Where LeBron Could Leave Biggest Mark
By Chris Broussard
ESPN The Magazine
I don't envy LeBron James. Sure, I'd love to have millions of dollars, a ridiculous hoop game, a home that's a cross between the Four Seasons and Six Flags, and the entire sports world going bananas over me.
But man, this is one tough decision. Do you leave and become a pariah in your home state, an area you love so much? Or do you stay and risk never winning a championship, even as other teams position themselves to dwarf the roster you have in Cleveland?
I guess it just comes down to what does LeBron James want to be? And the fact is that if he wants to go down as the greatest basketball player in history, this grueling decision suddenly becomes easy: He stays in Cleveland.
If LeBron James turns the Cavaliers into a dynasty, he can surpass Michael Jordan as the best of all time. By dynasty, I mean at least four rings.
In Cleveland, LeBron has no Pippen, no Shaq in his prime, no Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He doesn't even have a Pau Gasol or a Dennis Rodman, who let's not forget was a lockdown defender and the best rebounder of his era by a wide margin.
If he wins titles with the crew he has in Cleveland -- going through Kobe Bryant, the Big Three in Boston, Dwyane Wade, Dwight Howard, Carmelo Anthony, Kevin Durant and the rest of this generation's greats -- it could be more impressive than MJ going through Ewing, Hakeem, Barkley, Karl Malone, Clyde Drexler and all the Hall of Famers he kept ringless.
And it's not as if his Cavs are that far away. They've had the league's top record the last two seasons, and if LeBron hadn't struggled uncharacteristically in those last three games of the Eastern Conference semifinals, I'm convinced Cleveland would have beaten Boston, Orlando and quite possibly the Lakers this year.
Of course, the Cavs didn't, so the question remains: Is LeBron only good enough to get them close or is he good enough to take them all the way? There's no shame if he's the former, because there's not a man alive who could take them as far as he has by himself (no, not even Kobe). And that's precisely why he has the opportunity to go down as the G.O.A.T.
Right now, we debate about how many Top 50 All-Time teammates a guy had on his title team: Jordan, Magic, Bird, Kobe, Oscar -- they've all had at least one on most of their championship clubs. Isiah Thomas had no Top 50 teammates and led Detroit to back-to-back titles, beating Bird, Jordan and Magic. That's why he's widely regarded as the greatest small player ever.
But heck, some would argue that LeBron barely has a teammate among the top 50 players in the league today. That's why four with this bunch in Cleveland could be the equivalent of Jordan's six.
But there's a risk. A huge one.
If LeBron stays in Cleveland, he may never win it all.
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