Boo James ... but do it for the right reasons

United Center boos will be directed at LeBron James tonight, and his Miami Heat sidekick Dwyane Wade will be the object of them, too.(Or is James the sidekick to Wade? The Bulls better hope the Heat haven#146;t conclusively figured that out yet.)Now, booing James would make sense if it were because he didn#146;t join the Bulls as a free agent last summer and instead will try to beat them in the Eastern Conference finals.What doesn#146;t make sense is that James is perceived as selfish, egotistic and insensitive.Or in sports terms, James proved himself to be a professional athlete.The self-proclaimed King James is booed for that just about everywhere around the NBA except South Florida.First of all, I must point out that we don#146;t use the word hate here for anybody this side of Osama bin Laden or anything this side of the remake of #147;Arthur.#148;Second of all, hating a basketball player for being talented enough to leave Cleveland for South Beach is like hating somebody for being smart enough to leave the banks of the Mississippi for higher ground.Third of all, hating James for doing what is best for him would mean having to hate most pro athletes.These guys aren#146;t selfish because they#146;re premier athletes; they#146;re premier athletes because they#146;re selfish.Like, one of my guesses that never can be proved or disproved is that Ernie Banks would have left the Cubs if baseball had free agency and P.K. Wrigley didn#146;t pay him his fair market value.The only thing James did wrong by leaving Cleveland was, well, two things:Abandoning the friends and family he grew up with in nearby Akron and announcing his escape from them on national television.(If King James were Prince William, he would announce to Kate Middleton on CNN that he is cheating on her with Lady Gaga. Wait, didn#146;t his father already do something like that to his mum?)Anyway, other than humiliating his peeps in Northeast Ohio, LeBron James didn#146;t do anything out of the ordinary by trading in his Cavaliers for some Heat.Much has been said that Michael Jordan never would have left the Bulls for another team just to have a better chance to win championships. He would have stayed on fought the good fight alone.Yeah, right, like His Airness couldn#146;t be selfish, egotistic and insensitive?Jordan never had to entertain such an option because the Bulls surrounded him with the likes of Horace Grant, Dennis Rodman, Toni Kukoc and of course Scottie Pippen #8212; an NBA all-time top-50 player and NBA all-time top-5 sidekick.Yet, Jordan still complained about needing more help until they finally started winning titles together.After James#146; second or third season in Cleveland I wrote that the Cavs should hire Jerry Krause to help build around him there the way he helped build around Jordan here.Nobody listens to me, the Cavs never did for James what the Bulls did for Jordan and he left Cleveland to find his own title-worthy teammates.Sorry, but even if I threw around the word hate I couldn#146;t throw one in James#146; direction for being as selfish, egotistic and insensitive as most athletes are.However, fans in the United Center do have every right to dislike LeBron James with a passion for trying to beat the Bulls out of a conference championship.mimrem@dailyherald.com