There is no one thing that led to this “Decision” for Lebron.  At the risk of adding to the overuse of the term given the song’s airplay as well as the proliferation of videos on youtube, I will attribute the event to the term “Happy”.  Lebron wants to be happy, and this season in Miami was not so.  For starters, while Lebron and D. Wade are friends, Wade is family in Miami. Lebron is a friend of the family, nothing wrong with that, but its not the same.  I watched close up at a Heat/Pistons game, when Lebron was open at the top of the key, and held his hands out for the pass, which D. Wade, although having a man in his face, looked Lebron in the eye, then boldly took the contested jumper.  It wasn’t a big deal, just an example of Wade having more fun than James. As the Heat nurtured Wade’s sore knees, with James sometimes not knowing whether Wade would play until slightly before game time, James’ minutes kept piling up, and the family friend felt that the family was a bit inconsiderate.

Perhaps the most nagging negative was the decision to amnesty Mike Miller. The Big Three Era was built on mutual sacrifice, and the Heat’s releasing Miller for financial reasons was inconsistent with that.  Each time Lebron kicked to an open team mate during the Spurs series, and they missed, he thought of Mike Miller having played 82 solid games this year, and how it would have helped to stem the tide of Spur runs if Mike were there to drop a jumper or two.

Even less happy than Lebron were his friends and family, who had been royalty in Cleveland but were commoners in Miami.  When Pat Riley made the infamous “Get a grip…” speech, you can believe they unanimously exclaimed to Lebron, “Can you believe this guy?”  At the end of the day, the Heat rode Lebron this year, not the other way around, and a message like that would be best delivered privately or not at all.  More appropriate would be “Thanks for the huge effort, and my apologies that you didn’t have more help.  We can fix that.”  As it was, Lebron’s response to the challenge was an appropriate counterpoint, no more sacrifice, max contract required, and let’s see what kind of help you can get for me.  In other words, I did my job; now you do yours.

That opened a window of opportunity for Cleveland. What did they do with it? Down came the nasty letter about Lebron from their website. Off went the contracts necessary to open a max offer for Lebron. Out went the feelers to Minnesota about an acquisition of Kevin Love. And then there was the reaching out to the aforementioned, Mike Miller. For frosting on the cake, fresh off his family’s vacation with Lebron and his family, Ray Allen got a call as well.

Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. The Heat created the opportunity, and the Cavs drove a Mack truck through it.