He needs to be loved more<\/a>. Cleveland and Akron can help with that. For all of his on-court achievements, LeBron is, at least from certain quarters, one of the most underappreciated and internet-hated superstars of the modern era.<\/p>\nSome of it comes from his own puzzling choices \u2014 why tease retirement by promising a surprise announcement, only to unveil a liquor brand partnership? At times, he speaks reflexively without thinking ahead \u2014 like when he said he doesn\u2019t enjoy playing in Memphis because of the poor quality of the hotels where the players stay, and that the Grizzlies should move to Nashville. Of course that didn\u2019t go over well. Memphis is a pillar of the civil rights movement, the city where sanitation workers bravely stood up for their dignity in 1968 and where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on a motel balcony after traveling to support them. LeBron was frustrated by the blowback, but Memphians and others have higher expectations of him.<\/p>\n
That said, much of the hate LeBron receives is just internet pettiness. His excellence as a player for 23 straight N.B.A. seasons means he has had the misfortune of being the face of the league in the complicated new media age. Thus, he\u2019s a constant target of attention, both good and bad. An easy mark in the cesspool corners of social media, with its nonstop trolling, memes and now fake content generated by artificial intelligence. The proliferation of low-quality sports yap \u2014 every third person has a podcast or a YouTube show \u2014 guarantees endless chatter about foibles and rumors and limited insight into character, emotional vulnerability and the mind. Our overall understanding of the most popular athletes, including LeBron, is not very deep.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think people fear and hate what they don\u2019t understand,\u201d Chris Dennis, who is from Akron and was an early confidant to LeBron and his family, told me. \u201cLike, how can this guy be like this for so long? He\u2019s never broken any rules. Never demanded a trade.\u201d<\/p>\n
Never any scandals. Married his high school sweetheart. Grew up without a father, raised three children who\u2019ve turned out well. A career with no major injuries. Built a business empire with close friends and little formal education. The first active N.B.A. player to become a billionaire. Still performing at a high level at age 41.<\/p>\n
A return to Cleveland \u2014 this would be his third stint with the Cavs \u2014 is a chance to be remembered beyond sports. And that is more important than it has been in a long while.<\/p>\n
We need inspirational leadership wherever we can find it, and urgently. We need counterweights to division, selfishness and meanness. There\u2019s a space for LeBron to occupy.<\/p>\n
Sports, and their most magnificent stars, have a special power to lift us out of our low spirits, to bring together human beings who might have nothing in common but their worship of a team. Look at what the Knicks\u2019 run to the N.B.A. championship has done for New York City.<\/p>\n
My proposal is simple. LeBron is a free agent. And the Cavs can certainly use him \u2014 they got swept by the Knicks in the Eastern Conference finals with a performance that can only be described as putrid. LeBron has championship pedigree and a mental toughness the current team lacks. Because of salary cap restrictions, the Cavs could offer him only a modest salary compared with the $52 million he made with the Lakers last season.<\/p>\n
Fortunately for LeBron, he is in a position to not let money deter the larger cause. Take next season\u2019s salary, whatever it is, and direct it to the LeBron James Family Foundation in Akron and whichever organizations in Cleveland are doing the best work improving the lives of kids in need. Make the final season of LeBron James\u2019s career not a typical farewell tour, but a showcase for so-called at-risk kids who grew up like him.<\/p>\n
What could be more meaningful and more beautiful than that?<\/p>\n
Through his foundation, LeBron already is doing what few athletes attempt: confronting structural inequality with a multilayered approach that addresses education (with his I Promise School), poverty, affordable housing, health care and job development all at once. Imagine a final basketball season in which the marketing campaign centers the often overlooked kids he cares about most. Showcase them at games, build events around their challenges and successes.<\/p>\n
The N.B.A. could get behind this, and so could LeBron\u2019s many sponsors. You don\u2019t have to do it for love, but there\u2019s nothing wrong with being loved for it. We all want to be loved for something.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t pretend to know what LeBron wants. But I believe career acknowledgment and adoration are not distant desires. LeBron is nearing the reflective end of his tenure as a basketball player. He continues to pile up accolades, the latest being crowned<\/a> Time\u2019s Athlete of the Century. He just took a European golf vacation with former Cavs teammates from their 2016 championship team, an experience they humorously shared on social platforms. LeBron is seen with his beard grown long, smoking cigars, drinking wine, cracking jokes, in a state of ease. Maybe that vacation was fate revealing itself.<\/p>\nLeBron will soon announce his next N.B.A. destination. What I know for sure is our kids, all of our kids, need examples to model.<\/p>\n
As Chris Dennis noted, \u201cWhen LeBron is here (in northeast Ohio), there is a totally different level of hope.\u201d<\/p>\n
LeBron has nothing more to prove athletically. Make next season bigger than basketball. Go to the Cavs for the kids. Do it for love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LeBron James doesn\u2019t have to listen to me. But he should play one final, magical season for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284185,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4567,1266,109037,1443,95929,9141,11815,9,11,1104,10,1758,10845],"class_list":["post-284184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-basketball","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-i-promise-school-akron","tag-james","tag-lebron","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-national-basketball-assn","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-new-york-news","tag-ohio","tag-wages-and-salaries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}