Reply With Quote
Stern would never permit it. He ain't wasting LeBron & Kobe in the same city, same arena. No way.
The Clippers are throwing a 'LeBron Parade'
By Trey Kerby
Ball Don't Lie
It's not even June yet and the LeBron James free-agent courting extravaganza is already turning into a hilarious game of one-upmanship. The websites were funny enough. Then, Cleveland came out with "Please Stay LeBron" just to make you have some giggles and it worked. That's a pretty good start for the second week of May, if you ask me.
Not wanting to be outdone, Clippers fans are kicking things up a notch — BAM! — they're taking this free agency thing into the real world.
Fans of the Clippers have planned a march around Staples Center at 6 p.m. ET on May 27 at L.A. Live to "Bring Lebron to the L.A. Clippers."
Lebron James in an unrestricted free agent and the Clippers are one of the teams that has room under the NBA salary cap to sign the superstar.
As I'm sure you can guess, the parade is the mind-baby of Clipper Darrell, who is literally the world's biggest Clippers fan. And if the idea of a Clippers parade for LeBron James isn't enough to make you smile, perhaps the fact that it's being scheduled to take place at the Staples Center on the day of a possible Game 5 between the Lakers and Suns will do the trick, because that seems like a recipe for disaster.
Some Clippers fans on the Internet agree. For instance, "El_Nino_Jesus":
[...] I DO however picture Laker fans laughing at us and teasing us, ya know they would
Yep, that'd happen. Of course, laughing and teasing aren't nearly as bad as what "MrHill" is worried about:
One thing I strongly suggest (and I'm not advocating any violence what so ever)...bring protection! We all know that many Laker fans aren't the brightest, and you know some of them will be looking for trouble.
I don't know about you, but I am now very excited for May 27 to see what all goes down. At the very least, I'm hoping for some pictures that look straight out of a Michael Jackson video.
I'm not sure where you go after a parade, though. Surely someone will get one of those planes with a banner behind it to fly over LeBron's house, but other than that I'm stumped. Maybe a really nice PowerPoint presentation or something.
(h/t Arash Markazi)
Last edited by duncan228; 05-18-2010 at 03:04 PM.
Stern would never permit it. He ain't wasting LeBron & Kobe in the same city, same arena. No way.
I don't know who's worse, NY strip clubs offering LeBron free lapdances for life, or Clipper fans
Better than the Bron Bron song.
lol, the best thing about Suns Clippers games is Clipper Darrell.
oh brother, hes not going to lead any team to a le that doesnt already have other superstars/leaders.
and the Clippers are cursed and a team that good players go to die.
combine these things and LEbron going to the Clippers would result in a serious injury and/or no more than one playoff round
the Clippers need to change their name and their team colors.
they ing suck. get rid of the curse.
change the logo and the name.
and move to a city that will appreciate them
Lebron+healthy Blake Griffin+motivated BDiddy would be must see TV
Cleveland fans to LeBron: please, PLEASE stay
By Thomas J. Sheeran
They’re saying it on billboards, in song, in letters, in pe ions and more.
Whatever the format, the message from Clevelanders is the same: Dear LeBron James, please don’t go. Please please please don’t go.
This hard-luck city on the shores of Lake Erie is desperately trying to show its NBA superstar that, with free agency looming July 1, the best spot for him is right up the road from his hometown of Akron, Ohio, the place where he’s played for seven seasons as a Cleveland Cavalier and won two MVP awards.
And in the wake of a baffling early exit from the playoffs—a six-game series loss to the Boston Celtics—the grass roots campaign has taken on not just a new urgency but the sense of a last chance. Without James, after all, the chances of Cleveland breaking its 46-year leless streak in major pro sports don’t seem too good.
“He’s a hometown guy. We definitely want to put that on his conscience,” said 23-year-old Austin Briggs, of Cleveland Heights, co-founder of the Web site pleasedontleave23.com.
Want to join the band wagon? You can sign a “Stay LeBron” pe ion right on the hood of Brigg’s souped-up 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, dubbed the “Witness Mobile.”
Even before the playoffs, fans had helped fund a banner near the home of the Cavs, showing James through his life with the words “Born Here. Raised Here. Plays Here. Stays Here.”
But if Clevelanders think showing a little civic pride will be enough to romance LeBron, they better think again.
Other cities are trying to woo him, too.
In New York City, The Daily News has launched www.getlebron.com and even Mayor Michael Bloomberg has made a case for James to move—to the Knicks or the Nets.
“I love living in New York, my kids love living in New York,” Bloomberg said last week. “I think LeBron James would love living in New York and it is the world’s greatest stage.”
Bulls fans, meanwhile, have www.sendlebrontochicago.com while long-suffering Los Angeles Clipper fans are planning a parade aimed at showing the MVP some love.
So far, James hasn’t tipped his hand.
“It’s all about winning for me and I think the Cavs are committed to doing that, but at the same time I’ve given myself options to this point,” he said.
The Cavaliers can offer him around $30 million more than any team, but several other clubs can make pitches beginning July 1.
The Cleveland campaign to keep James comes with the backdrop of a shrinking city that hasn’t won a major sports championship since the NFL Browns in 1964.
A witness to the le drought, 74-year-old Ruth Wine, part of the 212-member LeBron James Grandmothers Fan Club, wrote to him after Thursday night’s deciding playoff loss to make a pitch for his hometown.
“That little town truly and deeply loves you, win or lose, for the fine person you are and the kindness you have shown to Akron,” wrote Wine, who herself is from Akron.
She has a clue that he might stay: he returned last year to his alma mater, Akron’s St. Vincent-St. Mary High School, to accept his MVP award and accepted his second this year at the University of Akron.
“We think he’s not leaving because why would he come back to his high school and then come to the university for his second MVP,” she asked.
Browns Pro Bowl return specialist Josh Cribbs appreciates the undying passion of Cleveland fans. When Cribbs was seeking a new contract last season, fans spoke up and demanded the team pay him for his performance. Their “Pay the Man” movement helped Cribbs get a new deal.
Cribbs knows Cleveland won’t let James leave without a fight.
“The fans are already speaking up,” he said. “This is a motivated city for sports and there are no fans like this anywhere. They are doing whatever they can to keep him.”
Even the highbrow Cleveland Orchestra has pitched in with a keep-LeBron video posted on YouTube.
Another music video, this one to the tune of “We Are the World” and posted on Break.com features local celebrities and Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland—he’s running for re-election—in a sing-along. The pitch: “Please stay, LeBron. We really need you. No bigger market’s gonna love you half as much as we do.”
The hometown affection for James might help persuade him to stay, Mike Altomare said between customers at his barber shop down the road from St. Vincent-St. Mary.
“It would make him feel he’s home. You get into these bigger metropolis areas and I don’t think that warmth is going to be there. It’s just going to be basketball and the other stuff is going to go by the wayside,” he said.
At a cubbyhole T-shirt shop next door, the James gear—and increasingly the “Stay LeBron” items—are the retail superstars.
“People just love him. They admire him,” said Sarah Gorring, a manager at Rubber City Clothing.
The T-shirts include a tearful Ohio map with the appeal to “Please Don’t Leave 23,” “Just Stay,” and “Akron Witnessed First,” playing off the trademark theme of fans who are “Witnesses” to James’ s om.
“They think it’s a really great story of a kid who started out with absolutely nothing,” Gorring said.
The question is whether a town where people, James included, can recite the sports failings like a sacred text—The Drive, The Fumble, The Shot, The Move, Jose Mesa’s blown save in the 1997 World Series, etc.—can take another disappointment.
Losing James, one of their own, may trump them all.
“I don’t know if the song is going to do it,” Cribbs said. “We’ve got to all keep signing to get him to stay.”
lol at these desperate fools
Dirk and Kidd yup yup
we STAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACKED.
the nba landscape will change once lebron comes to dallas
thats just the way it is
its ok nba
Breakaway layup? Nope... chasedown by Bron... @ Jerryworld... passes to Kidd... high arching lob to the King for a dunk... bring the ing house down
gonna be a bigin Big D
Haha, great thread le.
I mean just look at Cleveland.........
it's a real hole. It's where Pittsburgh, Chicago and Indiana drops off it's garbage and if the state of Indiana is sending it's garbage to your town, you must suck
It'll be interesting to see how the LeBron James story develops after the draft lottery tonight. I'm not sure the draft order affects James personally, but prepare for the John Wall/John Calipari/LeBron James to New Jersey talk.
Let me finish by saying that I bet New Jersey doesn't get the #1. They have an incredibly good chance, but a boring team like Minnesota, Sacramento or Washington will probably get it if you're strictly banking on the history of the lottery. It's so odd that the the team with the best statistical chance hardly ever gets the #1.
Last edited by TFloss32; 05-18-2010 at 04:58 PM.
Um, to get rid of the curse, they would have to move to Buffalo and name themselves the Braves
Rivers Refutes LeBron Rumors
SportingNews
You didn’t really think we’d get through the NBA conference finals without more LeBron Lunacy, did you?
The latest rumor/innuendo blogosphere reporting—and we’ll use that term loosely, thank you—has Doc Rivers leaving the Celtics after this season to coach LeBron James with the Chicago Bulls.
Rivers still is deciding about his future and could walk away after this season, especially if the Celtics win another NBA championship. Rivers, who lives in Orlando in the offseason (his family lives there full-time), Tuesday emphatically ended at least part of the aforementioned speculation.
"I’m either going to be in Boston or home (in Orlando, out of coaching)," Rivers said.
As for James and Rivers connecting in Chicago, where Rivers grew up?
"That’s just stupid talk," Rivers said. "It’s just ridiculous."
— Matt Hayes
A king’s ransom might not be enough to keep James
By Jim Litke
Ask not what LeBron can do for your team.
Ask what your team can do for LeBron.
Neither James nor his agents have gone public with any outrageous demands so far, but it’s early and you know what they’re thinking. Small wonder. Every discussion in the NBA these days eventually winds its way back to you-know-who and where he will deign to play next season. It’s gotten so bad that the King should consider wearing a headband full time, if only to limit the swelling.
Shortly before Tuesday night’s draft lottery, even commissioner David Stern weighed in on whether and-or where James’ throne might end up.
“To be perfectly honest, it doesn’t matter to me,” he said. “Our job is to promote him and our league wherever he goes. I think it’s terrific that he has the choice to make, and we’ll be behind him whatever he does.”
Stern did find time to congratulate his league for a compelling postseason so far, and predicted interest would only grow with a “great finals” in the next few weeks, followed by “a really interesting draft” on June 24. But the commissioner left no doubt about what he considered the most important event on the NBA calendar this year.
“Katie bar the door in July” is the way Stern referred to the beginning of free agency on July 1. And if the actual wheeling and dealing turns out to be half as entertaining as the build up has been—“Songs, banners, balloons, blimps, armies, I don’t even know what,” he marveled—Stern would be advised to take his own advice.
“I’m just going to hide in the office,” he said, “and let it all roll out.”
Unfortunately, not everyone will have that option.
“I’m ‘LeBroned out.”’ Charles Barkley told ESPN radio earlier in the day. “OK?
“I am so sick of … you know I love ESPN. but they’re really starting to annoy me. I’m going to have to turn it off for the 40 days. They’ve already got the ‘LeBron free-agent clock’ on. I am seriously sick of talking about LeBron James—every little whim, dissecting everything he says.
“I’m really just sick,” the former and still-round mound of rebound repeated one more time, “of the whole LeBron thing to be honest.”
Nobody wants to see another traveling circus similar to the one Brett Favre rolled out of Green Bay first to New York and then into Minneapolis. It happens much more frequently in big-time club soccer, but there’s only a handful of athletes in the four major North American pro sports leagues whose relocation could cause anywhere near this kind of tumult.
Alex Rodriguez’s move from Texas to New York didn’t, but if Derek Jeter ever decided to leave, he probably could. Tom Brady and Peyton Manning in the NFL, certainly; Sidney Crosby and maybe Alex Ovechkin in the NHL, almost. Among James’ NBA brethren, only a renewed threat by Kobe Bryant to depart Los Angeles would come close.
Because of league rules, staying put with the Cavaliers would allow him to pocket an extra $30 million or so more than any other team can pay. There’s also the city’s unquestioned loyalty, something that was demonstrated in a half-goofy, half-sad video made by a group calling itself “Clevelanders for LeBron James.”
In it, a string of low-level government officials, local TV personalities and entertainers on up to U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown and Gov. Ted Strickland pledge their willingness to do almost anything to keep James, all of it set to the tune of “We Are the World.” Similar efforts are already under way in a half-dozen other towns, all of them extolling the benefits of relocating there.
There is a lesson writ large in this episode, but you have to wonder whether James is interested in learning it.
Cleveland might be a small-market team, but so is Indianapolis and it hasn’t hampered Manning’s endorsement value one bit. James already exerts influence over virtually every move the franchise makes, from signing other free agents to deciding who the next coach would be. The only thing the Cavaliers can’t guarantee him is a le, but neither can anyone else.
Then there’s the little matter of what James owes a franchise that has already paid him a king’s ransom in salary and enabled him to make several times that much money on the side. You won’t hear that discussed too often, but anytime you need a reminder, find a photograph of the sign that covers nearly an entire side of the arena in Cleveland.
It was put there by James’ handlers from Nike, and shows him with arms outspread. It reads: “One for all.”
But maybe not for much longer.
ESPN has the LeBron Tracker, SI.com has the LeBron Watch.
Akron mayor makes case for LeBron
Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic has no problem making a few enemies if it means keeping LeBron in Ohio. In response to a New York Daily News article that called Akron "The Middle of Nowhere, Ohio," the mayor shot back, ''Who the wants to live in New York?'' Of course, he had a similar response the other cities that appear to be in the LeBron Sweepstakes. ''Who the would want to live anywhere other than Akron, Ohio?'' Plusquellic responded when posed that question at a news conference Wednesday on unrelated topics. ''He's not a surfer. We've got great golfing and good skiing ... 'He has a commitment to Akron. He loves it and always will.'' (Akron Beacon)
*********************
Must-See Photo
Austin Briggs turned his '87 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme into a LeBron-mobile. The hood of the car is a pe ion to keep The King in Cleveland.
*********************
Ex-coach: LeBron's going to Chicago
LeBron James' first NBA coach, Paul Silas, thinks the MVP's days in Cleveland are over, and his best fit would be in Chicago alongside Derrick Rose. "Winning is what's most important to him," said Silas, who coached the Cavs from 2003-05. Ever since I had him for two years that's all he talked about. Because [the Cavs] have not done anything in the last five years, I just think he's given a lot of thought [to leaving]. If he can go somewhere and win the championship ... It's one thing to be called the greatest. The greatest, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, they've won championships. This is what's most important to LeBron." (Chicago Tribune)
*********************
Must-See Photo
I'm sorry, but can we go back to Austin Briggs' souped up LeBron-mobile? Check out the hood!
*********************
Best Site Of The Day
As Jimmy Traina mentioned in yesterday's Hot Clicks, LeBronToTheMavs.com may be one of the coolest LeBron sites out there. And he's not joking. Not even a little. They have their own theme song ... of which I secretly want to download on iTunes if it's available.
*********************
Must-See Photo, pt. 3
Just one more view of the LeBron-mobile: the trunk. This thing is truly amazing.
YesBest Site Of The Day
As Jimmy Traina mentioned in yesterday's Hot Clicks, LeBronToTheMavs.com may be one of the coolest LeBron sites out there. And he's not joking. Not even a little. They have their own theme song ... of which I secretly want to download on iTunes if it's available.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
