The LeBron James Decision Arrow

(By the time you read this, LeBron may have already signed somewhere. If this is the case, replace "LeBron" with "Carmelo Anthony" or the name of any other major free agent.)

Think about LeBron James's free agency decision as a free floating arrow pointing towards an infinite arc of the future:

The arc represents all of the possible outcomes. In the middle is "Playing basketball in Miami" or "Playing Basketball in Cleveland." Go further out, "Play basketball somewhere else" then "Play football" then "Retire from sports altogether" then "I am becoming a monk" and on and on into infinitely more unlikely scenarios. ("Eat poop until I die from shit poisoning, etc. etc. etc.)

LeBron is at the front of this arrow that points towards the future because more than anyone he has knowledge and control of what he is going to do. Then his family, who we can safely assume are probably the people in his life he is most concerned with and probably have the most knowledge of and input in his decision. 

Then we see his agents and business advisers, people he trusts with the management of his career and assets; they're not shaping LeBron's priorities or influencing his opinions as much as his family, but he wouldn't hire them if he didn't trust them. Then, the teams that he is talking to, who have an idea through both him and his representation about what he is looking for and are striving to accommodate that. 

Then we get to dudes he knows: friends, teammates, who are familiar with his thinking because they've talked about it. LeBron probably trusts these people enough to solicit their opinions but not enough to make those opinions the basis of what his decision is going to be the person he tells his intentions to. Then, reporters who tare talking to people in the last three sections: his agents, teams and his friends, and working them for information. They are reporting whatever they get right now but they're not so dumb that they don't know what's reliable and what isn't. 

Then, after all of those people who have even kind of an idea about where LeBron is going, is everyone else in the entire world who absolutely do not know at all. This includes you. As a matter of fact, you might be on the very back end of everyone in the world, because I could tell someone with only a cursory knowledge of basketball "LeBron James is choosing between Miami and Cleveland" and their 50/50 guess about where he is going is probably better than your educated guess because your guess is weighed down by giant heaping piles of assumptions and bullshit that you've been fed by reporters drawing information from all up and down the middle of the spectrum and flattening that information's origin into "Sources."

This is all to say, "Stop guessing, it's obnoxious." Where you think LeBron is going says way more about you than LeBron.

1. If you think he is going to Cleveland you think that the universe has a dominant narrative arc. LeBron left, he reveled and succeeded and dominated, and now he is coming home to reclaim such and such. Life has order and redemption.

2. If you think Maimi, you think that the universe is stagnant. LeBron will sit on southern Florida until he collapses all of the gravity around his mass and the whole state will be consumed by his black hole and eventually we will be wiped out by the heat death of the universe. Life is non-movement until everything collapses, there is no order but the mathematics of death.

THEORETICAL DRAWINGS OF LEBRON JAMES

(CORBIN SMITH, the author of this blog, is at best a C- visual artist, capable of painting a crude yet  charming whale or a tree (His friend Charlie once compared his drawings to those of an unsettling child), but not a complicated image that would communicate and idea about something. With this in mind, he now presents a series of images for you to conjure, either in your head or on paper, of the famous basketball player Lebron James, whose free agency has swept the world like a madness.)

Lebron James as a tank, a tank with Lebron's head where the turret and the gun sticking out of his mouth. The body of the tank is exposed, and there are two choices for armor, one with Miami Heat insignia and one with Cleveland Cavilers insignia. Dwyane Wade is standing on the former, Kyrie Irving on the latter. They are dressed like Sargents.

Lebron James in a pastoral setting. He is picking fruit from an orchard. His mind seems far from the free agency hype. The fruit he is picking is tiny little basketballs.

PANEL ONE: Lebron James is digging a hole. PANEL TWO: Lebron James finds two gold nuggets. PANEL THREE: Lebron James continues digging. PANEL FOUR: Lebron James is drowned in black oil. PANEL FIVE: The oil turns into Tim Duncan.

Lebron James looks out of his war dirigible, overlooking a basketball game. He is in full Napoleon regalia. There is a hint of melancholy across his face, but no regrets.

Lebron James is at a dinner party. The host has made basketballs for dinner, and Lebron is trying to subtly feed them to their dog underneath the table because they are overcooked.

Lebron James is a jet stream and all the other NBA players are clouds. Durant is an airplane flying against the wind.

Lebron James standing outside of a mine. He has harvested all of the earth's coal. Death stands above him.

Lebron James dressed as a neon pink grim reaper, chasedowing the layup attempts of children wearing Joy Division t-shirts.

Lebron James leaning on the side of a vegan restaurant, eating a corndog that looks like a basketball.

Lebron James in a family portrait with four Wayne Gretzkies, aged 10, 20, 30, and 40.

Lebron James is the frontman of a Yo La Tengo cover band but they're playing "Big Dipper" by Built to Spill because he doesn't know the difference. In another drawing they're playing "Detroit Has a Skyline."