An in-depth look at how a team and a city were rebuilt around LeBron James ...
When the Cleveland Cavaliers drew the top pick in the 2003 NBA draft, the entire city buzzed with excitement. How often does a superstar come along? Especially for Cleveland, a midmarket Rust Belt city without a sports championship in forty years. Especially for the Cavaliers, a long-struggling team that had never reached the NBA finals.
Soon, everyone had something riding on LeBron: a billionaire team owner wanting a return on his investment ... teammates eager for a championship ring ... the league looking for the next Michael Jordan to promote ... the shoe company with its record-breaking endorsement deal ... even popcorn vendors in the stands of Quicken Loans Arena and servers waiting tables at downtown restaurants.
Award-winning sports journalists Terry Pluto and Brian Windhorst tell the converging stories of a struggling franchise and a hometown teenage phenom. This book will fascinate any basketball fan who wants the inside story of how LeBron James became the young superstar shouldering the weight of an entire NBA franchise.
Industry Reviews
Anybody with access to the NBA'Aos highlight reel knows how well James plays. But fans know less about how teams are constructed, dismantled, and reconstructed, and how challenging it must be to build a group comprised of stars, role players, has-beens, deluded rookies, born-agains, and self-absorbed wackos into a team that wins a lot more often than it loses. 'AuThe Franchise'Au gives us a look at that process.--Bill Littlefield"National Public Radio" (02/09/2008) Offers about as close to an insider'Aos perspective of events as possible. Pluto, a sports columnist for the Plain Dealer and the author of more than 20 sports books, brings decades of experience to the project . . . Windhorst has been covering this story since well before Lebron appeared on the national media radar, gaining access, and it shows.--Alex Rubin"Free Times" (01/30/2007) Not your typical sports biography . . . Take[s] the reader behind the scenes in the Cavaliers'�� front office, revealing how championship contenders are built (often, as in Cleveland'��s case, by trading or selling as many players from a mediocre team as possible to save enough money and become bad enough to secure a number-one draft choice to land a player who might become the team'��s savior).--Jim Burns"Library Journal" (05/01/2008) A fast break the moment that you open the book. Pluto and Windhorst double team James, as only they can and give you accurate, detailed information that only adds to the legacy of the young Superstar. The final chapter of this young man'��s career hasn'��t been written but the journey up to now has sure been excited and we are all '��Witnesses'��.--Wesley Chism"BlackAthlete.net" (09/29/2009) Anybody with access to the NBA'��s highlight reel knows how well James plays. But fans know less about how teams are constructed, dismantled, and reconstructed, and how challenging it must be to build a group comprised of stars, role players, has-beens, deluded rookies, born-agains, and self-absorbed wackos into a team that wins a lot more often than it loses. '��The Franchise'�� gives us a look at that process.--Bill Littlefield"National Public Radio" (02/09/2008) Offers about as close to an insider'��s perspective of events as possible. Pluto, a sports columnist for the Plain Dealer and the author of more than 20 sports books, brings decades of experience to the project . . . Windhorst has been covering this story since well before Lebron appeared on the national media radar, gaining access, and it shows.--Alex Rubin"Free Times" (01/30/2007)
