Posted by Travis Rodgers on Jul 9, 2010

LeBron Follows, Never Leads #NBA

Lebron James is a once in a generation talent. He can do things on a basketball floor that have never been done before. A completely unique combination of size, speed and skill.

But whatever skills he has physically, he is missing them mentally. He lacks character. He lacks vision, and perhaps more than anything else, he lacks leadership.

Leadership on the court to be sure. A leader, an NBA alpha dog, would never agree to go be a part of another man’s team. That’s Wade’s team. Always will be, no matter how many SportsCenter moments James has in Miami. Wade is a champion, Lebron is a sidekick. The best Scottie Pippen you have ever seen. Would Larry Bird have signed with the Lakers?

But his lack of leadership off the court is even more glaring. How did it get to this point? For a guy that wanted to be known for his business acumen, (HA!) how could he be so dumb? Did he take a nap when he was visiting Omaha to meet with Warren Buffet? Did he even go, or did he just say he was going so it would look good? Would he even know Buffet from a Hometown Buffet? Just another brick in the LeBron facade.

If he is his own man, like he claims to be, how did he ever sign off on that debacle last night? How did he ever agree to a format that would take him from one of the country’s most popular, well liked athlete, to a guy who is sharing space with the post-November 2009, Tiger Woods? The second he agreed to sit down for one hour TV show, he ran out of attractive options. No matter which team he chose, he was going to look bad. And boy did he look bad.

A bullet proof brand is now the sports equivalent of BP. During the show, when they finally got around to showing James, he looked ridiculously tense and uncomfortable. Even the children he and his team used as human shields didn’t help. He looked like he wanted to run out of the room and hide. He knew it looked horrible and that it was only going to get worse.

And then he started talking.

How did it get to that point? How did he never say, “Hold on. This is my life we’re talking about. You want me to go on TV and screw my hometown? Stick the knife in their backs in front of millions? That’s the pitch? For what? So everyone can hate me? So I can never go home again? OK, you are fired, you are fired, and you are fired. I don’t care if we were friends in 10th grade history, you’re an idiot and that is the worst idea since Kobe ordered room service.”

A leader would have done that. A man would have done that. Someone with even a basic level of self-awareness and human decency would have done that.

Instead, LeBron James is ‘taking his talents to South Beach’. For his sake, I hope the people advising him on his career are not the same ones who are managing his money. If they are, "The Decision" is going to just be a pre-quel to "The Auction".

Phil Knight needs to stage an intervention. Let the professional marketers make these calls, not the guys who he used to skip class with.