With 10 days to go before NBA free agency, LeBron James must know he has a comfort zone here that can't be matched, sports columnist Bud Shaw writes.
For his first seven years in the NBA, LeBron James has been wrapped in the supportive and understanding cheers of his Northeast Ohio neighbors. Bud Shaw wonders if James really wants to leave that warm embrace for an NBA city certain to be more demanding.CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Deep down, LeBron James knows he isn't wired like Kobe Bryant.
He doesn't take losing as personally. Winning is important to him. It's just not an obsession. Inside the locker room where championships are forged, James prefers the role of good cop almost exclusively.
(Don't tell me what we saw in the playoffs was all about his elbow. Something of significance changed the team dynamics during the Boston series. Whatever it was drove James underground instead of driving him to the bully pulpit.)
Jeff Van Gundy's take on Bryant during the NBA Finals was instructive for fans of James as well.
"Your best player can't be your best-liked player," Van Gundy said, meaning being Kobe has often meant getting in teammates' faces during practices and games.
In seven years, there's been precious little not to like about James as a player and a teammate. So he hasn't heard much criticism from outside and especially from within.
With 10 days remaining before NBA free agency -- did you hear, by the way, that James is going to be a free agent? -- the comfort zone James enjoys here is still the No. 1 reason to expect him to re-sign with the Cavaliers after all his suitors get to pitch their woo.
I don't see him taking on great and immediate expectations somewhere else. He hasn't shown he's ready for it. Maybe in three years when he'll still be only 28. Just not right now.
Not when he can continue to strive here at his own pace in front of friends and family with hardly any condemnation for falling short. Not when his reaction to questions about bad games in the Boston series was to say he'd spoiled people. Not when he says that losing makes him feel badly for himself.
He can't be that oblivious. So let's call it immaturity. At any rate, how do you think that would've gone over in New York? James must know there are strings attached to all the adulation coming his way from big-market dreamers in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.
No offense, but people here have been settling for less than a championship for so many years that it's become second nature. We're easy.
After the initial shock over how things went south against Boston, the bigger picture of James' importance to the city came into view a lot more quickly than it would in any other place he can think to play.
Chicago? He's immediately be doomed to fall short of Michael Jordan's legacy while playing for an owner that hasn't spent like Dan Gilbert has spent.
On Broadway, he'd get a honeymoon season before every mistake, shortcoming and hastily-spoken word becomes tabloid fodder. He could call A-Rod for verification.
With free agency approaching, he'll hear professions of undying affection in those places, in Miami, north Jersey, everywhere he turns. Here, there's a difference. People really mean it. Here, it's not fickle, despite Jim Brown's take on it. Here, it's not even contingent on winning a title.
Look at all the love the Browns get despite their prolonged futility. It's the most one-sided relationship this side of Sandra Bullock-Jesse James.
The other James, LeBron, knows what he has here. An unmatched comfort zone. The way he's wired, I think he stays. I could be wrong. He could leave.
It's his mistake to make.