LeBron James Headed To Heat In Draft Pick-Loaded Sign-And-Trade Deal

We knew LeBron James was headed to Miami, of course, but we weren’t certain about the specifics until Saturday. As it happens, the Cavaliers and Heat have agreed on a sign-and-trade arrangement that will send a boatload of draft picks to Cleveland. Our Cavs blog, Fear The Sword, has the details:

This means that the Heat will not have a single draft pick for the next nine million years. On the other hand, though, LeBron James. For more on what this exchange of draft picks will mean for both teams, head on over to Fear the Sword as well as our Heat blog, Peninsula Is Mightier.

Remember those brutal six minutes worth of nonsense, softball questions Jim Gray tossed up to LeBron James last night before finally — after 18 questions — asking the important one? Yeah, well, Team LeBron apparently paid for all of that, and the rest of Gray’s inquiries that followed.

From CNBC’s Darren Rovell:

It might have made for agonizingly contrived television, but America apparently couldn’t quit LeBron James’ “Decision”. According to ESPN’s Josh Krulewitz, LeBron’s one-hour made-for-TV melodrama drew a 7.3 overnight rating for ESPN, including a 26 rating in Cleveland,12.8 in Miami, 10.7 in Chicago and 10.4 in New York (Seattle was the last market with a 2.4; having your NBA franchise stolen unsurprisingly makes people not care about the NBA).

Just to put that in perspective, CNBC’s Darren Rovell points out that the 7.3 rating for “The Decision” was higher than LeBron’s other major national television moment, when the Cavs got swept by the Spurs in the 2007 NBA Finals, which only drew a 6.2 rating.

We reported last night after LeBron James made his big Cleveland-to-Miami announcement that a surprising trade of Michael Beasley to the Minnesota Timberwolves would clear salary cap space and help the Heat fill out its roster.

It appears a good chunk of that cap space will go to free agent swingman Mike Miller, whom, according to his brother, received an offer yesterday from the Miami Heat to team with his good friend James.

Not sure if we can call Dan Gilbert’s missive “The Letter Read ‘Round The World” yet, but we’re getting there.

We at least know it’s made its way to South Florida, because the Associated Press also caught up with LeBron James’ new Miami Heat teammate, Dwayne Wade.

Since LeBron James told the world on Thursday night that he’s leaving Cleveland to join Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade with the Miami Heat, you’ve hard from writers, journalists, players, pundits ... and of course Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert.

But what about the fans?

You can’t put the spoken word in Comic Sans font, unfortunately, but that hasn’t kept Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert from continuing to voice his disapproval -- strongly -- after LeBron James’ announcement Thursday night that he’s leaving the franchise for the Miami Heat.

Gilbert, who earlier in the evening published a loud, angry letter about James’ decision, conducted a phone interview with Tom Withers of the Associated Press, telling the reporter that he felt “betrayed” by the 25-year-old superstar.

The news that LeBron James has signed with the Miami Heat is the real big story of tonight. However, the Heat appear to have pulled off another minor coup that will give them more flexibility to add veteran players to the roster.

ESPN’s Marc Stein is reporting the Heat have finally found a trade partner for Michael Beasley. Predictably, it’s David Kahn and the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert has just sent out an open letter to Cavaliers fans about LeBron James’ decision to sign with the Miami Heat, and man, is it harsh. Honestly, I’m speechless. You can read the whole thing over at SB Nation’s Cavaliers blog Fear the Sword, but here are some choice excerpts.

Later:

Here’s the Knicks’ full statement on LeBron James deciding to sign with the Miami Heat, via SB Nation New York. Gee, did you remember they have Amare Stoudemire? Everything’s going to be okay, Knicks fans.

For more Knicks fan reaction, head to SB Nation’s Knicks blog Posting and Toasting and to SB Nation New York.

Cleveland fans are predictably angry about LeBron James’ decision to join the Heat, expressing that anger by burning LeBron’s jersey, among other things. Their next target for destruction, therefore, would probably be LeBron’s billboard in the center of town.

So it should come as no surprise that Cleveland police is doing everything they can to prevent that from happening. Here’s a picture of a bunch of cop cars standing around the billboard, via @brucedouglas.

Miami Heat fans over at SB Nation’s Heat blog Peninsula Is Mightier are predictably excited about LeBron James teaming up with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami. But here’s one thing that they want you to remember in all their excitement: credit Pat Riley for putting this all together.

It’s a good point. Even though LeBron, Wade and Bosh chose to go here, it takes a lot of salary-cap maneuvering and a long-term plan to even make this all possible. Riley deserves a ton of credit for that, and it’ll be interested to see how he tries to fill out the roster with basically only minimum contracts.

Cavaliers general manager Chris Grant released the following statement just now about the news that LeBron James will sign with the Miami Heat. Notice the conspicuous absence of a certain former Cavalier in it.

Good for them.

Of course Cavaliers fans are upset about LeBron James’ decision. SB Nation’s Cavaliers blog Fear the Sword sums up that anger here.

Fear The Sword also called for real Cavaliers fans to stay strong and continue to support the team even without LeBron.

via Blazers Edge.

LeBron James will sign with the Miami Heat. He made the announcement during an ESPN one-hour special Thursday. It’s now official.

James will join fellow superstars Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade to form a superstar trio the league hasn’t seen in quite some time. The Heat still have much work to do to fill out the roster, and unless they move Michael Beasley, they can only use the veterans’ minimum exception to do it, but regardless of who else is on the roster, any team with those three superstars is a legitimate championship contender. There also exists the possibility that all three will sign for significantly less than the maximum contract in order to allow the Heat to fill the roster more easily.

If you watched two minutes of this ESPN LeBron James special, you’ve seen everything you need to know, because we’ve basically heard everyone repeat themselves many times. But in case you haven’t even done that, here’s what I can tell you.

Okay, Jim Gray’s up.

Don’t worry, everyone. LeBron James and his team are really determine to draw this whole process out even further. According to ESPN’s Chad Ford, they still haven’t contacted any team to tell them whether LeBron would sign with them.

This seems like an appropriate time for a prediction that I’m sure will be wro ... sorry, you’ll get nothing out of me. I have no clue, and neither does anyone. LeBron wins.

We’re just minutes away from the beginning of “LeBron: The Decision,” which ostensibly will include 59 minutes of people prattling on and one minute of LeBron actually making his decision. Because I wanted to torment myself further, I decided to watch the one-hour SportsCenter that preceeded the one-hour filibuster before the ultimate decision. Here’s a quick recap of what happened.

You’re welcome, everyone.

Two of the best national reporters to emerge from this mess are Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski and Marc Spears, so it only makes sense to link their final take on all of this. Basically, the conclusion they reach is that, while most of LeBron James’ associates say Miami, Cavaliers officials still don’t believe he’s leaving.

If LeBron does indeed leave, though, I think we can point to this line and laugh about it.

From the “let’s read way too much department” comes this news from Miami Herald columnist Greg Cote.

Gamechanger, right? Apparently not, says Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Obviously, tonight is about LeBron James, but I’m sure there’s a little part of you that wonders how much money is being made off all of this. Luckily, we have answers for you.

First of all, the ad sales. According to Dawn C. Chmielewski of the Los Angeles Times, “LeBron: The Decision” will gross about $6 million.

What’s the prediction from SB Nation’s Cavaliers blog Fear the Sword? LeBron James will stay in Cleveland on a three-year contract:

Go check out the whole thing here.