It's been a couple days now

But Ohio, seriously get a grip. (check the sign)

And not just Ohio. Now LeBron's ignominious exit from Cleveland and the reaction it garnered from the team ownership and city is being compared to slavery? Uhm. No. Slavery the escape was "I'm getting the fuck out of here". Free agency the escape is "I'm getting paid and I want to win, show me what you can do with those or I'm going to the next table to see what they'll give me". There is no comparison there worth making. All the war analogies we usually use for sports, this is much dumber and useless. It might have been true enough decades ago (say during the Comiskey/Black Sox scandal), but not so much anymore.

I get that Gilbert would be bitter because it does seem like LeBron made up his mind months ago on this one and the manner of handling it was terrible. But really, an owner in football will cut players who have laid out everything on the field and sacrificed more than just money to win games and get paid all the time for shrewd business reasons. Players have every incentive to the same to the owners on the level playing field that has been worked out and established from years of contracts between players and owners. But it's not slavery. There is no ownership of players. And there isn't even any implied. It's more about loyalty and the way these things are handled publicly. You burn your bridges the way these things were done, expect people to be angry and lurid in their commentaries. My guess is that I probably wouldn't want to play for Gilbert either if this is how he treats his players and I was such a person who could play basketball at that level. I'm a big fan of Mark Cuban for that reason. You demand much of the people you pay as an owner of a business (or a sports team), but you should reward them, coddle them, provide room for growth and give them every incentive to believe that you want them to succeed just as much as you are trying to, and they'll reward that treatment with loyalty of their own.

You just sign the checks and you're just the paycheck.