LeBron James joins the Heat in search of elusive title

LeBron James said yesterday he is leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers to join forces with fellow All-Stars Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh at the Miami Heat next season in the hope of winning an elusive NBA championship.

Ending one of the biggest transfer sagas in US professional sports, James said the three players had all agreed to take paycuts to team up and create a club capable of challenging the Los Angeles Lakers for the title.

"The things that the Miami Heat franchise have done to be able to free up (salary) cap space and to be able to put themselves in a position this summer to have all three of us, it was hard to turn down," James said.

"Those are two great players, two of the greatest players that we have in the game today, and you add me we are going to be a really good team."

The NBA's Most Valuable Player for the past two seasons, James's future had been the subject of intense speculation in the United States over the past few months but reached new heights when the free agency period began last week.

James and his management team helped fuel the frenzy by keeping their plans secret before he finally revealed the identity of his new team in a special one-hour show broadcast live on national television.

He arrived at the Boys & Girls Club of Greenwich (Connecticut) wearing a pink and white shirt and answered a series of questions about the process he used to reach his decision.

"I am going to take my talents to South Beach and join the Miami Heat," he said in revealing the highly anticipated decision.

James had been with the Cavaliers since they recruited him from high school as the top pick in the 2003 NBA Draft and quickly established himself as one of the sport's best players.

The now 25-year-old small forward has averaged almost 28 points over his career and made six All-Star teams but has never realised his dream of winning a championship.

Cleveland had the NBA's top record last season but was knocked out in the second round of the playoffs, increasing speculation that James was ready to leave his home state of Ohio.

Six teams, Miami, Cleveland, Chicago Bulls, New York Knicks, New Jersey Nets and Los Angeles Clippers, all made offers to James but it was the prospect of playing with Wade and Bosh that proved decisive.

The trio had already teamed up to help the US win the men's basketball gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and had talked about the possibility of joining forces in the NBA when they all became free agents at the end of last season.

That possibility edged closer to reality when Bosh announced on Wednesday that he was leaving the Toronto Raptors to join Wade in Miami. On the same day, Wade revealed that he had re-signed with the Heat.

"I feel like this is going to give me the best opportunity to win and to win for multiple years and not only just to win in the regular season," James said.

"I want to be able to win championships and I feel like I can compete down there."

James said the financial details of his deal were yet to be finalised but he was taking a paycut so the Heat could sign all three big-name players and stay under the NBA salary cap. His off-court endorsements, however, still make him one of the highest-paid players in US sports.

The announcement by James brought about a dramatic ending to one of the most enthralling transfer deals ever seen in the NBA with television networks, newspapers and websites all monitoring any development in the saga.

James added to the increasingly wild speculation by starting up his own personal website and Twitter account, instantly generating thousands of followers as even more rumours began circulating in cyberspace.

Each of the cities that were hoping to get his signature ran slick promotional campaigns and hired celebrities to push their case. Even US President Barack Obama weighed in to the debate, saying he wanted James to go to his hometown Chicago.

At different times, almost of all the cities were rumoured to be close to signing him. Some bookmakers stopped taking bets on the outcome but Wall Street investors gambled on him moving to New York, sending shares of Madison Square Garden, owner of the Knicks, up more than 6%.

In Miami, all available tickets for next season's home games were snapped up long before the announcement was made while in Cleveland, extra police were deployed as disgruntled fans began taking out their frustrations by burning James's Cavaliers jersey.

"I never wanted to leave Cleveland and my heart will always be around that area, but I also felt like the greatest challenge for me is to move on," James said.

"I don't even see it like leaving Cleveland is the whole logistics of it. It's about joining forces with the other two guys.

"I felt like I respected their game the most and I felt like we have a great chance of winning and winning for multiple years."