Hoops

Should Cleveland retire Lebron's number?

of courses they should retire the number of the best player ever to play the ganme !! if Maiami Heat can retire Jordan's #23 and Dan Mariono's #13 and King retire #6 for fans (lame !!!!) - then what more the ebst player of all

Any reason why it is a stupid question LA Boy? I put it out there for discussion, so um thanks for your input.


Beantown, fair call regarding the crap, like I said, I am on the fence, just curious of other's opinions on the situation. Still cannot argue about what he did for Cleveland before this offseason.

Carr had his number retired for career averages of 15, 3 and 3.

No chance. Stats aren't enough. You have to demonstrate you give a crap about the franchise. Lebron didn't give a crap... instead he took a great big crap all over his former team on national TV.

..... only if they go to South Florida (ref #..795)

From the way the Cleveland Fans are reacting, they have their own slant on "retiring" his number.

From Sports Illustrated July 20th:

Stung by the NBA superstar's decision to leave Cleveland and play for Miami, Cavaliers fans have been unloading their unwanted No. 23 jerseys, T-shirts and other clothing items bearing James' name at locations around the city.

Organizers are shipping the discarded James gear to homeless shelters in South Florida.

"It's like any breakup," said Beau Miller, who began the campaign with three friends. "You want to give all your stuff back."

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/basketball/nba/07/20/lebron.gear.ap/index.html?xid=si_nba#ixzz0ulo58fXs

Sorry DB5 - actually, beyond Mark Price and Craig Ehlo I run out of names! The Cavs to me have always been a completely non-interesting entity, until the LeBron years.

I suppose it's similar to the debates re. Barry Bonds and OJ Simpson - at what point should sporting honours and awards be cancelled out by off-field behaviour and controversy? I never really thought of LeBron's number being retired though - my knee-jerk answer is still "no way." Easy for us oustiders to kick it around I guess, but imagine if this was a discussion re. Julius Hodge (assuming he'd dominated the league for a few seasons before leaving the Sixers?) Given the level of emotion, the fans would tear the singlet down off the rafters if the club tried to retire it, and I suspect it would be the same with LeBron in Cleveland.

Denver Tenbroek seems to be racking up some decent numbers for the Bendigo Braves over in the SEABL.
On the weekend he scored a whopping 52 points including 11 of 15 from the 3point line. He collected 10 rebounds as well and shot the ball at an amazing 78% from the feild and 735 from the arc. They are some awesome stats!
Across the season he is averaging 33 points, 8.6 rebounds, 55.7% FG and 51% 3pt.
This is one player I would pay to see play!
Hey Stingray, Journo, Bulldog or Moses, have you seen this guy play???

hereschenes my Ehlo comment was tongue in cheek. I actually liked Mark Price, and the Price/Daugherty double in NBA Jam was sensational! ; )

I am on the fence here, part of me agrees with you regarding the honour factor etc, but part of me recognizes how good you need to be to average a near triple double for 7 seasons, and to take an average team to the Finals.

There's an honour and respect element to having your number retired, surely. Regardless of LeBron's career numbers to date, there's simply no way Cleveland will retire his number, ever (notwithstanding a highly-unlikely future LeBron return to the Cavs.) Having said that, there's probably no Cleveland player that will want to wear the number anyway, unless they bring it with them from another club.

re. other great Cleveland players, Mark Price comes to mind. Wikipedia lists these as Cleveland's currently-retired numbers:

I think Dan Gilbert's reaction would give you a fair idea about the thoughts within the club of Lebron...I highly doubt they retire his jersey after the way he exited. Does he deserve it? probably, but I just can't see it happening.