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LeBron James' decision to leave his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers for grander pastures was bound to have its reverberations in his native land of Akron, as well as the rest of the state of Ohio, yet doing so in the national stage and at such a popular medium like announcing his decision via a televised special for ESPN, turned him from local heel to a nation-wide villain.
Through the start of his tenure with the Miami Heat, James dealt with constant backlash from fans and at times the media, quickly seeing no option but to embrace that villain role and harness it in his play.
The newly-released book LeBron Inc by New York Times bestselling author and ESPN reporter Brian Windhorst showcases what the struggle was like for James in this excerpt from People Magazine.
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“I’ve kind of accepted this villain role everyone has placed on me,” he said that night. “I’m OK with it. I accept it.”
“But he wasn’t. The next day, after I’d written a story to this effect, Carter called me. He wanted to know why I’d written it. I told him it was because LeBron had said it himself. Carter said that he disagreed and that wasn’t what LeBron needed to be saying or feeling. He and Rich Paul approached LeBron and talked him down, and a few days later in L.A., LeBron took back his words. The root of all that was The Decision; he bore it every day for more than a year. It wasn’t until late 2011 that he came out of his fog, promising to get back to himself.
But he’s always carried the scar.”
James dealt with plenty of backlash not only for his decision to leave Cleveland, but how he chose to handle it. At the same time, it proved as a seminal moment in which he allowed for his brand to become much more than a small market darling, but fully bloomed into the face of the NBA after joining Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami.
