It isn't often I cheer for someone to lose. But last night, I would have cheered for any team in the NBA to beat the Heat. Well, more specifically, LeBron. As I posted on Facebook right after the glorious win, it's not that easy. He doesn't get to leave a place that not only loved him, but fully believed he would win the championship he promised to us, his hometown, and walk right into his first title. And I like it even more because it's a great lesson for people. As precisely stated by The Rolling Stones, "You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes well you just might find, You get what you need". What LeBron needed was a reality check. The pre-season smoke and Miami sunshine clouded and blurred his view of real life, or should I say - his real talents.
On Oprah's last show, she spoke of the lessons she has learned over her 25-year run. One part that stuck with me is when she said, "Don't wait for somebody else to fix you, to save you, or to complete you...". This goes for the self-proclaimed King as well. He claimed he needed a team around him as being a reason for leaving. LeBron - why don't you work on your own follow-through in life-changing games before you jump on someone elses' coattails and expect that to win championships for you.
Moving away from LeBron, I read an article by Dan Wetzel on Yahoo Sports titled,
"LeBron's failure warms Cleveland's heart". Since I am used to people tearing down Cleveland, this was a pleasant surprise. I am so overjoyed that I am even going to post paragraphs right here as a preview to reading his entire article:
"It’s too trite and small to view Cleveland as some bottomed-out, post-industrial postcard to the past. These aren’t all people trapped in awful times or terrible circumstances or living small lives in jealousy of LeBron’s big one.
There’s money here. There is success in Cleveland. There is contentment. As sure as there are poor in Miami, as sure as the VIP area of the Mansion Nightclub isn’t the full reality of South Florida, neither is some boarded-up East Cleveland warehouse the story here.
There are doctors and lawyers and entrepreneurs and financial planners and artists and teachers and dreamers and, yes, insulation installers. (“In the column can you mention the company, Pure Seal Inc.?”)
There are happy families and neighborhoods and the American Dream in full view. There are plenty of people who don’t have any personal problems who are quite content to keep their talents in Cleveland, a place they love just the way it is.
“We get a bad rep,” said Pawel Wencel, who happily moved back from Washington, D.C., and watched the game at Flannery’s. “It’s not New York. It’s not L.A. And we don’t want it to be.”
Why New York or L.A. can never seem to get that is anyone’s guess."
Thank you Dan for finally representing Cleveland as it is! Enough said.
