The Sound of the Suburbs

The hype peaked.

The wait ended.

Months of anticipation for one of the most hyped events in basketball history.

Yes, tonight at last, Zydrunas Ilgauskas returned to Cleveland after jilting his longtime home by fleeing to South Beach and the sunny climes of Miami. The Bastard.

In an a major upset, Z, as he is known to Costas Gavras fans far and wide, returned to the Quicken Loan Center (oxymoron?) to distinctive indifference. His stat line was unimpressive despite a nice block early on, but otherwise it was a non-event.

On the other hand, No. 6 on Miami, one LeBron James, who also left the Cavaliers as a free agent, was greeted by a shower of vitriol unseen since Kevin McHale clotheslined Kurt Rambis decades ago at the Fab Forum.

Mr. James, the swine, who is about as old as a pair of my shoes, had the unmitigated gall to leave Cleveland for Miami (again, sunshine and the home of Iggy Pop) to play pro basketball with some guys named Bosh, Wade and Riley.

The nerve.

Sports is what deluded fans refer to as entertainment, forgetting a) the business equation and b) in the case of James, a test of the competitive spirit. LeBron, straight outta Akron high school where he reached the pinnacle, had the gall to decide that he was tired of watching Kobe Bryant collect championship rings like oil changes, and wanted to play with a better class of teammates.

Again, what an SOB.

He gave it his all for years, waiting for his Scottie Pippen, and he wound up with Antawn Jamison.

A bit short, in other words.

So he fled to Miami with his All-Star friends DW and CB. Because he wants to WIN.

You see, Cleveland sports fans (reminder: fans is short for "fanatics"), superior athletes of character want to win. They don't care where they go they simply want to achieve the pinnacle of success. Examples: Kevin Garnett, Alex Rodriguez, Brett Favre, etc (alright, probably shouldn't put A-Rod and "character" in the same sentence).

And after tonight, it's clear that the Cavs should replace their embarassing rap-backed opening video with The Eagles' "Get Over It."

To paraphrase Elvis Presley, he came, he saw, he played his heart out, and he left.

And who the F wouldn't have.

Times are tough. The economy is bad. Cleveland fans grew accustomed to LBJ performing at the zenith night in and out, and they were understandably pained by his departure.

But really Cav faithful, go look in the mirror. If you are a competitor, do you want to keep losing? Do you want to be the sole cog in the machine that works flawlessly without relief or assistance, carrying the weight till your back breaks despite the hefty remuneration? If any of you were offered a far better chance to succeed in business and/or life, would you not take it? Of course you would. That's called human nature and life in a free, capitalistic country.

I hope you bitter clowns all wake up in the morning glad to be alive and cherishing what's around the corner. The past is gone and always will be. And bottom line: It's A GAME!

The bile James and the Heat have generated is an embarassment to America. You want socialism? Go get Barack Hussein Obama to play small forward. I hear he can only go to his left.

Now the rest of the NBA will loathe you even more since you enabled LBJ and Co. to play their best game of the year and get their groove on. Tonight made a varsity-JV scrimmage look close.

Cleveland, as Dr. Jack Ramsay pointed out in his radio analysis, has no players who can get their own shot off. None. They are a group of earnest role players, none of whom could start for an elite team in the league. Mo Williams has disappeared in the playoffs since arriving. Jamison is a journeyman who couldn't crack the Lakers rotation. Anderson Varejao hustles to make up for his lack of ability much like Ben Wallace. Daniel Gibson had one game of note v. Detroit in the playoffs years ago. Sorry, they're all losers.

And James knew it. Hell, he should have left years ago. But like KG he gave it a good long shot. And got nothing.

LeBron in Cleveland was like Chuck Berry pulling into town and picking up a bar band for a gig, his brilliance outshining their mediocrity. And now he has surrounded himself with an NBA champ in Wade, a perennial All-Star in Bosh, and a winner like Riley. Good for him.

As for the way LBJ "handled" the move, so f-ing what? The NBA is a league of individual stars. Ever watched All-Star Weekend? The Three-Point Shootout? The Dunk Contest? This game was built and marketed on Stars, and makes no bones about it.

Yeah, it's a team game and teams win it all, but you need a great team to get to the big dance and that's what James did. And so what if he had an ESPN special at a dead time to announce his move? He's a superstar. ESPN and America wouldn't have had it any other way. Plus he raised, what, 5M for the Boys and Girls Club. So that makes him a villain? PLEASE!

I'm not even a fan of his or Miami's, but he did what any of us would have done in his shoes. Good for him.

Still, I am personally aggrieved by the lack of vitriol directed at Z by Cavs fans. I mean, don't you just know no media gathered around his post-game locker tonight?! Racist ... joke.

And Cleveland fans shouting obscenities at their former idol? Declasse to the max. What great father/son bonding that must have been.

Get lost, Cavalier fans. And get a life while you're at it.