On LeBron James and the future of basketball in the Midwest

When LeBron James gave his infamous Decision special, I was in Morgantown West Virginia, working construction with my father during the summer between my sophomore and junior years of college. We were coming home from a late shift, when I mentioned to my dad that when we got home, I would need to briefly check ESPN to see where LeBron was going. We got home, I switched the TV to ESPN, and saw on the ticker that he was going to Miami.

That was pretty much it; I didn’t catch the rest of the show, and we didn’t have the internet, so there was no way for me to gauge the national reaction. I figured there was probably a lot of anger coming out of Cleveland, but it wasn’t until I came home two weeks later, and logged on for the first time in nearly a month that I realized: people were pissed about this.

Granted, I had seen some footage of burning jerseys while checking in on ESPN during those two weeks in West Virginia, but the scope of the outrage didn’t sink in until I was home. Everyone was mad. He was a pariah in Cleveland, but more importantly, pretty much every media outlet was pushing the narrative that he deserved to be a pariah. He was public enemy No. 1, and he faced a season of the rawest hatred we’ve ever seen in sports, getting booed whenever he touched the ball no matter what city he was playing in. As beloved as LeBron is now, it’s surreal to think about in retrospect, but hating this guy was practically a national pastime for about two years, only ending in 2012 when he won his first title with the Heat. It was only then that we all remembered LeBron James is a ridiculously fun basketball player, and the sport is a lot more fun when we admire his brilliance rather than direct our rage at him.

In the time since The Decision, the majority of basketball fans now consider the cruel treatment of LeBron to be a horrible mistake, because it was. It was a massive overreaction, it was racially charged, and it was based on the notion that LeBron owed any debt to the Cavaliers, to Cleveland, or to the NBA as a whole, when he clearly didn’t. He was a human being with the right to play where he wanted, and even if the optics of The Decision and the “not one, not two…” press conference were less than ideal, he still deserved a lot better.

But as bad as the LeBron backlash looks in retrospect, it’s worth considering why it hurt so much when he left town the first time. For a city that had endured decades of bleakness, particularly in the world of sports, he was a symbol of hope. He was an avatar for the whole city that represented a bright new world where the old pessimism was dead, and anything was possible. And then, he was gone, and it hurt like hell. I think we can simultaneously assert than LeBron James had the right to take his talents wherever we wanted to, while still empathizing with a grieving city and fanbase that was losing its brightest star.

When LeBron left Cleveland for the second time this summer, the vibe was a lot different, and a lot better. The most obvious reason was that in 2016, LeBron gave the city of Cleveland its first championship in 58 years when he led the Cavaliers to a 3-1 victory over the Warriors. Beyond the title, though, what’s different is that LeBron’s ties to Cleveland are permanent now. He’ll be a part of the community no matter where he’s playing, as his stunning effort in opening a school demonstrated. When people think of LeBron James, the first city they think of will always be Cleveland.

That being said, the departure of James to Los Angeles leave a bit of a void when considering the greater question of basketball stars in the Midwest. The vast majority of big stars play on the coasts, and in general, they play in larger markets, or at least that’s the long-held perception. Throughout his career, LeBron has been the perfect representation of working-class, Midwestern aesthetic. He was a poor kid who to put in a ton of work to reach greener pastures, and while his athletic gifts are astonishing, the most remarkable aspect of his play has been his physicality. There’s an undeniably blue-collar vibe to the way he drives his way to the basket with force over flash, often rendering the best defenders in the game useless. Everything about LeBron; his upbringing and his style of play, are representative of the underdog, which made him the perfect small market hero. Now that he’s in California, is there anyone the heartland can turn to?

The two most obvious candidates here are Giannis Antetokounmpo and Victor Oladipo, both of whom are emerging superstars in midwestern markets; the type of players who force ESPN and TNT to air games outside of New York and L.A. bebcause, well, they’re the type of players worth tuning in for. In the case of Giannis, his life story isn’t that different from LeBron’s. Both grew up with little money, and both have given hope to long-struggling franchises with their unique athleticism, and general basketball brilliance. If we’re being honest, it’s quite likely that Giannis being from Greece rather than middle America is probably why he doesn’t connect on the same level, at least not yet. LeBron didn’t just play for the home team; he grew up right down the street. Giannis is an immensely likable player, both in how joyous his game is, and what a genuinely nice guy he seems like off the court, but for reasons beyond his control, he may not be as relatable to his team’s fanbase (and the region surrounding it) as LeBron was.

For Oladipo, the connection is a bit more obvious. Fans in Indiana have a rabid love for the Hoosiers and the Pacers, and he’s the rare player who’s gotten to be both. Even more notably, after struggling through his first four seasons in Orlando and Oklahoma City, Oladipo immediately evolved into a stud once he returned to Indiana, making one of the most stunning single-year leaps in NBA history. It was as if returning to the basketball homeworld had somehow allowed Oladipo to unlock some skills that he hadn’t been able to harness before. Maybe it was just a coincidence, and the result getting to be the main option rather than simply getting Russell Westbrook’s crumbs, but it was an amazing story. The fact that it ended with him coming very close to eliminating LeBron’s Cavs in the first round made it even more incredible.

So, does Oladipo replace LeBron as the representative of heartland hoops? It’s not out of the question, but we may have to pump the breaks a little bit. Oladipo has only been a star for one season. We don’t know if he has a gear beyond this, or if this was his peak, and he’s due to regress. We also don’t know if he’s the type of franchise-defining star who can lead a team on a deep playoff run purely by himself, or if his destiny is as a second-or-third banana. Oladipo is a top-20 player in the NBA, but he’s a mortal compared to LeBron, and as great as last season’s narrative was, he might not be quite a great enough to player to represent an entire region.

This isn’t to say that without LeBron, midwest basketball is dead. High school hoops is beloved all through the heartland, and that won’t change anytime soon. But with LeBron gone, there’s no player who so thoroughly represents the region, and what it stands for quite as perfectly as LeBron did. Cleveland will be able to claim him forever, but for the rest of the region, there’s a massive hole in his absence, one that no other player may ever be able to fill.