It's time to let go of bitterness

Some people say I'm bitter.
They're right.
But I have good reason.
It's hard for anyone who has not been a lifelong fan of Cleveland professional sports teams to fully understand my bitterness toward LeBron James, and the Miami Heat by extension.
Sure, there are individual fan bases that have suffered longer individual droughts — sorry, Cubs fans — but no city has had more torture than the one that was once most famous for the Cuyahoga River catching fire.
Cleveland has teams in the National Basketball Association, National Football League and Major League Baseball and has not won a championship in any of the three in nearly 50 years.
The Cavaliers, formed in 1970, have never won a title. The Indians’ last World Series win came in 1948, the year my father was born. And the Browns, who won the city’s last championship in 1964, have never even played in a Super Bowl.
What’s even more frustrating is that Cleveland teams have been on the receiving end of some of the more gut-wrenching losses over the course of the last 25 years — The Drive, The Fumble, The Shot and an 11-inning loss in game seven of the 1997 World Series.
James was supposed to be the superstar who would change Cleveland’s long run of misfortune.
He was from Northeast Ohio, having grown up in Akron. And he looked forward to playing the role of hero.
“I got a goal, and that’s to bring an NBA championship to Cleveland. And I won’t stop until I get it,” he said in a quote that has since been immortalized on a T-shirt on which James is referred to as “The Lyin’ King.”
That’s why it hurt me — and all Cavalier fans — so deeply when James took his talents to South Beach.
Although I had heard all the reports that James had chosen Miami, I had convinced myself that it was just a smokescreen. There was no way, I thought, that he would dump an entire city on national television.
Clearly, I was wrong.
But as much as I despise the way LeBron left, some of the criticism he has taken throughout his career has just been unfair. And I’ve been placed in the awkward position of defending a player I quite clearly dislike.
There certainly have been big games in which he hasn’t performed at his best. And there have also been times when he has missed the potential game-winning shot.
But he has also had more than his share of great moments.
James hit a miracle game-winning 3-pointer at the buzzer in the 2010 conference finals after Hedo Turkoglu had put the Orlando Magic ahead with just one second remaining. He scored 29 of the Cavaliers’ final 30 points in a double-overtime win over Detroit during the 2007 Eastern Conference Finals.
He went on to carry that not-so-stellar 2007 Cleveland squad to the NBA Finals.
LeBron is the best player in the game. It's a joke that he didn't win the MVP last season, just as it was a joke when Michael Jordan lost out in the MVP voting (twice) to Karl Malone.
He has all the tools to be the best player in NBA history. He’s averaging a playoff-best 30.5 points per game to go along with 9.7 rebounds and 5.3 assists. And now, with a 3-1 lead over the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA Finals, it looks as if he is going to win his first championship.
So, it’s seems like it’s time to bury my bitterness. I'm not happy, but I'm going to try to let it go. Jealously is not an attractive look on anyone.
I won't begrudge LeBron his ring. He earned it.
I just wish he had earned it in Cleveland.[[In-content Ad]]