I feel bad for Lebron...

[celticsmaniac18]

while i was watching lebron get booed at tonight i kinda felt bad for him. now i know cav fans must feel betrayed by him leaving but lets face it, the dude is never goin to be welcome in the state he grew up in. if i was hated in boston, id never wanna come here and thatd suck cuz bostons awesome. i just feel bad for the dude. he (at the time) thought teaming up with wade n bosh would be best for his career.
just let me know what u think guys.
please nothing negative.

[Megatron]

Hes a grown man, Hes made his bed, now he has to lay in it.

You have to remember, this is LeBron, he wears clothes with "LBJ" on them. Im pretty sure he could care less about the "little people" in Cleveland.

[indeedproceed]

I feel bad for LeBron only in his power to constantly sabotage himself in anything besides basketball.

He is either micromanaged by the wrong people or he's just completely incapable of stopping himself from saying and doing the most egotistical thing available...or both.

I personally think it is both. I think he has a warped sense of reality, a disconnect from his actions and the way they are or will be perceived by his others, and a poor sense of self and how he relates to a community.

In that regard, I feel bad for him. But that doesn't mean I like him or I sympathize with his probable confusion with the way others react to his choices(since I'm guessing and admittedly without any real insight at all beyond my own intuition), as I believe he lacks the capacity or will to truly understand the gravity of his actions or words.

In the end though, I like to watch him lose, because he fails to realize why he's losing when in his own mind (again, guessing with my own narrative that could very well be wrong), he should be winning, and handily.

EDIT: This is also the reason why Spolestra is completely the wrong coach for him. Spolestra might be a very capable and insightful coach in basketball matters, but I will guarantee LeBron will never respect or accept him. It seems like Spolestra's natural inclination is to command LeBron, and that would only work if LeBron thought he was worthy, and Spolestra has neither the track record of success as a coach or as a player to achieve worth in LeBron's eyes.

And that's why I think we'll lose Doc Rivers in the end after the big 3 are gone. Doc is one of only a handful of coaches that could relate to LeBron on a personal level, as well as possessing the track record to prove his example should be followed. Phil Jackson, Pat Riley, and maybe on the outside chance Avery Johnson or Byron Scott are the others.

Double Edit: And yes, I am feeling very smart and smug tonight, how nice of you to notice.

[TitleMaster]

If i was hated in boston, id never wanna come here and thatd suck cuz bostons awesome.

I once had an awesome job offer from Houston, not too dissimilar from the one LBJ got in Miami but obviously paying in the middle to upper middle class zone. Guess what? ... I'm still here, I didn't take it. And that position had potential for a VP promotion, if I'd grown my group accordingly. Sorry, even if I had to leave town for career reasons, I'd never dish the Celtics nor the City of Boston nor even the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Thus, I don't feel sorry for LeBron because he could have left quietly and informed everyone on his squad, before the *Decision*, saved face and may be even able to come home, once in a while.

LeBron is an Akron yokel but saw himself as a national star, not a local boy. He should have been honest about it, in the beginning, and left Ohio some time ago for a bigger franchise. I don't feel sorry for him. I'm not a VP today, I'd stuck with my roots.
 

[jasail]

I have no problem with what he did, but despise how he did it.

He had one foot out the door in the playoffs and when the going got tough he rolled over and told his hometown they were spoiled and he was taking his talents to South Beach.

Then he followed that up with the Decision, some race baiting and that Nike commercial.

He is either (or both) a world class prick or a clueless spoiled brat with idiots controlling his image.  Either way he deserves all the negativity that surrounds him.

[Atzar]

I do think he was blindsided by the negative backlash 'the decision' earned him - he was worshipped in Cleveland and liked by much of the country, but now everybody outside of South Beach basically hates him.  I don't think he saw that coming.

Also, he's been publicly criticized by basketball icons like Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson.  I'd imagine that was probably a shock to his ego as well.

In the end, though, the better you are, the more you polarize people.  He was widely supported in Cleveland because Cleveland never won anything, but as soon as he got his first title there I think that would have changed.  Same with the 04' Sox - everybody loved them, but now the Red Sox don't get the 'sympathy cheers' anymore.  KG felt it as well.  He was adored in Minny, but now that he's won something that's not the case.

My point, I guess, is that this was probably going to happen to him sooner or later anyway unless he just played his entire career out as the lovable loser.  He accelerated the process with the BS over the summer, though... there's no denying that.

[mgent]

How can you feel bad for LeBron?  He got to go directly to the team basically in his hometown, and they were willing to immediately build a team around him.  He wasn't good enough to win that way in his first 7 years, so he LEFT his HOMETOWN to go play with his friends in South Beach, basically telling all his lifelong fans "screw you, my own town isn't good enough." (on TV nonetheless)

All his problems are direct consequences from his own 'decision.'  He doesn't care about feeling welcome in his homestate, why do you think he left?  

[LB3533]

I don't feel bad for 'Bron, but he doesn't deserve any of the hate he is getting nationwide.

Cavs fans can hate him, but they really should feel more sadness than hate. Their team will be in the pits for years and beyond.

No star will want to go to Cleveland to play for the Cavs. Their organization will need to wait to one day draft another young hopeful franchise player before they will be relevant again.

The nationwide hatred of Lebron is a joke and it is complete group think and the chic thing to do.

[radiohead]

Lebron made a decision and he has to live with whatever consequences that decision brings. I don't really feel bad for him because all the negativity in Cleveland is the direct result of what he did and more importantly, how he did it. Leaving town isn't that bad per se, but doing a one hour special just to announce that he was leaving Cleveland leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Before the "decision" he should have at least talked to Dan Gilbert and told him straight up that he was leaving. There's nothing wrong with leaving, it's how Lebron went about it that hurt the Cleveland fans. He claims that he loves the Cleveland fans to this very day, but he treated them like sh*t by doing that one hour spectacle.

[wiley]

while i was watching lebron get booed at tonight i kinda felt bad for him. now i know cav fans must feel betrayed by him leaving but lets face it, the dude is never goin to be welcome in the state he grew up in. if i was hated in boston, id never wanna come here and thatd suck cuz bostons awesome. i just feel bad for the dude. he (at the time) thought teaming up with wade n bosh would be best for his career.
just let me know what u think guys.
please nothing negative.

TP for the honesty and going against the grain of "groupthink" described in the following post by LB3533:

"I don't feel bad for 'Bron, but he doesn't deserve any of the hate he is getting nationwide.

Cavs fans can hate him, but they really should feel more sadness than hate. Their team will be in the pits for years and beyond.

No star will want to go to Cleveland to play for the Cavs. Their organization will need to wait to one day draft another young hopeful franchise player before they will be relevant again.

The nationwide hatred of Lebron is a joke and it is complete group think and the chic thing to do."

I only half agree with LB3533.....this country has a problem with egomaniacs...we like to build them up and also tear them down.  Some of the tearing down here is clearly warranted imo.  He's been doing un-sportsmanlike things for a few years now.  What's weird is that he comes across as smart and eloquent, then goes and does a bunch of crap.

Feeliing sorry for someone who's down is almost always the nice, compassionate thing to do, regardless of whether they made their own bed or seem ignorant of basic concepts like sportsmanship.  There's no reason to tear someone to pieces when they're doing it all by themselves.  The booing was inevitable and warranted imo, but  I still almost always feel bad for the target....

[Kiorrik]

I feel deeply sorry for him too.

But I just cried at Toy Story 3 so yeh, I'm a sob.

[Jon]

Taking this away from LeBron, why would anyone feel sorry for someone making the tens of millions of dollars he does for something as small as that? 

LeBron can go buy another home state if he wants to. 

I'd find other outlets for my sympathy like starving children around the world. 

[hpantazo]

while i was watching lebron get booed at tonight i kinda felt bad for him. now i know cav fans must feel betrayed by him leaving but lets face it, the dude is never goin to be welcome in the state he grew up in. if i was hated in boston, id never wanna come here and thatd suck cuz bostons awesome. i just feel bad for the dude. he (at the time) thought teaming up with wade n bosh would be best for his career.
just let me know what u think guys.
please nothing negative.

I don't.

[Witch-King]

I thought it was strange how the boos and negative chants lasted well into the forth quarter after the game had already evolved into a blow-out.

Maybe Cavs fans will someday get over themselves?

I don't recall Toronto Raptors fans being so devastated at Bosh's free agency signing in Miami that they would go to such lengths to try and disrespect someone who was at one point their 'star player'.

As far as the actual game was concerned it almost seemed like LeBron was showing them mercy by how effortlessly he was scoring last night. If he can get the job done in such a hostile environment then that shows that the Miami Heat could be a very scary team once the playoffs start...

[Celtics4ever]

I don't feel bad for him at all.  He deserves what he got because he handled himself like a total @ss with the special.

They will never get over it, folks.  This town harbor more defeats and losses than any other sports town.   Its all they have, the drive, world series choking and losing LeBron all parts of their rich history of bad luck and failure.  They don't own division when the Steelers are in the Superbowl after they failed to make the playoffs.   Bitterness is all they have as sports fans.   They will latch on to this until they win something.   CLE has always been a football town,  LeBron was the King for a short while but nothing short of a good Browns team will fix them up.