ironyisadeadscene wrote:
michael jordan got bored, and left the bulls to play baseball. we all know how that went. and its funny, cause the united center was basically built cause he was a bull. they built it, and he left the season before it opened.
kobe bryant was traded because he refused to play for that organization, and orchestrated a trade to LA because thats the only place he would play.
yeah, he left on kinda shitty terms. but lebron has always been classy and kept his nose out of trouble. hes not leaving cause of money, he wants to win. ESPN came to him with this idea, he accepted and gave all the money from the event to charity.
Jordan's first retirement occurred because he was (and still is) a degenerate gambler. The NBA was not a fan of it, and there was significant pressure from David Stern for Jordan to retire, and step away from the game for a while so that Jordan's image and reputation would not be damaged. Jordan was not only an earner for himself, he made the league a LOT of money, and they wanted to protect their cash cow. It's no coincidence that the NBA was investigating Jordan's gambling, and stopped their investigation about 90 minutes after Jordan's press conference announcing his first retirement. He was convinced to retire, have the NBA stop the gambling investigation, and told to come back in a year or two once the heat was off.
When I mean about Jordan staying was that before the championships started, he had an opportunity to force a trade out of Chicago. The Bulls had lost to the Pistons 3 years running, and there were plenty of rumblings that he wanted out to actually win. He decided to stay, and look how that worked out.
Same thing for Kobe. Well after he was at LA (Yes, I know how he got there), when the Lakers were not winning, he was considering not resigning and moving somewhere else. He decided to stay, and it's worked out darn good.
Those Laker teams were worse than the recent Cavs teams, by far. The Cavs with LeBron were close, maybe a player or two away from getting over that hump. Again, I point to the Bulls who lost to the Pistons 3 years running, then ripped off 3 of their own championships. Instead of manning up and carrying his team over that hump, he ran to the 'easy' destination to play with another superstar. He pussed out.
LeBron may win some rings down there, but they won't mean nearly as much since he felt he had to go play with superstars to win instead of bringing his team up with him.