Sports fans around the world can be the most loving, enthusiastic, and just plain fun people to be around, if you and a certain person or people share the same deep compassion for a specific team. But, they can also be some of the most idiotic, obnoxious, egotistical people to be by. I guess it all depends on how their team is doing, and how much alcohol the fan has ingested in the last 24 hours. But what happens if the star player happens to use performance-enhancing drugs, or commits adultery more than once, or just packs up his/her bags and leaves the city? How do those same fans react?
With the great honor of being from the beautiful state of Ohio, I have personally had my fair share of watching professional athletes rise to success while gaining thousands of fans a day; I have also been able to see how a city, or state can completely turn against arguably one of the best basketball players to ever play the game. While sitting around conversing with friends it is inevitable to have a conversation related to sports without hearing some type of crude vulgar directed towards Lebron James, from the same people who once adored everything Lebron stood for. Many people from Ohio feel that Lebron turned his back on his home state. But, why? It was simply coincidence that Lebron was drafted to play for the Cleveland Cavaliers, and during his time with Cleveland he was a multiple time league MVP, and took a below average team to the NBA play-offs and championship, but fell short every year of winning a ring. After falling short of the championship nearly seven years in a row Lebron decided to move from Cleveland, Ohio to Miami, Florida and to play the game with Olympic teammates Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh, rather than his old sub par players Mo Williams and Delonte West. Who would not want to make that move? But nothing matters to the basketball fans of Cleveland. They will always feel like their city was not good enough for King James, when in fact they just simply were not. Lebron James, like any other athlete wants to be the best player on the best team in the country, there is no way he could have had both in Cleveland. So while Lebron James “haters” around the world will never give him the respect they once did, they will have to watch Cleveland be the laughing stalk of professional basketball, while Lebron James and the Miami Heat compete for a NBA Championship.
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