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…ESPN reports a “staggering” one in four Cleveland homes, a 26 share, were tuned in to watch LeBron’s decision the other night. The corollary, that three in four had better things to do, seemed to escape the sports network…(no, the city of Cleveland is not home to mass suicides or immolations today)…

…Bill Simmons impromptu mail bag post decision night is important and essential reading for any connoisseur of sports culture. At times it’s whiny and petty, other moments it’s ridiculous and myopic. But a few entries are genuinely touching. Allot of Cavalier fans are pained and embarrassed by the way LeBron quit in the playoffs and then staged a one hour event to ditch their town. The most poignant entry is from a dude who recounts 80 hour work weeks at a diner, trying to make ends meet, and looking to sports as an escape…

…an alternative? Sure. Athletes should be capped at 100k per annum, regardless of sport, and tickets for an event should top out at 25 bucks. Society should be grabbed by the scruff of the neck and told to prioritize and stop allocating so much money to those who are genetically gifted. And…

…and I lost you, right? We crave these 100 million dollar contracts and these “betrayals” and one hour specials and all the angst they bring. Look, it’s your damn money, your damn time. The money is dished out because stadiums are packed and television ratings are through the roof. I can’t comprehend a second rate human being like Chris Bosh (and talk about quitting - he’s lucky not one in a hundred in T O could appreciate how he packed it in after Christmas) makes hundred of millions while a living saint like yours truly just ate Kraft Dinner for breakfast. But modern North American society, with its emphasis on the superficial and the irrelevant, is our construct. It’s ours, we made it. Part of the rules dictate James and Bosh are free to leave their franchise after seven years. If people are really bothered they can pull the rug out on all the antics by withdrawing their attention and time. Will it happen? Will it?…

…I prefer to edge away from the histrionics (I’ll never watch basketball again! And I’m going to kill my mother!) and instead reflect on what LeBron’s decision reveals about him as an athlete. Flashback - the schoolyard bully picking the teams and putting all the best players on his side. My grade school actually had a dude like that and I went through years of playing on soccer teams that lost 67-0 in the course of a 15 minute recess. I didn’t think LeBron was that type of person…

…and I’m looking forward to laughing for close to a decade at the walking charade that is Chris Bosh. I don’t hate him, would not boo him, and don’t begrudge him his decision to leave Toronto. But where he chose to go, and with whom, well, that’s fair game. The fool believes he is a superstar now, and that championships are sure to follow. What will happen is that Bosh will be buried behind James and Wade in terms of attention and adulation. The three “ganging up” has robbed them of the possibility of ever being viewed as stars on the level of an Ali, a Jordan or a Lemieux. Further, the very act of clustering together raises the possibility that they may lack a certain royal jelly. The Heat will be the team everyone will want to beat and there are legitimate reasons to suspect they may be a very vulnerable collection of young men…

…if Ovechkin, Kovalchuk, Semin and Malkin all magically joined the Columbus Blue Jackets tomorrow, what would you have? Yep, a team poised for another first round exit…