December 2, 2010 – Kevin Burke

Basketball fan or not, anyone with a pulse circled this date on the calendar the moment the NBA schedule was released. Tonight, the LeBron James-led Miami Heat take their talents to Cleveland to face the once LeBron-led Cavaliers. It will surely be interesting to see how it all shakes out as this is the most anticipated return to a former city that I can ever remember in all of sports.

The horse has been dead for quite some time now, so I’ll try not to beat it any more for both my sanity and yours, but let’s take a very quick look at how we got here. On July 7, LeBron exercised his right as a free agent and chose to leave Cleveland. From what I can gather, people are more upset with how he chose to say goodbye, rather than the choice itself. Naturally, I’m speaking of “The Decision.” The consensus is that if he communicated his intentions to the team quietly, and announced his choice discretely as well, all would’ve been forgiven. Then, some people actually think that just because LeBron happened to be born in the state of Ohio and the Cavaliers happen to play their home games in Ohio as well, he never should’ve left. To me, that’s merely a coincidence and I personally find that notion to be ridiculous as I have grown to believe that no matter how he went about choosing to leave the Cavs, we would still be where we are today.

But, enough of that. Revisiting all of that has become nauseating. So here we are. The game is tonight. What should we expect? Will he do his patented powder toss? Can we expect a certain sect of the crowd to cheer? Will anyone, who didn’t have a problem with LeBron leaving, show up tonight at The Q wearing a LeBron jersey, whether it be a #6 or #23?

I guess I’ll answer my own rhetorical questions. I think LeBron will do his patented powder toss and he’ll be heavily scrutinized for “rubbing it in.” The camera may pan to the crowd during the game and catch a few people cheering. It may also catch a few LeBron #23 jerseys, but definitely no #6 ones. I also expect those who cheer for LeBron, or who are donning his jersey, to be met with much opposition from everyone else around him/her who feels that LeBron somehow owed them something and stabbed them in the back.

That is why I put the over/under on fan ejections at 3.5. I’ll take the under and predict that there will be 3 ejections. There should probably be 10+ ejections, but security will be so busy that they won’t catch everything. Earlier in the week it was announced that there will be extra security at the game. I don’t know if that’s a 10% increase in security presence or a 200% increase. Either way, it’s probably not enough as I can see someone throwing something at LeBron when he’s seated on the bench. Let’s just hope it’s not a cup filled with anything.

I also expect LeBron to be booed mercilessly every time gets anywhere near the ball. And when he has the ball in his hands, forget about it. It will be so loud you won’t even be able to think.

I fully expect Cavs owner, Dan Gilbert to show his class once again. Who can forget his childish misguided letter that he wrote a few hours after LeBron’s decision? If that wasn’t enough, yesterday, it was reported by Yahoo! Sports that he just recently hired a law firm to investigate the circumstances leading up to James’ departure. Gilbert thinks that the Heat broke NBA tampering rules in their pursuit of James. ESPN reports that other members of Cavs brass tried to convince Gilbert not to go through with pursuing these charges, but he thinks it’s worth it even if the result is just a draft pick. It’s funny how he waited until now, when the Heat visit Cleveland, to launch this bright idea. The funny part about all of this is that Gilbert insists that he’s over it. He claims that he has moved on. Clearly he has missed his calling because this guy deserves his own sitcom. Gilbert will surely be courtside and I expect some Mark Cuban-esque behavior.

I almost forgot that there will actually be a game played. Fans get a 2 for 1. They’ll attend the circus and a game will break out. The way the Heat have played lately, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the Cavs win. If the opening game in Boston is any indication, the Heat don’t get out to great starts in hostile environments, making it tough to catch up. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that tonight will be hostile, as the Heat aren’t even announcing their travel itinerary to the media as they normally do for road games. However, I don’t expect the crowd to get to LeBron. I see him putting up a 20, 5 and 5 performance tonight.

Hopefully after they get tonight out of their systems, Cavs faithful will manage to continue on with their lives and find something constructive to do with their time.

The bigger question is will Cavs fans boo Zydrunas Ilgauskus?

If you’re looking for your everyday, predictable basketball talk, then go somewhere else, because Kevin Burke of The Kevin Burke Project brings provocative, thought provoking content about basketball as only he can. Kevin also hosts The Hoop Doctors weekly podcast show, which you can subscribe to for free on iTunes. Follow Kevin on Twitter and Facebook