The great one had won 4 cups and was the darling of a whole country!!!!

His pending free agency and inablity for Oilers owner to pay Messier, Gretzky, KUrri and others because it was a small market forced him to action and get some value.

The fans reaction, all during the summer he got married in Canada was a huge emotional drain for that town.

Peter Pocklinton the owner caught all kinds of hell but (there is a great documentry on this)he could not afford to pay him market value and keep a good team around him. And he could not afford to let him go for nothing.

They understood the situation and each other. They did not want it to happen (Wayne leaving) but it did.

Wayne going to Hollywood was not nearly as hateful as Lebron but its the only similar situation I can think of.

Lebron did not handle the departure well. The egocentric nature of it was to be expected.

Gilberts reaction perhaps is even worse.

He made the mistake a long time ago to suck up to every whime and handed the keys to the franchise to uneducated boys in a mans world. You can't do that if your an owner.

It would have been far better for him to trade him, keep the team relevant and explain the franchise is better off in the long run.

Gilbert had many many hints this would happen and choose to hindge his hopes on Lebrons loyalty to the city.

Gilbert made a lot of money peddling crap mortgages to people who could not afford them, or are sitting with negative equity.

They bought a house that has dropped in value.

Karma is a bitch, thats where Gilbert is now. His chinese investor backed out and his franchise value plummeted a few hundred million. Giblert sits like so many of his mortgage customers with negative equity. They too are stewing in anger. They are losing money and property they have bought, loved and nurtured also. They made improvements to it, expanded it, renovated it all thinking values would keep going up over what they paid for it.

He should have flipped it our diversified by trading Lebron.

Karma is a bitch!