Words that haunt

Tweet from Miami Herald sportswriter Greg Cote:

gregcote Greg Cote

1. Don't blame LeBron. 2. Don't panic. 3. #Heat will win next two at home and win NBA title. If you'd lend me some money, I'd bet on it..

9 Jun

South Florida just became the mecca of basketball

by GREG COTE, gcote@MiamiHerald.com
The Miami Herald
Thursday, July 8, 2010

We are the kingdom now.

Miami is the capital of basketball.

South Florida is the epicenter of American sports.

It became so by royal decree at 9:27 p.m. Eastern time, July 8, 2010.

That is the moment when LeBron James -- audacious enough to call himself King and so great the dissenters are few -- chose the Miami Heat as his new basketball team over all other suitors in this landscape-quaking summer of NBA free agency.

We had been told for more than a week to expect it.

It was still stunning.

He did it with bombastic excess, live on ESPN, in a narcissistic, ego-feeding, ridiculous hour-long television special augustly entitled ''The Decision.'' It was the perfect gruesome marriage of the most self-serving, self-promoting network in history and a mega-superstar in the mood to rapaciously celebrate the man in the mirror.

Many people elsewhere in the country surely thought Thursday night's show was crass, unduly mean to the poor, jilted people of Cleveland, somehow just not right.

I must tell you, though: Down here, Heat fans sort of liked it!

Here in South Florida we weren't hearing the rest of the country's muttering complaint because were too busy blowing car horns, high-fiving strangers, doing shots to our unfathomably great luck, saying, "Can you [bleep]ing believe it!?" and making sounds like this: WOOOOOOOOOOO!

As for Cavaliers fans feeling angry and betrayed? Get over it, mi amigos. Players leave. Ever heard the phrase, ''greener pastures''? Besides, when Column A is Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh and living on South Beach and Column B is far less a supporting cast and living in Cleveland, well, let's just say Mensa membership is not required to reach the conclusion James did.

Speaking of things coming back to haunt you, I have a feeling that Lebron James will be taking some heat in the coming days for these words. Translation? "I'm very rich and famous and you all are not."

At the end of the day, all the people that was rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems they had today. I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that. They can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal, but they have to get back to the real world at some point.