WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Everyone seems to be all worked up over the congratulatory handshakes that LeBron James withheld from the Orlando Magic recently, so eager was he to rush off the floor and escape the scene of Cleveland's elimination from the NBA playoffs.
OK, so taking the easy and the angry way out was unnecessarily disrespectful, especially to Olympic Redeem Team pal Dwight Howard, but it goes against LeBron's well-established reputation for being amenable and accessible and generally representative of what the league wants and needs to be.
 CURTIS COMPTON/Cox Newspapers LeBron James pumps his fist and smiles after making a 2-point shot against the Atlanta Hawks on the way to a 84 - 74 victory to complete a four game sweep in the NBA Eastern Conference semi-finals at Philips Arena, Atlanta, Monday, May 11. For a larger, high resolution image, click HERE |
LeBron will learn from this, and if he's a little slow on the uptake, sticking with his day-after rationale that "If somebody beats you up, you're not going to congratulate them," somebody in King James' financial inner court will surely remind him of another handshake, one with broader and more lasting implications.
I'm talking about an agreement that the Cavs made with a Chinese conglomerate in May to infuse untold yen into the franchise's operational budget and, in the process, to advance LeBron's mythic goal of becoming the world's first billionaire athlete.
Pending the approval of NBA owners, a $21 billion Chinese investment group led by savvy dealmaker Jianhua Huang will buy 15 percent of the Cavs and their Cleveland arena, too.
Huang, known as "Kenny" to former classmates at Columbia, St. John's and NYU, has previously worked sponsorship deals between Chinese investors and both the New York Yankees and Houston Rockets. He understands American sports as a commodity, and the owners of American sports teams as greedy and compliant partners.
Our government provided the first clues on how far that can go. If China ever called in all the U.S. debt that it's holding, we've have to sign Manhattan and half the Alaskan oilfields over to them as a first installment.
So where does LeBron come in?
Well, if the Cavs are promoted like crazy on Chinese television, where nearly 1 billion viewers watched NBA games and programming this year on 51 different channels, LeBron will be promoted like crazy, too.
He's not yet as popular over there as Kobe Bryant when it comes to merchandise sales but in the largely untilled field of the world's largest nation, there is no rule that cannot be obliterated.
Here's one. LeBron, like any American superstar, must eventually play in New York to reach maximum earnings potential. Let Nike and the league's dynamic MVP get up to speed in China and that rule need not apply.
LeBron potentially could stay in Cleveland beyond next season rather than cracking open the Knicks' free-agent treasure chest, or at least he could have reason to consider whether his bottom line, multipled globally, might be just as good in his Northern Ohio backyard.
Damon Jones, the former Miami Heat point guard, knows the score. His agent worked a six-figure deal a few years back making Jones the spokesman for the Li Ning shoe brand, a basketball line based in China.
So let's recap. A richer Cleveland franchise, at the minimum, can afford to compete for the high-grade signees that LeBron will need if he's ever going to win a championship there.
On top of that, LeBron, one of the most talented and ambitious athletes on the planet, can take a larger leap toward the ridiculous goal of $1 billion in personal worth if he makes all the right moves in China. All he has to do is follow the lead of the personable Damon Jones, who with a career scoring average of 6.6 points is one-billionth the player.
Truth is, only LeBron can stop LeBron now. The phantom handshake incident in Orlando won't have any lasting sting on his increasingly global reputation. He'll be back to his smiling self again soon enough and, by nature and by design, he'll stay that way.
Who wouldn't?
Dave George writes for The Palm Beach Post. E-mail: dave(underscore)george(at)pbpost.com.
