Basketball statistical analysis is somewhere between baseball and football in terms of the degree to which it can be counted to provide truth; the best is provided by John Hollinger on espn.com; his PER rating correctly demonstrated that LeBron James (and not Kobe Bryant) had the best season in the NBA in '07-08. At 23 years of age (Lebron's mother, by the way, is 38, only a handful of months older than I am; nothing has ever made me feel older than the idea that the best basketball player alive could be my son) it's a reasonable deduction that he'll hold this value into 2010.
In 2010, LeBron James is a free agent; one of the most important (and slowest burning) stories on the sports landscape is the courtship of James by the minority owner of the New Jersey Nets, Jay-Z --
--who has 99 problems, but the 11 million bucks the Nets owed to Richard Jefferson in 2010 ain't one.
The Nets are on track to move to Brooklyn - and with today's trade of Jefferson to Milwaukee for Yi Jianlian and Bobby Simmons - they're on track to sign King James. Put LeBron with Devin Harris and you're onto something.
If Yi can emerge as a capable complimentary player, such that his name value can tap into the Chinese market; the confluence of factors:
Jay Z
Brooklyn.
Yi
LeBron James
Has the potential to make the Brooklyn Nets a cross-cultural global phenomenon; fusing the marketing bonanzas that are hip hop and a post-Olympics China. The degree to which James uses his position on the Olympic team this summer as an outreach platform to the Chinese fan may be a precursor to his move to Brooklyn in 2010.
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