Just imagine that you are looking for a new job.  You are fairly accomplished at what you do, so you are in a position to make demands on a potential employer. Some of those demands include the employer coming to a place of your choosing for the interview (or presentation)  followed by your announcement of who you will be working for on live TV.

Sound absurd?  Not by NBA standards it isn't.

The entire LeBron James circus is bad for sports, bad for teams and bad for everybody.  James' shows a total lack of respect for the teams that are courting him by having made them come to Cleveland when he should have appeared at their facility as a show of respect for them.  Then, to secure prime time on ESPN to make the announcement, like some lottery drawing is the icing on the top of the narcissistic cake.  And yet the teams and the four letter networks enable this guy because he has game.

How sad is it to be an NBA fan?  How sad is it to root for a league where there is only "I" in "team", where the players egos are as bloated as their salaries and where becoming a champion is less relevant that jerking everybody around.

This is madness.  No player should behave this way or be enabled by teams in the league to behave this way.  Meeting with a player or agent at the local airport has long been the accepted practice.  The player coming to town, touring the practice facilities, seeing the city, that's always been an acceptable practice.  But the player calling all the shots, that should never happen.

And the worst thing of all is right up to the minute "I'm going back to Cleveland" comes out of his mouth Thursday night as he's being given fellatio by Stu Scott is that all of the teams involved will remain optimistic publicly, saying they are still hopeful only because they hope the suckers will buy season tickets in advance of the announcement and those with season tickets will upgrade or at very least, keep what they have.

Everyday, it becomes clearer to me that some of these athletes really don't give a rat's ass about winning, it's about the Benjamins and the respect.  We gotta have respect.  I have no respect for a player who insists on making the whole free agent process their own personal puppet show.  And I have even less respect for the puppets.

I hope all teams and all leagues take note of this charade and don't fall into the trap again.  If recruiting a player involves a publicly scrutinized trip to another city, you absolutely do not need this player.  Because in the end, it's not about you.  It's about him.  And players like that don't win.