The King of Wishful Thinking

I'm gonna break for a moment from catching up on my travel stories to comment on the spectacle we witnessed last night. LeBron James - the King of Cleveland, the most popular player in the game, and the heir apparent to Jordan's throne - laid all of his titles (and many millions of dollars) aside in the hopes of winning now, later, and often.

My football team went 3-14 my last two years of high school, and my wrestling career began with 23 consecutive losses. To lose like that is awful. It's humiliating, frustrating, and excruciating. But it's also part of life. At some point, you need to learn how to lose with dignity and grace.

Never mind General Patton, who famously said that "America loves a winner and will not tolerate a loser." The fact is, we're almost all losers. There's a hell of a lot more alumni of losing football teams than of state champions. Literally all of our ancestors were on the losing end: slaves, defeated tribes, refugees, or at best those with no hope for a better life back home. Our unemployment rate is growing every day, and in Cleveland it's only worse. We root for underdogs not because we hate the favorites but because we identify with those who aren't supposed to succeed, who aren't supposed to make noise or inspire, but who hang onto their one sliver of hope, believe in themselves and the impossible, and persevere until victory is in sight. We love when our teams win precisely because it's rare (even the Yankees lose more years than they win). And we hate cheaters and those who win without class because they steal victory from those who ply their trade honestly, because they represent the unfair world we live in and because most of us don't cheat at school or work.

Losing so often in high school didn't make me happy with defeat. But it did inspire me to train harder and to treasure every moment I spent with my teammates, representing my school and town in competition. It's why, when my high school's team eventually did make it to the state championship game three years after my graduation, they inspired happiness in every alumni to ever don the uniform. Their victory was a credit to every garbage time player who worked their ass off on losing teams and every all-section player that stayed in town to play with and for their friends instead of taking their talents elsewhere.

James wouldn't know anything about that. He meant everything to northeast Ohio; he was their sliver of hope, their consolation prize for decades of decline, their message to the world that Cleveland will rise triumphantly from its ashes. Players leave their teams all the time for money, and occasionally for a shot at a crown. We grudgingly tolerate the former; it is a business, after all. And we usually tolerate the latter; few people knock Ray Bourque or Karl Malone for seeking rings in the final years of their careers. But never before has a player of James's stature left everything in their prime - the hometown loyalty, the money, the boyhood favorite team (Bulls), and the glitz of the big stage (NY/NJ) - in pursuit of victory on a mercenary team.

Leaving adoration and money on the table in pursuit of victory doesn't make LeBron James a bad person or a coward, despite what many are writing. He was right to say that he doesn't owe anything to the Cavs, and one could argue that he doesn't owe anything to Ohioans. But he did owe something to himself. Last night, we finally saw the results of what happens when even the most talented athlete in the country is doted on and worshiped from age 15. He's immature, and he doesn't grasp what victory really is; he seems to think it's as simple a concept as playing alongside the best players in the game.

John Candy may have said it best in Cool Runnings. "A gold medal is a wonderful thing. But if you're not enough without it, you'll never be enough with it."