The Different Reasons Why Lebron Left Cleveland for LA
If you have been living in America since July then by now you are aware that the basketball world has severly shifted with the move of NBA’s biggest star Lebron James from Cleveland, OH to Los Angles, CA. Even if you do not care about basketball or sports at all I am positive you are at least aware of who Lebron James is in some shape or fashion. But, if you don’t oh well, you are going to hear about it anyways. The big question about this move to LA by James is why? I mean other than the obvious reasons like, would you rather live in Cleveland or LA if you were a billion dollar entrepreneur basketball player? Duh LA where the rest of Hollywood and sunshine is. Seriously though, why did James make this move?
Here in this blog I will be examining the differences of takes that news networks took on this very question. From this little analysis we can probably get a feel for how the news networks feel about this move, possibly James as a person, and their opionion about why James left Cleveland.
I will start with USAToday’s article about “Why LeBron James chose the Los Angles Lakers in Free Agency?”
So, in this article USA today gives more of a true report about the move of James from Celeveland to Los Angles by simply stating the deal that was made between James and the Lakers. Also, listing his career achievements. They move into answering the question by using annonyms but very knowledgeable sources by stating, “Here are three reasons why LeBron James joined the Lakers, according to two people with knowledge of the negotiations. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because of the high-profile nature of the deal.” The reasons that were given were
- James made the best move for his family.
- James sees great championship potential in the Lakers young roster.
- James wants to be a part of a iconic franchise.
The general and use of pure facts in this article gives it an overal un bias report which I believe is due to the fact that it is a news network and not a specific sports news network.
When compared to a sports news cite like SBNation they have a much more opinioniated take on the reasons why James chose Los Angles. In their take, it feels a lot more of a hypothesis, and a little bit on the Lebron hating side of things.
For example, here is the opening statement of the article…
LeBron James left his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers, again, to fly cross-country to sunnier skies for a long-term contract with the Los Angeles Lakers. But James didn’t sign a popular two-year deal with an opt-out in Year 2, which would have given him the flexibility to leave elsewhere or re-sign at a pay raise in 2019.
Instead, he signed a four-year deal worth the $154 million maximum the Lakers could offer. That kind of deal reportedly was never on the table with Cavs’ owner Dan Gilbert and general manager Koby Altman.
In this opening, we can see as a reader that the writer refers back to the first time James left Cleveland to Miami which, if you are knowledgable about James career you would know that this is the move that people bring up as the reason why James could never be better than Michael Jordan becasue he joined forces with other all-stars in Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh.
The second part that I put in bold of the quote is also, another negative phrase that SBNation I believe uses to highlight that James never gave the Cavs a big commitment like he did with bigger franchises like Miami and Los Angles.
SBNation gives four reasons on why it is James chose Los Angles and they are..
- He Trust Magic Johnson.
- He Does Not Trust Dan Gilbert.
- He Wants to Live in LA.
- He Wants to Eventually Play With His Son.
I am mainly focused on the first two reasons that are given in this article because the word trust is repeated twice. Trust is a big word to use in this situation especially because it is something that James has actually never came out and said that he does or does not trust Johnson or Gilbert. I mean yes of course by him signing with the Lakers it is infering that James does trust the direction of the Lakers and Johnson. But, by saying he does not trust Gilbert is a complete guess and paints a picture that is a bit of everything but positive.
Overal, the feel of the article feels a bit negative towards James or at the very least opinionated, and again I feel it is expected because its a sports reporting cite, so they have a higher involvement in the story then USA today has in the situation.
