Many are called, few chosen

Memo to the people of Cleveland: The phrase and a child shall lead them was not a prophetic reference to the coming of LeBron James. Despite what you may be hearing, an 18-year-old basketball player from Akron should not have to carry the hopes and dreams of a city on his shoulders.
You wouldn't know that from the Cleveland press. "James gives Cavaliers a savior, city a superstar," read a typical headline in Friday's Plain Dealer.
We'll grant that LeBron James is an enormously gifted basketball player. And he has shown a maturity beyond his 18 years in recent days in handling all the press attention that came with his being the No. 1 pick in the National Basketball Association draft.
But James is coming off a couple of years as a high school phenomenon during which he received phenomenally little constructive criticism from the adults surrounding him. He was deferred to by coaches, prospective agents and representatives, athletic shoe hucksters, basketball executives, even a common pleas court judge.
More than adulation, James needs some discipline from coaches and sound mentoring from fellow players. Disturbingly, the Cavaliers still seem to think that an illegal workout the team had with James when he was a high school junior was a good investment, even if it did involve a $250,000 fine and a two-game suspension for the coach at the time.
That kind of attitude -- it's all right to break the rules when you're dealing with the Chosen One (one of LeBron's nicknames) -- is exactly what got James into trouble during his senior year in high school. It won't help him as he embarks on what could -- and should -- be a remarkable professional basketball career.