Livingstone

After scoring 15 points on 14 shots in Game 5 against Boston, James, in the most tone-deaf news conference since Carmen Policy and those low-impact plastic bottles, said he felt bad for himself. He said he spoils people.

Really?

How about feeling bad for a franchise that did everything possible, absent hiring royal wipers, to cater to him?

By signing a three-year extension when it could have been for four, James put the pedal to the metal on every decision the Cavs made. Now, because they did not win it all, a failure for which he takes big part of the blame, he decides things are simply not up to snuff here?

How about the fans who expected at the very least his full effort in a season he himself super-sized by leaving all options open after its end?

How were they spoiled by his wretched Game 5?

The team’s hands are tied by the nice big bow James put on them by not speaking to Tom Izzo and not recruiting potential free agents. If there were not still the reasonable chance he might stay, the circumstances of the would-be defection and the resentment of the possible defector’s conduct would have triggered a much more seismic backlash.

To leave money on the table, to spurn the hometown franchise that did everything possible to win while others razed their rosters to get the salary cap room to woo him, to exempt himself from responsibility for the mess that would be left behind, to hit a city suffering from the economy when it is down — this would be to mock everything he has said about family and loyalty.

Even if he does stay, it is far from clear, after Game 5, that he wants to win as much as the Lakers and Celtics did in The Finals. But that is what it should be about — winning, and winning when it counts. Not “family portraits,” not in-game dancing, not fraternity handshakes, not fake sneaker commercials, not real commercials, not off-season movies, not hosting the ESPYs, not hosting “Saturday Night Live,” not appearances on Larry King or Letterman, not speed-dialing Terrelle Pryor and John Calipari, not meeting with Warren Buffet, not schmoozing with Jay-Z, and not global iconhood.

Only then, by winning it all, would he become a legend. Only then would he be able to leave, should he choose, with his head held high.