Bryan_Gattozzi

LeBron’s Last Game? | May 13, 2010

LeBron James may be playing his last game for the Cleveland Cavaliers tonight.  If the Cavs fall to the Celtics I’m not holding a grudge at LeBron.  Pack up to the Chicago Bulls, New York Knicks, or wherever.  You’ve had seven seasons to make it work here.  Happy trails.

I’ll also never watch a Cavs game again.  Wont take my nephew to the Q for his birthday.  So Dan Gilbert has that to think about.

The Cavs are listed by Forbes as the 5th most valuable franchise in the NBA.

Yet Gilbert is highly leveraged, with a Debt / Value ratio of 42%.  To make things worse, if the Cavs don’t make it to the NBA Finals the team will LOSE money this year.

The potential economic impact on the franchise and city is hyper-intense.  If LeBron leaves?  Fire up the Doomsday Machine.

The final relevant NBA game involving Cleveland may be played in about 3 hours.  Downtown businesses relying on the Cavs to push them through the lean winter: cross your fingers.

I’ve written here about the danger of nostalgia for businesses and sports fans.  It took a lot for me to grow and realize the 1986 Browns just weren’t good enough.  The 1995 Indians just weren’t good enough.  It didn’t matter if Skinner sent Lofton, the 2007 Indians were going to lose to Boston anyway.

Perhaps the 2010 Cavs just aren’t good enough either.  Instead of thinking about tonight’s game with doom I remembered this–

Without laughter we die.

A huge concern for late adopters of social networking, or non-adopters for that matter, is that Twitter and Facebook are distraction comedy for teenagers.  Someone who’s paid a mortgage since 1964, a home presently worth its 1986 value, has every reason to be skeptical.

They were sold on the following life path:

Survive through college / wartime.  Find a job.  Get married.  Have a few kids.  Raise them.  Send them to college.  Work some more.  Spoil grandkids.  Retire.

This American archetype, of course, does not account for the Vietnam War, the 1970s oil shocks, Carter’s recession, Volcker’s monetary policy, Reagan’s faux militarization of space, or any other potential macroeconomic shift that can kink a hard working American family into monetary trouble.

When LeBron came to town Cleveland fans expected something simpler:

LeBron arrives.  We win titles.

This generalization didn’t account for Carlos Boozer’s handshake deal with Jim Paxson, the overachieving 2007 Cavs, Andy Varejao’s holdout, Hedo Turkoglu playing like Jerry West, Shaq’s broken finger, Mo Williams forgetting how to score, or LeBron’s mysterious elbow injury.

In life and business, the thing you can’t see will get you.  One way to get over it is to tastefully laugh.

The subtext of Twitter hatred, in a business sense, is that social media marketing is nothing more than anecdotal silliness.

Well, that’s kind of the point.  My anxiety this afternoon is calmed by checking in on one my favorite Tweeps: LeBron’s elbow which is clearly not written by LeBron’s elbow–but a tech savvy kid who knows about the relationship between humor and commerce.

I imagine the Twitterer responsible for comedy gems like “BTW I feel fine today.  Nobody has shocked, rubbed or drugged me for awhile so I’m feeling less n less like Courtney Love everyday” will enjoy the game tonight with friends, owns a few Cavs t-shirts, likes to watch the game at the bar, all things good for the economy (and the Cavs).

I doubt Dan Gilbert has this Twitterer on his payroll, but he should.  The 2010-11 Cavs could be a comedy troupe.

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