No athlete in history who has won no championships at either the college or professional level has ever received the hype Lebron James has gotten in the last couple of months as basketball fans waited with baited breath to see who would win the King James sweepstakes.   Would it be Cleveland, Chicago, N.Y., L.A., or would it be Miami?   In the end, Lebron chose to go play with two of his best basketball buddies,  Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade near South Beach.    That ole wily  U.K. Wildcat Pat Riley is one persuasive salesman. 

But let us consider for a moment the reasoning that went into this decision.  Lebron tonight said repeatedly he wanted to go to a place where he had a chance to win a championship right away, him being the grand old age of 25 now.   Of course Clevelanders will rightly say he already had that in Cleveland as was demonstrated in 2007 when he got to the finals. 

But also right at the bottom of the bottom line according to Lebron is that he wanted to go somewhere that would make him happy—- it was all about him being happy.  Now this is not an unexpected thing.  In America we often glibly tell people including our own children ‘do whatever makes you happy’.  But frankly that’s a pretty narcissistic criteria, don’t you think?   

It differs from ‘do what’s best for all those who are most important in your life’ or ‘do what’s best for your (existing) team’  or ‘do the right thing’.  Doing what will make me happy, as it turns out is not necessarily the same thing as doing the right thing. And this decision will only prompt more headlines like the one recently see in N.Y.— ‘the Ego had landed’. 

I realize that we are just talking a basketball player playing a game,  but when you consider what this decision will do to the already iffy economy of the Cleveland area, then you begin to realize that Lebron knows that it was not just all about him being happy or him winning championships.  There were a lot of so called ‘little’ people depending on Lebron to stay at home and make it work. And I feel very badly for Cleveland about now, especially since I used to live in northeast Ohio for 11 years.  Cleveland sure didn’t need this, what with their Browns suffering another brown out, and their Indians getting scalped night after night.  Its not good when a city loses something that gives them a sense of hope.

But at the end of the day, I can’t entirely blame Lebron. He is younger than my youngest child, and he is surrounded by family and friends for whom he is the meal ticket, so of course they want to keep him happy.  And our me-first culture already gave him the all clear to ‘do whatever makes you happy’.

But this turn of events gives a moment to pause and think about the narcissistic American mantra— ‘do what makes you happy’.   All too often that mantra is just an excuse to do the selfish and self-centered thing.   As a Christian I am trying to imagine Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane praying fervently to his Father ‘let this cup pass’ and hearing the response from God– ‘do whatever makes you happy’.    Yes, I know King James is not Jesus, and his mission in life doesn’t even compare to that of Jesus.  But guess what—– Lebron said he spent no little time consulting ‘the Man Upstairs’!    I wonder, more than a little how hard Lebron listened when he prayed.   Did God really say—- ‘do what makes you happy, head south’?    I doubt it.  

And having made this decision now the pressure is really on.  Lebron has put his head in a Miami vice. What happens if in the next several years Lebron and company do not win a championship?  He knows perfectly well that basketball is a team sport.  And many factors  (e.g. injuries) and players go into making a championship season.  I hope he will not be repeating Michael Jordan’s Hall of Fame flippant response to Dean Smith— ‘there may be no ‘I’ in team, but there is one in ‘win’.’  

I like Lebron James, and I enjoy watching him play basketball, but I agree with the commentators who said that in terms of team and team chemistry and championship possibilities, he might have done better to go to Chicago if he wasn’t staying put.    Will there really be a basketball big enough for Bosh, James and Wade all to share, not merely with each other but always with two other players on their team?  It seems clear to me there will have to be some major compromises, and someone is going to be a little frustrated at crunch time when you have at least two ‘go to guys’  Wade and James.

In the King James version of a familiar Pauline letter there is a piece of advice I wish Lebron had heeded—- ‘godliness with contentment is great gain’.   But now is the season of Lebron’s discontent, as he itches for an NBA crown.  What happens if no crown comes?  Then my friends we may repeat the famous words ‘the saddest words of tongue or pen, what might have been, what might have been’.