Cleveland Hates LeBron - But Akron Loves Him

Bill Reiter is on the LeBron beat for Fox Sports, and writes today about how Akron still loves LeBron. Reiter even got Maverick Carter – Puffy to LeBron’s Biggie – to talk about it.

"Even Maverick Carter, as far on the other side of this as a person can be, will say LeBron is an Akron guy. He’ll say it gently. He’ll say Cleveland is a great place — “like an older brother to Akron” — but he’ll say it nonetheless. Because LeBron is an Akron man. And the border matters. “Being from Akron is always a part of him, and he’ll always have that in him, just like me,” Carter says, emphasizing the difference between the two cities. “It’s hard for people to understand it. There’s a difference between Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Brooklyn and Queens. There’s a difference.”"

This partially explains why LeBron would leave his girlfriend and two kids behind in Akron as he bolted for South Beach. So what if they hate him in Cleveland? He’s an Akron guy anyway, and nobody’s going to mess with his family.