What does an American understands about protocols, so he shouldn’t be lashed . Basketball star Lebron James broke royal protocol by putting his hands over Kate Middleton’s shoulder while taking photos with her and prince William at the NBA game between the Brooklyn Nets and the Cleveland Cavaliers last night. You should see the uncomfortable look on Kate’s face…. Americans are respecter of no protocol, lol
He is the most powerful force in the N.B.A., his prowess extending beyond, has bagged him four Most Valuable Player awards and the two championships, the endorsement deals and the merchandise sales.
In recent days, LeBron James even proved capable of slowing the frenzy of N.B.A. free agency to little more than a crawl, his options spread before him like an all-you-can-eat buffet at the Bellagio.
Owners want to pay him. Executives want to woo him. Rivals want to pair up with him.
And as the basketball-watching world prepared for the inevitable fallout from James’s meeting on Wednesday with Pat Riley, the president of the Miami Heat, the lessons from the week were already clear: James was in charge.
So the waiting continued. For teams, which have limited money to spread around and would prefer that James choose them. For many of James’s fellow free agents, who cannot reach deals until the biggest domino falls. For members of the news media, who are not an especially patient lot. And for fans, who scoured social media for the most microscopic of clues.
(Were those really moving vans outside James’s home in Miami? And what was he doing posting a photo on Instagram of his old pals from Akron, Ohio?)
Through it all, though, James remained as impassive as ever. On Wednesday, he made an appearance here at his annual
basketball camp for elite high school players — he even shot a few hoops himself — before departing for his meeting with Riley.
None of the participants made public comments afterward, letting the suspense build for a while longer.
While all this was playing out, the Cleveland Cavaliers were making moves in hopes of persuading James to return.
They were able to shed about $10 million in player payroll by engineering a three-team trade that involved the Nets and the Boston Celtics. The Cavaliers gave up a lot of assets for nothing but salary-cap space, enough to produce a contract that would pay James about $20.7 million next season — the most he can earn under league rules. It was one of the few deals that could get done, if only because it peripherally involved James.
It was a huge gamble by Cleveland and one that came at a cost. The Cavaliers agreed to send Sergey Karasev, a promising forward, to the Nets, and to give a future first-round pick to the
Celtics. But that was the price of business with the league’s top player on the open market. The notion that James might not return to Cleveland?
It was not something that fans wanted to
consider.
“There’s no way he’s going to rip our hearts out twice like this,” said Jason
Herron, a season-ticket holder and the general manager of an Akron-area car dealership. Herron, 40, recalled how James left the Cavaliers four years
ago, with a televised special that reduced Cleveland to abject despair.
Herron played a part by using a James jersey to start a bonfire outside a Cleveland bar. The footage spread quickly online, a symbol of the city’s fraught relationship with professional sports — and its instant animosity toward James.
Things change, of course. Herron said he spent Sunday on his computer monitoring the flight path of a plane belonging to the Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert.
“It was 85 degrees, the sun only comes out five times a year in Cleveland, and I’m inside watching Gilbert’s plane go to Miami,” he said. “It would be total redemption if LeBron came back.”
And total disappointment if he does not. By merely taking his time with his decision, and by having his agent, Rich Paul, meet with the Cavaliers last week, James had done enough to inspire hope for his return. Not that it was his fault, or that he deserved blame.
James does not owe anyone anything at this stage of his career, not when he has so much to offer. It was also worth noting that there were no guarantees in any
of this for Riley, a man whose championship credentials are nearly unrivaled.
Phil Jackson, the one person who might have something to say about that, was in his own bit of a holding pattern Wednesday as he awaited word from Carmelo Anthony about whether he would re-sign with the Knicks.
Here were two instances in which the players held all the power, a product of free agency and all the agita it can
produce. The trickle-down effect was enormous. Consider Chris Bosh, who was believed to be weighing a lucrative contract offer from the Houston Rockets but was waiting to see what James would do.
Consider, for that matter, the Rockets, who were most likely drafting several backup plans in case James opted
to return to Miami and brought Bosh back with him. James’s decision was even affecting the Memphis Grizzlies,
who had offered Mike Miller a new contract. But Miller appeared to be waiting on James, a former teammate. By the end of the day, the LeBron flowchart looked like a maze.
The situation would probably have been a lot different had the Heat beaten the San Antonio Spurs in the finals. To state the obvious, it would have been much more difficult for James to explore leaving Miami after winning three straight championships.
But the Spurs exposed the Heat’s flaws, and James was left to consider his options. Amid all the uncertainty, the Spurs put themselves back in the conversation Wednesday — if only for a moment. The team released a 28-word statement announcing that Coach Gregg
Popovich had agreed to a multiyear contract extension.
Some will never things never change.
Source: The New York Times
According to the prestigious wealth and finances evaluator Forbes magazine, Beyonce is the most powerful celebrity in the world right now.
The magazine yesterday unveiled its Celebrity 100 and put queen Beyoncé at No.1 ahead of Oprah Winfrey and her
husband, Jay Z.
See the top 10 most powerful celebrities and how much they earned from June 2013 to June 2014 below..
1. Beyoncé : $115million
2. LeBron James : $72million,
3. Dr. Dre : $620million
4.Oprah Winfrey : $82million
5. Ellen DeGeneres : $70million
6 .Jay Z : $60million
7. Floyd Mayweather: $105million
8. Rihanna: $48million
9. Katy Perry: $40million
10. Robert Downey Jnr: $75million.
I don’t like addressing people by races but please permit me this time to, out of the 10 most powerful and highest earning celebrities of 2014, 7 of them are colored people.
Well that’s a huge turn around ! Justin Bieber fell to 33 in 2014 from number 9 in 2013, while tennis player Roger Federer, director
Steven Spielberg and rock band Bon Jovi dropped out of the top 10 in 2014.
Beyonce
Lebron James.
Dr Dre
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