Listen to Kevin, Bron Bron

Hey Lebron, welcome to the best, weirdest, and certainly most hyped summer of your life. I hope you weren't planning any trips to Disney or some international jaunts with Ricky Williams, cause you aint gonna have time.
Chances are, you're gonna spend a lot of time in Chicago and New York, with a trip over to Newark. Heck, you might even decide to venture over to LA LA land and talk with that second-class citizen team, the Clippers, just for a free trip to Hollywood and a chance to hang with Halle Berry one night.
This is your summer, and I have no doubt you plan on soaking it up.
The truth is, everyone with a pulse and an interest in basketball is going to give you some advice. Heck, even the President and the Mayor of New York have already chimed in. I'm sure your phone is going to ring more than Tiger Woods' when his wife was out of town for the weekend.
Well, since I don't have your number, let me offer this piece of advice from the comfort of my own home: don't walk, run from Cleveland as soon as you can.
Look, people are going to try (heck, they already are trying) to box you into Cleveland for the next several years of your life by strapping you to the word loyalty. In the eyes of so many fans and media personalities, you "owe" Cleveland and the Cavaliers something. You "owe" them a career. You "owe" them the best years of your professional life. The reason you "owe" them? Well, that's where things get a little foggy, but it seems most believe your loyalty should simply stem from your place of birth: you were born in Cleveland so, I guess, you should die in Cleveland (at least career-wise, anyway).
Brush these idiotic rumblings aside as you pursue your goals.
Look, you don't owe anyone anything, other than yourself. You have been in Cleveland for seven years. In that time, you have played with heart and soul and taken your team to heights they wouldn't have even been able to imagine had you not been on the roster. Rarely, considering the amount of money you athletes make, does a player give a city and a franchise more than he gets but, in your case, it's the truth. In the annals of sports, you are probably the most underpaid athlete that has ever taken a breath, considering what you have done for that town.
You played all seven years of your contract. You didn't "demand" anything. You didn't force the team to hirer or firer any coaches based on your preferences. You didn't "demand" they get player X or Y because you guys were buddies. You didn't spend your time throwing your general manager of owner under the bus, even when they made obviously bad moves that hindered your ability to win.
You were the best show on earth for seven years in Cleveland and, not once did you demand to leave.
You have fullfilled everything required and, now, you can leave with your head held high.
The truth is, Lebron, Cleveland has already essentially made your choice for you. Had they surrounded you with another superstar player and a roster of winners, then your exit would be more difficult. Then, it would appear as if your were abandoning winning for big-city glory. Then, it would truly appear that championships took a back seat to image in your world.
Yet, in seven years the Cavs have failed to even remotely develop a roster worthy of your talents. Look at the teams still competeing for a championship, Lebron: the Celtics, the team that just beat you, has three hall of fame players (Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and Paul Pierce), a rising superstar in Rajon Rondo, and gutty players like Kendrick Perkins and Glen Davis to even out the roster. Your buddy Kobe Bryant will play the rest of his years with All-Star caliber players Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom, and Andrew Bynum, not to mention talented players like Sheldon Brown and a terrific veteran point guard in Derek Fisher.
Orlando? Talent oozes out of that team, so much so that they cruised through their first round with their best player, Dwight Howard, essentially a non-factor. And Steve Nash has Amare Stoudemire, Jason Richardson, and Grant Hill to back him up. Now, for fun, take a look at your roster, this juggernaut of a team the Cavaliers have surrounded you with: the rumor of Shaquille O'Neill, the overrated Antwan Jamison, and Mo Williams, who wouldn't start for any of the teams I mentioned previously. Those are your top options. That is the "winning" group this franchise put around you. Not exactly the 1986 Celtics or 1988 Lakers, huh?
Look, you won 67 games this year, mainly because you were completely and utterly brilliant each and every game. That record fooled a lot of people into believeing that there was some talent around you, but I doubt it conned you the way it did so many media types. You had to have known that once you ran into a really good team, you were toast, right? You had to have known that Mo Williams wasn't gonna do it for you in a big spot, right?
That's why it is time to leave, my friend. That's why the Cavs, with seven years of "plugging holes" instead of developing a champion has all but asked you to leave. They haven't surrounded you with a team, they've surrounded you with a bunch of guys they expect you to make better than they really are. They've surrounded you, for seven straight years, with a cast that can't stand on its own two feet unless you are behind them, holding them up. They haven't handed you the reigns to a Ferrari, they have given you the keys to a Gremlin and asked that you turn it into a Bentley. Then, when you don't, no one comes running to your defense to say "hold on, now, this guy is as good as it gets and we stand behind him."
You don't owe Cleveland anything, Lebron, they owed you, and they failed to do anything other than act like they were putting together a great team.
If you're going to stay, you have to ask yourself whether you think it is going to get any better. Is this team going to bring in that second gun? I doubt it. How can they. They have already locked themselves (and, subsequently you) into a bunch of bad, inconceived contracts all in an effort to throw enough garbage at the wall to see if something sticks. It hasn't, and it isn't going to next year or the year after.
Kevin Garnett the other night talked about your youth. He talked about how, had he to do it over, he would probably have moved on from Minnesota sooner. In other words, he wouldn't have allowed some antiquated sense of "loyalty" to all but ruin his career. Now, towards the end of his career, KG has gotten redemption, but the best years were spent trying desperately to singlehandedly bring another down-on-its-luck city at the time, Minnesota, something to cheer about. It shouldn't have been his cross to bear and it shouldn't be yours, either.
You have options. You have tremendous options. You have the chance to determine the course of your career. Don't let others decide what you should or shouldn't do, when they probably wouldn't adhere to their own advice in a similar situation. Listen to KG. Understand that this is your time. Understand that this is a chance for you to make your mark. You can do that in New York, which will hand you the keys to one of the flagship organizations in the NBA, and all but let you pick your roster for next year and beyond. You can go to the Nets, who are about to bring professional sports back to the burrow of Brooklyn, and who has a cavalcade of talent either on the roster or coming via the draft and free agency. You can go to Chicago and join Derek Rose and Loul Deng and perhaps another great free agent player. You can instantly walk on to a team next year that has more talent and more ability than the Cavs did this year, and you can hitch your wagon to a franchise that is willing to spend (over the cap) as much as is needed to bring you the rings you crave.
Go to New York, Lebron. Go to New Jersey/Brooklyn, or to Chicago, or even to Miami with your buddhy Dwayne Wade. Only, don't let a city or a media tie you to Cleveland. It's your life, my friend and your career. Don't let both die there.