Dan Gilbert

For all of its recent pain and humiliation -- the hoopla surrounding the protracted departure of basketball star LeBron James, and the deaths of native sons Harvey Pekar and George Steinbrenner -- Cleveland is poised to emerge unbent, unbroken and stronger than ever.

When someone recently asked basketball great Michael Jordan, arguably the greatest player in NBA history, whom he thought was better -- LeBron James or Kobe Bryant -- he blurted out "Kobe." Based on what people pay for their sports memorabilia, it appears collectors would tend to agree.

NBA Commissioner David Stern fined Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert $100,000 on Monday for the scathing letter he published after former Cavs star LeBron James announced he was heading to the Miami Heat next season. Stern also chastised James and Jackson.

Cleveland Cavaliers majority owner Dan Gilbert wasn't pleased when LeBron James announced that he would join the Miami Heat. Gilbert slashed the price of life-size James decals from $99.99 to $17.41, a reference to Benedict Arnold, America's most famous traitor, who was born in 1741.

Dan Gilbert, owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, the team LeBron James left to join the Miami Heat, has released a scathing open letter attacking the NBA star. The letter seems to put a curse on LeBron, as angry Cleveland fans burn his jersey.

So I've had a few days to digest the latest job-loss data. Parsed one way and the numbers actually don't seem all that bad. An official rate of 9.4 percent, a .1 improvement over the month before, this could almost be the start of something, no? Of course, then you gnaw into the next couple of data...

Professional basketball has become an international game. Many of today's stars have come to the U.S. to play in the National Basketball Association (NBA), so it should be no surprise that foreign investors are eager to join them in the bouncy world of bling and adulation. The recent purchase of 15...