What did we do before LeBron James got here in 2003? Did we even exist before the Cavaliers became an NBA franchise in 1970?

Were we actually incorporated as a city before the 18-year-old James dribbled a basketball ball up I-77 from Akron and promised to light us up like Las Vegas?

Did we have a history worth mentioning before he performed a "triple double" and turned legions into fawning sports idolaters?

Over the weekend, I turned off my television. I couldn't take any more. I felt as if I had become part of a "Twilight Zone" episode.

First there was all the shameless begging and singing. But then he left, and the groveling was replaced with anger and threats and tears.

The emotionally wounded and latent arsonists quickly came to dominate a dark conversation about James and his alleged treachery, cowardice, even slavery.

It all seemed like a sick joke.

But just when I thought that this spectacle couldn't get any more infantile, Jesse Jackson weighed in over the weekend with perhaps the worst race-baiting sermon he has ever delivered. It came straight from the septic tank.

He reduced James' free-agent defection to Miami, and owner Dan Gilbert's over-the-top reaction, to that of the abomination of slavery. In the recesses of his time-warped mind, Jackson somehow found a way to suggest that Gilbert viewed James as a runaway slave.

Gilbert, in a shockingly immature moment, did call James a coward and a quitter among other things. His inflamed rhetoric allowed James, the very definition of narcissism, the luxury of pretending to take the high road.

But at no point did Gilbert imply that No. 23 was property or a runaway slave. It's Jackson who is stuck on the plantation.

Jesse Jackson is now nothing more than a feeble parody of himself. Neither his message nor his rhetoric has the power to move or even to inflame any but the most reactionary.

Ever since he whispered into an open campaign microphone in 2008 that he wanted to lynch then candidate Barack Obama by cutting off his testicles, Jackson has been completely exposed as nothing more than a horribly abscessed mouth.

He is light-years past the point where he should simply be seen and not heard.

But Jackson is nothing more than a distraction in this ongoing saga. The more interesting story is the free agent status of Zydrunas Ilgauskas and the misplaced loyalties and priorities of sports fans.

As for Z, who is said to be flirting with joining James in Miami, one can only wonder whether Gilbert will label him a "quitter" or a "coward" if he chooses to sign with Miami.

Don't hold your breath.

Ilgauskas, who gave the franchise 13 quality years, is one of the greatest Cavaliers ever. He played for us with broken feet when the team was no threat to anything but the cellar. He loved this town and the Cavalier franchise more than No. 23 did in his most affectionate days.

But now Z is over the hill. That's why Gilbert was willing to trade him midseason to the Washington Wizards in the effort to obtain the services of Antawn Jamison.

And that's why they'll let Z go again with a "thank you for your services" if he choose to go to Miami now.

It's only business.

And that's what we fans must come to understand. We're only extras on the set.

The professional game belongs to the owners, the players and the television networks. So don't take it personally when the "personnel" leave or are traded.

It's not about loyalty. That's only a convenient myth to keep you loyal.

It's only about business.