As for LeBron, his visit Thursday will be met with affection from former teammates, appreciation from Heat management, but also a reminder of the questions that the Heat had difficulty reconciling in the aftermath, the questions that led Pat Riley to tell ESPN's Dan Le Batard in October that he will forgive him eventually (but not yet).
It’s not a question of why LeBron left --- Heat officials understand his affinity for his hometown, his desire to be liked by people, his concerns about the Heat roster --- but more so, why he handled his departure the way that he did.
The Heat, consistently classy, hasn’t uttered a disparaging public word about LeBron and will honor him with a video on Thursday.
But what has become clear in conversations since LeBron’s exit is that several Heat people strongly suspect LeBron knew all along that he would be leaving for Cleveland, certainly before he summoned Riley to fly across the country to meet with him in Las Vegas (where James was hosting his annual Nike camp), a day before he crafted his “I’m Coming Home” essay with Sports Illustrated’s
Lee Jenkins.
LeBron’s people say that is not the case. But James could have easily had that session with Riley in Miami days earlier, and the natural Heat suspicion is that there was nothing Riley could have said that would reverse James’ decision that was announced less than 48 hours after that Las Vegas meeting.
What bothered the Heat was this: If LeBron had let Riley know sooner, Riley could have made a legitimate run at Carmelo Anthony, Marcin Gortat, Kyle Lowry and other free agents. Instead, most of the top names were off the board when James informed the Heat.
Inside the Heat, there is the belief that how James handled this was driven by the desire to do what helped him best from a PR standpoint. The universally-praised SI essay achieved that.
There was also the issue of how James treated Riley during free agency. Riley said James never returned his calls and e-mails. Couldn’t James have told Riley something, anything?
There are also questions inside the Heat about whether power played a role in LeBron’s departure. As one Heat employee said, Cleveland gave him everything he wanted.
The Heat didn't give LeBron’s entourage as many season-tickets as he sought (as ESPN has reported) or attractive seats across from the Heat bench or the extent of personnel control that Cleveland granted by allowing him to dictate roster moves (
James Jones, Mike Miller, etc.).
And according to a league (non-Heat) source, when the Heat tried to hire
Randy Mims, LeBron’s personal assistant, after James signed with the Heat, the Cavaliers complained to the league, claiming it was a circumvention of the salary cap, and thus torpedoing the hire.
So it’s ironic that Cleveland hired Mims this season as an “executive administrator/player programs and logistics.”
Riley told Le Batard that he asked LeBron if there was anything the Heat could have done differently. "He told me personally no," Riley said, adding that when James informed him of his decision, it "devastated me."
Read more here:
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Heat nation is crumbling before our very eyes
I dodged that bullet
Wtf happen to ur guys breh?
