I wonder if this, at the core of it, is one of the main reasons LeBron James still gets no quarter from fans and the media. It's not just that he left Cleveland, a city with as passionate a fanbase as any in the country -- it's that he went to
Miami. I've always wondered if people would have been as angry had he chosen New York,
which was his third option. I bet they wouldn't have been. As much as people love to hate the Knicks, no one denies that Knicks fans are as devoted to their team as any fans in any sport; they were filling Madison Square Garden every
night even during the Isiah years. LeBron would have been choosing a team, and a city, that would have
adored him. (This applies to one-time LeBron suitor Chicago as well.)
But he chose Miami, and by doing so, he seemed to be saying, "obviously, fans have nothing to do with this decision." Now, it's not any athlete's responsibility to choose where they play -- in those rare moments when they actually get to choose -- because of the team's fans; it's not like they would be interacting all that often anyway. But by choosing Miami, specifically, it signaled that was something he hadn't even considered, something that had never entered his mind.