The NBA tried to avoid it until the last moment. A few days earlier, someone warned David Stern that LeBron James had prepared a television special to announce his future in prime time. Late. LeBron slammed 'his' Cleveland Cavaliers in front of 13 million people to form a super team in Miami alongside Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh . It was the biggest mistake of his career, but also the beginning of his media empire and the first step towards the current NBA: 10 years ago today, LeBron James started the revolution of the stars .

Just remember the last market . Within days Anthony Davis joined LeBron in the Lakers after months of struggling with his team; Kawhi Leonard chose the Clippers on the condition that they also sign Paul George ; Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving agreed to sign together for the Brooklyn Nets . Today more than ever the stars are masters of their destiny and make decisions that change the balance of power in the NBA. And that empowerment began with LeBron's 'The Decision'.

Almost half a century has passed since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar asked to leave Milwaukee with two possible destinations: New York, his hometown, or Los Angeles, the city where he had spent his college years. But that was an exceptional case. Neither the Knicks nor the Lakers were a sportingly attractive destination, and he kept his request secret for months until the press revealed it. For decades, even after free agency was born, most were stars who spent much of their careers in the same franchise.

The release of the stars

The first eight years of a player's NBA career depend on the team that selects him in the draft. Ricky Rubio , who landed in 2011, has not been free to choose his destination until 2019. The regulation favors this system, but in recent years the stars have broken that chain: those who have enough power have learned to use it.

The contracts are becoming shorter to avoid tying their hands and transfer the pressure to the franchise. They are always close enough to end their contract to alert the management or, if necessary, have a way out. The winger is LeBron James, who only signed one-season contracts during his second stint in Cleveland. In part, similar to the exit option that Leo Messi keeps every year. One more tool to negotiate.

In this strange ethic of sport, managers who create successful projects are praised (deciding on the future of the players), but it is censured that it is the players who take command of their future. Despite the fact that, as Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban explained , after the madness of the last market, it is the same thing that happens in the job market: " Mobility is the power you get when you are very good at your job . If you're one of the best, you can decide where you want to work. "

And in the current NBA there is enough money in the market to take those risks - the current television contract, which came into force in 2016, triples the figures of the previous one. But the change would not be fully explained without LeBron: it was his departure from Cleveland that partly empowered Durant to leave Oklahoma on another traumatic outing; and the control over his career the same that Kawhi Leonard has shown later: despite winning the ring with the Toronto Raptors, he had decided to return to Los Angeles.

The mistake of 'The Decision'

'The Decision' was a mistake, yes. LeBron himself has recognized this. James and his partners demanded full control of the program from the network, and the result was an exercise in self-centeredness written by an apprentice . The most remembered phrase was a wink that Kobe Bryant used to announce his jump to the NBA, but in his case he was just a teenager. " I'm going to take my talent to South Beach ." "Come on, man!" Would say Stern, one of the most critical voices with 'The Decision'. "It was a bad idea, poorly executed and very poorly produced."

The fund was hopeless. He wanted to go and his goodbye was going to hurt. Cleveland teams had not won a title in any sport for more than half a century and with LeBron they lost their best chance (he himself would end that drought in 2014). But the wound was deeper. The region belongs to the industrial belt of the United States and was experiencing a deep depression. In 20 years it has lost more than 20% of the population. In LeBron they saw another 'son' who was leaving looking for the opportunity he would not have at home.

But even that does not justify reactions as excessive as those experienced in the following days. The fans burned shirts on the street . The media crossing too many limits. 'The Whore of Akron', a full-page newspaper made a headline.

LeBron fine-tuned the forms in the following 'decisions '. To announce his return to Cleveland in 2014, he met at a Las Vegas hotel with Lee Jenkins, a fine-pen journalist, to write him a letter. To announce his signing for the Lakers in 2018, he leaked a story - with some more 'adornment' - to like-minded journalists. But the background, the important thing, remained intact: LeBron was master of his destiny and his story.

An empire of communication

From time to time LeBron James takes the car and repeats the same route through Akron . Stops can change order, but are fixed. He walks one by one all the streets he lived in when he was little, a nomadic childhood in which he bounced from house to house with his mother . Without money, without a fixed roof, owing favors, sleeping on a sofa. A course went almost three months without going to school because he had no way to get there. The route has more than half a dozen stops and ends at the Spring Hill apartments, the place where they finally managed to settle. The place that today gives its growing empire of communication its name.

Last March, LeBron and his partner Maverick Carter announced the creation of SpringHill Co. , A company for which they have raised more than $ 100 million in financing to group their communication businesses: Robot Co., their marketing agency. ; SpringHill Entertainment, the producer behind the new installment in Space Jam; and Uninterrupted LLC, another content production company aimed specifically at athletes.

Added to that is Klutch Sports , the representation agency that his close friend Rich Paul founded in 2012, and which today is one of the most powerful: besides LeBron himself, he has Anthony Davis, Ben Simmons, John Wall, Trae Young in his portfolio. , Draymond Green ... It is the culmination of that idea that was behind 'The Decision': to make athletes take command of their career.

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