captain Lew has made his stance clear, so I can stop speculating as to what his point is and -
But in another way, LeBron can’t go home again.
Damn it, man.At least not to the home he once knew. They may be grateful and joyful, but they are also wiser. Like the betrayed spouse, they will have to wait and see, they will have to be wooed, they will have to be convinced that his sincerity, to quote “Porgy and Bess,” ain’t a sometime thing.
Or, like people with some sanity, they will have to recognize they are fans of a business we call sports, and in that business teams and players cut ties with each other all the time, and no one is entitled to any single player regardless of where he is born or drafted, and they'll just be thrilled because the best player in the NBA will be suiting up for their favorite team again, with the added bonus that he might be serious about spreading money around town and investing in bettering conditions and opportunities for residents.
That shyt was an overwrought, doubletalking, melodramatic bag of hot nothing.
ya'll the same nikkas that ssit up and watch espn cats and follow all these twitter dudes and read their opinions yet a nba great can't when Time calls him and ask for his opinion
Kareem was dropping knowledge and including his own personal experiences and hippin Bron to how things are and it's nothing but the truth. if the boy Walt had written the same thing (it was very walt-esk) ya'll would have dapped him up a hundred times
I'm slightly hurt by this, man. I will write some over-the-top shyt for comedy, but I try to always make a clear point, and speak to substance rather than melodrama.
That being said, I can admit that I've had my own issues with letting LeBron just be LeBron instead of projecting onto him my own expectations of how much better he could play in certain games or how he could've handled certain things both on and off the court. It's time to let all that bullshyt go though. He won his rings, decided to go back home, explained why, and I'm bored by all the weird reasons people are still finding to assail his character and shyt. I wish him nothing but greatness and success in Cleveland.
Lebron's legacy to me and others (including himself) will be defined as to how many gold balls he wins. If he wins only 1 title in cleveland no one is going to call him the greatest ever like he stated he wanted to be. He will be a legend in cleveland no doubt but he wanted to be GOAT. Say he stayed in miami and they won 2-3 more and he ended up with 4 or 5 rings, to me that's better than winning 1 in cleveland and only finishing with 3 rings.
It's all about the rings for lebron to get to where he wants to get to right or wrong.