Last week, I was in the bleachers with friends for an Indians game. Only a few months earlier, getting to see the Yankees come to the Jake was a welcome thought. Stupidly, I overlooked the inevitability of Cleveland sports. The Indians never met expectations, sauntered out of the gate, and were promptly passed around the AL Central like Roller Girl.

And just like their season, the game got ugly. Quickly.

Conversation turned to LeBron. It’s a Northeast Ohio tradition. Look forward to the next sports season while being forced to turn away in horror from the one in front of you.
But with LeBron, my friends and I know, things will be different. He’s going to end the misery and break a string of devastating Cleveland sports moments. (Re: Jordan, Elway, Mesa).

No one in the stands thought he was going to reject the Cavs’ offer. Everyone wanted the jabber about him leaving to stop. Finally.

Then, later that weekend, it seemingly did. LeBron James announced he would sign a contract extension with the Cavs. Word spread quickly. Weddings were interrupted. Baptisms postponed. Funerals forgotten.

After the initial texting frenzy came the celebration. I’m pretty sure the AP reported the debauchery resembling a Jay-Z video, with the podunks that live along the shore of Lake Erie igniting river fires, turning over Panini’s restaurants and dousing their naked bodies in chilled Crystal.

I can’t dispute this. Who doesn’t like to be close to greatness?

The good times lasted about 24 hours. We should have burned more. Because LeBron isn’t taking the max. He will sign a three-year deal instead of five so he can get to the REALLY big contract seven-year vets are afforded. It’s a good business move, we’re told.

That won’t matter.

I can already see Skip Bayless oiling his typewriter, which is disheartening. Not only that Bayless has a national column, but that there will be more talk of Cleveland fans worried LeBron will leave. They aren’t. Still, this contract guarantees another four years of listening to anyone with a national platform -- especially the blowhards on ESPN’s Around The Horn -- portray the collective psyche of a 40-year-old championship virgin in dire terms: here are the poor Cleveland fans, holding themselves in the fetal position, thumb in mouth, diaper on ass, rocking back and forth, hoping a savior doesn’t walk away.

The theory is well known: LeBron has a desire to go to one of the big three cities, New York, Chicago or L.A. Of course LeBron wants the grandest stage, New York writers opine. What better than to capture the adulation of Gotham fans, media and advertising dollars?

Never mind that the idea is stupid and self-serving. At least it’s original.

Cleveland fans have been insolating themselves from this talk for three years, secure in the knowledge that LeBron wouldn’t leave his hometown. He would stay and deliver for his people. So far, we’re right.

The Cavs dumped games and went from comatose to morbid to win the right to draft LeBron. It worked. They won a generational lottery. However, instead of it being fodder for guessing about whether the new star could lead the Cavs to a title, it was about whether the Cavs could get their star to a title.

Huh?

Since when has a franchise had to prove its worth before a player does? Nowhere else, in no other league, is there speculation like this. Here, the rules are different.

The manufactured gossip runs contrary to the fact the NBA has, for decades, built its product around stars, not teams. This is going to change because one is in Cleveland? Or how about San Antonio? Miami? Denver? Minnesota? Phoenix?

And in the meantime, please overlook that the big three cities already have a superstar (even if he is unlovable), Isaiah Thomas, and Michael’s shadow.

Take away all the tangible reasons those teams aren’t accommodating and it still doesn’t change the fact that LeBron James was never leaving Cleveland, no matter how many dollars and groupies Mike Lupica writes about and Nike offers, because it wouldn’t be worth as much -- in dollars or legacy -- as bringing a championship to his hometown. Because the legend perpetuates the dollars. And LeBron, more than anyone, knows this.
What would be a bigger story (and surprise) is if LeBron did leave and spurn family and friends and neighbors to… solidify the idea that medium market teams don’t count? Win a championship in cities already title rich? Burn bridges? Become more hated than Kobe (yikes)? Perfect windmill jams while wearing a bulletproof vest for road games in Cleveland? (Look at Carlos Boozer. He still hasn’t played at the Q since stabbing a blind man in the back.)

Nope.

At 21, LeBron is already playing against history. This isn’t about Nike ads or inking a deal to film Entourage II: Diamonds Are Forever. It’s not about being the next Mike. It’s about being on the Mount Rushmore of the sport. And as much as the national press and New York media wants to write about it being the Cavs’ job to put a winner around LeBron, LeBron knows it’s his job to make the Cavs a winner. That’s what gets lost in all this jumping ship talk. Nothing would tarnish his legacy more, or do more damage to the league, than for LeBron to jump into Jay-Z’s Hummer and say only big markets count and that I need help winning a championship.

Basketball in Cleveland would die. And I hope it would die in every other mid-market. Yep, the big three cities are important. But they don’t outweigh the rest of the country. Just ask John Kerry. The NBA knows that -- it’s why the Cavs can offer LeBron more than anyone else. Why don’t basketball writers know that?

No matter, the nexus of the basketball universe is already Cleveland, though we’ll still have to listen to more baseless talk instead of challenges for LeBron to lead his team to a championship.

It’s just another example of Cleveland sports fans wearing roller skates.

Nathan Carlile is a staff writer for The Legal Times and a long-suffering Cleveland sports fan. He can be reached at nate.carlile@atomicsportsmedia.com.