Summer of Bron

Alright, so the NBA have this rule that team owners/GM/coaches can't publicly comment on chasing free agents before they're eligible for free agency, meaning the Lakers GM can't say "when Yao's contract is up, I'll see if I can get him to join the Lakers. Even though he's overrated and is slow, he'll raise interest among LA's Chinese community" (The last part of the sentence is 100% true, although Mitch Kupchak won't really say it in public).

Anyway, I was just reading ESPN insider and there's actually a story back in September about The Blueprint 3.

In the track Empire State of Mind, Jay raps a verse:

"if Jeezy's paying Lebron, I'm paying Dwyane Wade"

Lebron and D Wade are the two top prized free agent this coming summer. These two, along with a bunch of other people like Bosh, Dirk, Yao and Amare and even Kobe (if he were to opt out) guarantees 2010 to be the wildest offseason in league history.

For the past few years, the city of Cleveland has lived in fear knowing the rumor that Lebron will jump to NYC in 2010. You see, Lebron is ambitious (perhaps too ambitious for a basketball player)--he don't wanna just play ball. He wants to be a "global icon". He wants to run businesses, appear in movies, he wants to be at events, he wants to dominate the media. Obviously, NYC is one of the, if not the best place in the world for that.

Cleveland is a city with a crappy sports legacy. They haven't won a major sports championship in eons and everytime they come close they suffer a string of bad luck and heartbreaks (most notably in 1989 when Jordan ripped the heart out of the city), Lebron is their only ray of hope. How important is Bron? When he wears a NY Yankees cap that becomes a news story in Cleveland. When Lebron said he didn't like a Cleveland football player, that guy got traded in a few days.

So yeah, the possibility of Lebron leaving Cleveland for NYC has NYC sports fan giddy and Cleveland sports fans worrying on a daily basis. And as July 2010 approaches the tension is just gonna build. It's long been rumored that Bron's gonna go to the Brooklyn Nets, where Jay Z is part owner.

ESPN actually reported that may be considering tampering on Jay Z's part, since he's part owner and he's talking about going after Wade in the free agent as well.

2010 is known as the Summer of Lebron among sports fan. It's a summer we've been hearing about since 2006. Cleveland has been preparing to go all out to not lose Lebron since 2006. Four years in the making.