LeBron James can become a free agent in the summer of 2010. AP Ian Thomsen's Mailbag Ian Thomsen will periodically answer questions from SI.com users in his mailbag. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND

3 Questionable statements

3. "It's something I don't really think about or worry about.''
-- Cavs owner Dan Gilbert, on the possibility of LeBron leaving as a free agent in 2010.

He shouldn't be fretting in a panicky way, but I can guarantee you he frets passionately. It's obvious that James not only badly wants to win championships but also that he's capable of doing so -- just look how far he has carried these Cavs over the last three postseasons.

In 2006, LeBron signed a shortened three-year extension. He negotiated a deal that can set him free in 2010 for a couple of reasons: As a seven-year veteran, he'll be able to demand a salary worth 30 percent of the team salary cap (as opposed to the 25 percent he can receive before 2010), and he'll also be able to jump to a more competitive franchise if he doesn't have faith in the Cavs to build a title team around him. If he leaves, the value of the franchise shrinks. There is nothing wrong with Gilbert fretting about the future in a constructive way that means to build a championship contender that James can't afford to leave.

2. "That's over with and in the past as far as we're concerned, and our league is concerned, hopefully.''
-- Doc Rivers on allegations by Tim Donaghy's lawyer that players and coaches have had relationships with referees that influence games.

With all due respect to Rivers -- who doesn't feel comfortable speaking on behalf of the league on this topic; he was responding politely to a question -- no one should assume this scandal is behind the NBA. That would, in fact, be absolutely the wrong conclusion to draw. Once Donaghy has been sentenced and the details of his sports-betting relationships have been made public, the league needs to provide a compelling and comprehensive explanation of how a referee was able to engage in this kind of behavior for an extended period of time, and what is going to be done to prevent it from happening again.

It may appear as if fans have paid little attention to the Donaghy scandal, but be assured that sports bettors around the country understand its implications. The NBA was surprised by the criminal activities of its disgraced referee, and fans of all kinds must be convinced that constructive reforms are being created to avoid further surprises to come.

1. "Jon Lester?''
-- Leigh Montville, best-selling author

I live in Boston, and on Monday I woke up realizing I had four tickets to the Red Sox game that night. This is a true story. I called many people to invite them to join us, and half of them had a valid reason for not coming. The other half wanted to know who was pitching.

Jon Lester, I said.

"You know, I haven't been feeling well. I think I'm going to stay in tonight.''

"I should really be spending more time with the family.''

"Jon Lester? I'll pass.'' Laughing as they said this, like I was trying to pull something over.

The one person who showed half-hearted interest was Montville, whose new book, The Mysterious Montague: A True Tale of Hollywood, Golf, and Armed Robbery, is the best book on golf I have ever read. So when everyone else turned me down, I called Montville again to ask if he really cared to go, because if he was as ambivalent as he'd sounded then we would just take our two kids despite it being a school night.

"I was 50-50 on going,'' admitted Montville, who said he wanted to stay home and watch the Spurs-Hornets Game 7.

Plus, I said, you probably didn't want to watch Jon Lester.

"Yeah, Jon Lester ...''

So the four of us went that night to see Jon Lester throw a 130-pitch no-hitter against the Kansas City Royals less than two years after he completed treatment for cancer. It might be the most amazing athletic performance I will ever see. The next morning this e-mail was waiting for me:

OK, so I figure I have seen well over 1,000 major-league baseball games in person. I HAVE NEVER SEEN A NO-HITTER!

My lawyer will be contacting you sometime this morning.

Indignantly,

Montville

Let me assure my readers that my insistent plugging of Montville's latest and finest work is not intended to discourage legal action, but rather is done as a public service, to encourage people to read a compelling and hilarious story about a golfer who was hitting 300-yard drives in the 1930s as best friend to Bing Crosby and other Hollywood celebrities before his previously mysterious identity was exposed in a trial of the century.

One other thing I haven't mentioned is that we had received these tickets from my sister-in-law, who agreed to trade nights with us only because I had been forced to miss a Red Sox game the previous week while covering the NBA playoffs. This turned out to be a good break for us, obviously, but not for my sister-in-law. And so moments after the final pitch was thrown, while the players were dancing in a big scrum near the mound, my wife handed her phone to our 12-year-old son to call his generous aunt `"so she could hear the roar of the crowd,'' and before he could say a word in all the ambient noise of 37,000 people clapping and cheering, he thought he heard something that sounded like her voice yelling into the phone: "You shuck!''

Let me add that the reason we live in Boston is to expose our children to their relatives who live here. Because family is everything.

2 Reasons to lean toward Michael Beasley as the No. 1 pick

2. Derrick Rose needs somebody to pass to. If Rose slides to the Heat at No. 2 in the draft, he'll look better in Miami passing to Dwyane Wade and Shawn Marion than he would in Chicago passing to Luol Deng and Ben Gordon. But here's what the Bulls need to be asking: How many of the great point guards have won a championship? Of course Tony Parker is excellent, but he has never been ranked among the top three point guards of this era. Billups wasn't seen as an elite point guard when he quarterbacked a team to the title. Neither were Jason Williams, Derek Fisher, Avery Johnson or John Paxson, who was Michael Jordan's point guard nearly 20 years ago and is now the Bulls' general manager charged with making the No. 1 pick. Paxson should know better than anyone the qualities mandatory for a championship team, and an All-Star point guard isn't among them.

1. Beasley has the talent to become a top 10 player. Those are the guys who win championships. Beasley isn't LeBron James, but a lot of personnel scouts believe that he is the biggest talent in this draft. The Bulls have a lot of good players who haven't won much of anything. They need a great player, and they should use the No. 1 pick on the prospect most likely to fill that need. If they decide that Rose is that player, then so be it. But they shouldn't decide based on his position.

1 Thought on the NBA Finals

1. There are a lot of conspiracy theorists in the NBA, and I hope for their sake they aren't working for the Spurs or Pistons. If so, then they have to be upset by speculation that the league would like to see the Lakers and Celtics in the Finals. They also have to know, based on recent ratings history, that a Pistons-Spurs series will draw a TV audience slightly larger than the number of people who declined my offer to watch Jon Lester's no-hitter. But I'm sure no one has anything to worry about.