When NBA and NFL franchise players in professional sports find their way to a city, it is more than fanfare and hysteria. Literally, players can change the demographics and the economies of metropolises; especially those experiencing hard financial times.
As professional sport grew, so did the ways franchises and host cities made billions for the likes of Carl Malone and John Stockton of the Utah Jazz; Jacksonville Jaguars; Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls; Phoenix Suns and LeBron James, formerly of the Cleveland Cavaliers and now playing for the Los Angeles Lakers. With that came change to distressed areas, for the good and the for the wrong reasons.
Chase Matthews looks at four legends on three NBA teams to explore how their presence upped the game in Salt Lake City, Chicago and Cleveland.
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