Good for him.

I really don't get how this is THAT much different than every other press conference where someone's feelings are going to be hurt. Remember when Eliot Spitzer gave a press conference about his whoring and made his wife stand next to him? That was way worse. Maybe nobody's ever had ESPN devote an entire hour of programming to a them in such a planned fashion, but I guarantee that the last time someone had a large press conference (I'm thinking A-Rod taking steroids or Tiger Woods fucking someone who wasn't the ice-queen money-grubbing bitch he was married to), ESPN devoted just as much time for pundits, analysis, blah blah blah. LeBron's people just planned it better. It's something they're known for.

Furthermore, he's a grown ass man. He can leave if he wants to if the situation isn't optimal. Just because you were born in the area and were drafted by the team doesn't mean you have to play there for the rest of your life. Raise your hand if you are currently living in the city that you grew up in. Don't worry, I'll wait. Those of you with your hands up. Have you had opportunities to leave? Opportunities that would result in a better job, more money, more fun and better quality of life? LeBron had a choice to stay. His job would have been harder. The money would have been worse. And the living situation? Sheeeeit.

Don't like LeBron leaving Cleveland? Don't feel so butthurt for a town with bad weather, ugly people, no economic growth and a horrifying pollution problem.

It's just not a well-run business entity. The team tried to build around him, but there was ALWAYS something wrong. Donyell Marshall, Mo Williams, Boobie Gibson or Anthony Carter do not a championship team make. Bron's been there for seven years. What moves have they made that have made that team more of a threat? Shaq? Ben Wallace? Larry Fucking Hughes? Say Bron takes a pay cut so the team can add more players. Do you really have the confidence in the Cavaliers organization to spend that money correctly? More than a decade to not put something together around a two-time MVP means that I feel more pity for the incompetence than for their feelings.

The only thing I wish he would do is actively seek challenges that would improve the quality of basketball that we get to watch. Looking at the Eastern Conference landscape, all this did was turn a bad playoff team into a juggernaut playoff team and make one of the best teams in the league into one of the worst. We all have to understand that playing with friends is always better than playing with a guy who might've slept with your mom, but I feel the same twinge of disappointment as when he decided not to participate in the dunk contest over the past All-Star Weekend.

To be sure, MY complaint with his decision(s) is that it denigrates the industry product that he is the face of. Everyone else's problem with the decision is that he caused a media circus (would've happened anyway, but the ad money wouldn't have gone to the kids) and that he didn't settle for the ugly chick with the "personality." Well, to paraphrase Sweetness from He Got Game, Cleveland ain't Scarlet O'Hara, LeBron ain't Rhett Butler.

The guy made a shrewd, unpopular decision that will maximize the quality of his life. Fuck YOU if you don't like it.