LeBron James and Damon Jones share an intimate moment on the court last year. Surprisingly, the gayest thing about this photograph is the fact that there is clearly a semi circle of men behind them, watching.

by Ryan Meehan
 
Let me first follow that title with the following facts:  LeBron James is an unbelievable athlete.  His skill set and talent level have made him millions of dollars in NBA salaries as well as endorsements, and he’s earned every penny of it.  He has more money, power, and respect than anyone reading this article ever will.
 
That being said, he’s also the biggest douchebag in professional sports today. 
 
Today (Christmas Day) I was driving home and listening to AM 1230, and there’s a story going around that in an interview LeBron James had intimated that he thinks the league should contract.  (Contraction would mean there would be a fewer amount of NBA teams and there would be a greater potential for multiple superstars on one team)  Here is the story:  http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=ArhN7YDCTVYAbBKz3sSuZri8vLYF?slug=ap-lebronjames-contraction
 
Imagine that, a guy who just fucked over one of the poorest metro areas in the country is now suggesting that the NBA gets rid of the exact type of franchise that the Cleveland Cavaliers are.  That’s kicking your puppy on the way out of setting fire to your apartment. 
 
First off, since when is it up to LeBron to decide how the NBA will develop a long term plan to get back to being as popular as it was in the 80s?  They don’t pay his ass to be a strategist, they pay him to play basketball.  I don’t give a shit what he thinks the league should do…if he were that smart he’d be an owner or the commissioner.  
 
Second, if LeBron is such hot shit…why would he even care?  If all he cares about is “winning championships”, if anything he should want MORE scrub teams to inflate his team’s record, therefore making it easier to obtain a higher playoff seed. 
 
Tonight, I watched the Thunder play the Nuggets.  It was a great game, and I can’t help but think how awesome it must be for Oklahoma City to have a professional basketball team.  For the most part, life in OKC is pretty rough.  There are eight thousand street prostitutes per square mile, heroin is killing everybody, and unemployment is disastrously high.  But that team has made it interesting to live in that city again.  You take away the small markets and you’re taking away something way deeper than just ticket sales, you’re taking away hope.  That’s why having a pro basketball team is so great, because it gives people (who might otherwise be getting into any of the activities I just mentioned) something to do and believe in.  And that franchise was moved from a much larger city:  Seattle (which includes the Tacoma and Olympia markets)
 
Taking away the small markets would be a very poor business idea.  It doesn’t make any sense.  Look at the NFL.  If it weren’t for the dedication of guys like former Giants owner Wellington Mara and former Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt to provide resources for all of the other small market teams to succeed, the league wouldn’t have flourished and became America’s game.  People in Kansas City, Buffalo, and Cincinnati were becoming rabid football fans, and then Los Angeles lost two NFL teams even though it’s the 2nd biggest metro area in the country. 
 
I think guys like LeBron just have an ego that’s so large, they forget about shit like this.  And this is LeBron, he’s the Akron Boy.  He was supposed to be the small town boy that we could all believe in.  Now he’s saying that we should take basketball away in these places?  What a dick.  For the record, I don’t really view Miami, Florida as this extreme powerhouse sports city either.  Miami doesn’t have shit on a city like Boston, Massachusetts.  Sure the weather is better, but trust me:  The fans aren’t nearly as intense.

So memo to Prince James:  You are really good at playing basketball, so do that and shut your mouth.  This isn’t helping your public image which has had suffered through a pretty tough six months.  You think they booed you a lot when you went back to Cleveland the first time?  Watch what happens next time, motherfucker.  You’re not doing a very good job of trying to earn the respect of those who have recently been suspect of your behavior.
 
Once again thanks for visiting First Order Historians and enjoying more of the internet’s finest in user generated content.
 
Meehan