LeBron James for the first seven years of his NBA career has been an interesting case.

It would be easy to dislike the guy. So very, very full of himself. So in our faces, commercially. That whole “global icon” hubris. He is almost inescapable, but not in the “aw, heck, we love the big lug” manner of Shaquille O’Neal in his prime. Or, clearly, not in the way we are forced to appreciate the men who win lots of championships, like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, no matter their personal foibles.

LeBron seemed to take himself seriously, and his game, and spent many a night all but killing himself for a Cleveland Cavaliers team that always seemed one piece short of a pie. Sure, he was all about self-promotion, but he tried to carry a modest collection of talent to a title, and he earned our admiration for that. Though that “no rings” thing was beginning to look at him twice.

But now … James seems about to embark down a path that can’t help but diminish him and make him an object of scorn and derision. Which makes you wonder what sort of closed-off fantasy world he inhabits.

That is, if he signs with the Miami Heat.

Here’s why:

–Great players don’t go sign up to play with other superstars. Not in their prime. It is the same as hanging out a sign that reads, “I’m not good enough.” Shaq went to a Lakers team with a young, but certainly not fully formed Bryant. Karl Malone stuck it out in Utah till he was all but done. Steve Nash has never hooked himself to some other bandwagon. Neither has Dirk Nowitzki or Paul Pierce. The list is long.

By joining Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami — if that is what James announces in that repugnant “The Decision” farce ESPN has agreed to — he will be The New Guy on Dwyane Wade’s Team. If he thinks otherwise, he is sadly mistaken. And no great player allows that to happen … which is why Kevin Garnett, for example, was never, ever going to join the Lakers and be the No. 2 option behind Kobe Bryant. It was below KG’s dignity.

–James will have abandoned his hometown team after stringing it along for months. Bosh, at least, made it clear he was not going back to Toronto. Amare Stoudemire was done in Phoenix. Carlos Boozer gave Utah no reason to believe he would be back.

James, however, let Cleveland think it was in the running all the way. If he has the audacity to walk away from his homies on that ridiculous ESPN event, if he spurns Cleveland in front of that sort of audience, he will never be able to go home. He will have no home, actually. He will show himself to be a base mercenary whose allegations of being about “home” were revealed to be just a pile of empty words.

–By joining Wade and Bosh in Miami, the Heat will have instantly formed the ultimate Anti-Team in the history of the league. Three superstars … with literally no one around them. Miami will have to do such violent things to its roster to clear salary cap space, that they may have to give up every player under contract … and then sign 10 guys for something close to the NBA minimum. Thus, Miami’s team will be three stars and 10 drones. Not just role players, but bit players. With zero dignity and no perceived worth.  (Smush Parker at the point, anyone?)

That is not how NBA championships are won. Look back over the years. Champions are 1) one great player; 2) one top-20 type player; 3) three very solid starters, guys who could play for most NBA teams and 4) at least three useful players off the bench.

Miami will be mocking that convention. It will be saying “basketball is a five-man game, but we can win with three.” And James will be buying into that.  Naismith and Wooden are rolling in their graves.

The Heat will be on national TV about 40 times next year, but they will be going up against actual teams, in the traditional and historically successful sense, and James will find himself booed all over the NBA. The Heat will be The Franchise That Tried to Buy an NBA Title … in the wrong way.

James may not be ready to be loathed.  He may be physically tough, but he hasn’t shown the sort of mental/emotional barriers the likes of Jordan and Bryant put up.

At this writing, however, the buzz is that James will announce for Miami tonight.

That would be a very, very, very bad idea. Cleveland is the correct play. We can almost excuse New York or Chicago, where something resembling real teams might be built.

A Big Three in Miami … it will cause Lakers fans to root for the Celtics, and vice versa. It will be that bad. That LeBron James is even considering it shows he is out of touch with reality. But, then, we began to grasp that when His People commissioned the ridiculous episode of The Decision.