Sam195 wrote:Hoopzilla wrote:2010 - was the first attempt at cherry picking... failed miserably. Runs with his tail between his legs after the Spurs laughed him off the court in historic fashion.
2014 - was about leeching off assets accumulated by his former team, hoping to cherry pick with younger players and have a bigger window for titles. The fact that is was his hometown just fit a narrative he tried to sell us so he wouldn't have to admit how pathetic he is.
2018 - is the third chapter in the cherry picking saga, only this time, no one wants to be his victim... voluntarily. He will have to wait until next year to find a sidekick, so Lebron fans will now try and say he is no longer cherry picking. They completely overlook the fact that he would have never gone there if they didn't have a young core of players and two max slots available. They just can't see it.
The only non-cherry picking move Lebron could have chosen would have been to stay in Cleveland and fix his mess and leave something sustainable behind for his hometown. That would have taken a spine and an ounce of mental fortitude, so it was never going to happen.
He went to LA for the off court opportunities and to cherry pick, period.
I don't think it is cherry picking if you choose to play in same division as Durant, Curry and the Warriors. I think he left Cleveland because he fulfilled his well thought promise of delivering one championship. And he wanted to leave the Cavs under Dan Gilbert's ownership in his prime so Gilbert doesn't profit off any further equity of having the league's top player on his franchise. Had Lebron signed a multi year contract to stay with Cavs - reports are Gilbert would have sold the team with Lebron's value baked in the price and there was never any guarantee the next owner would be as generous catering to Klutch Sports demands and writing large luxury tax cheques with Lebron playing into his late 30s. And Lebron and the Heat just seemed to have had an irreconcilable divorce the team neither planned to have the cap space to sign him this summer and he neither made any public comments that showed an interest of a reunion despite still owning a mansion in Miami and visiting the city in his down time the past few years to go training or chill with other celebs.
You're trying to move the goalposts here. You look at the team Lebron left and the team he joined, not the teams around him.
As for your first few assertions, as you say, you think. You have no clue, so it makes sense to look at the pattern of behaviour rather than to speculate. When you walk away from your team and don't let them get anything in return and go to a team with plenty of assets and tonnes of cash, it is cherry picking. You are trying to make winning easier, it is the easy way out, especially when you do it three times in your career.
He never "fulfilled" a promise in Cleveland, he went back to leech off their assets. A promise would have been to stay the first time and deliver a title, not coming back to leech off of a team's unprecedented amount of number one picks and accumulated assets.
Are you seriously trying to tell me Lebron would have gone back if they didn't have Kyrie, Wiggins, TT and Waiters? He needed the players and assets so he could try to form another Super Team. You try to make it sound like he was going back to win them a title no matter what, if that were the case, he wouldn't have left in the first place.
Who cares what management would have done if Lebron stayed, that is nothing but an excuse. Because Lebron was not given assurances that the team would not be sold and if they were, that the new owner would have to bankrupt himself to prove his loyalty, that means Lebron should walk away from his hometown franchise and leave them for dead? I might agree with you if he waived his no-trade clause and let the Cavs have something for the future. It was a bitch move and nothing but.
Lebron ran away from the Heat to cherry pick off of Cleveland's assets because San Antonio ran the Heat off the court in historic fashion in 2014. Asserting anything different is just funny. He never had any interest in going back because they don't have the assets to leech off of there. If they had the assets and young players the Lakers did, he would be in Florida right now.
