Choosing Not To See LeBron

This has crossed my mind whenever The Bastard Minneapolis Lakers come to town: This might be the last time I see LeBron James play.  I remember it was either the first or second Year he was in the NBA, and I got a Timberwolves ticket just to see him play.  He was the obvious focal point of the team, and he showed flashes of athleticism, but nothing that made me say, Wow, this guy is the second coming.

Didn't know at the time he would become LeBron James, and now he is The Greatest Basketball Player Of Our Generation.  But I don't know when he's going to quit.  He's still going strong, which is fast becoming one of his best-ever attributes.  Still, as a basketball aficionado, I should want to see him before he retires.  We just don't know when that is.  I don't know if James knows when that is.  I just know that for at least the past two seasons and possibly more, I thought that I should buy a ticket, just in case.

Unfortunately, that realization only comes when I do The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey and realize The Team That Was Stolen From Us v.1.0. is coming, and by the time I think what I'm doing the night of the Game, I realize, or decide, I can't go.  Like this Week, and today; they're in town to play the Timberwolves.  I actually do have the time.  In fact, I could decide to not go exercise, which is the plan, buy the ticket on a scalper site, and leave for downtown, right now.  But ... well, I haven't exercised in a while, I need to go to my storage space to start bringing things back home and ... shit, I'm using my OCD as excuses not to go, namely that I went to a Timberwolves Game last Week (and saw them lose), and I'm paying cash for everything today and buying a ticket means going online and using a credit card, and I don't want to do that.  So, for all those reasons -- nearly all relatively superficial -- I'm not going.

But that's the gamble, isn't it?  LeBron James keeps playing, and he's showing no signs of slowing down.  But one of these days he's retiring, and depending on how he announces it, the prices for his Last Dance will go through the roof.  It was one of the reasons I decided not to see Lakers Games in the past, and yet tonight's Game is as cheap for that team as I've ever seen it.  Still, I'm not going tonight, and I'm hoping he doesn't say he's quitting the sport next year.  And even if he doesn't, I wonder if I'll finally take the time and prepare to see him, probably for the last time, next season, and not push it off and hope he'll still be playing.