LeBron James understands that people hated The Decision, mocked his welcoming party and delighted in his failure in the NBA finals.
He doesn't care. Those aren't the people he aims to please.
"Absolutely not, because at the end of the day, all the people that were rooting on me to fail, they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today," James said.
"They have the same personal problems they had today. I'm going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that.
"They can get a few days or a few months ... on being happy about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal. But they have to get back to the real world at some point."
James left Cleveland for Miami this season to win titles, so he would have All-Star help around him and he would not have to carry the team.
In the end, the problem was, the Heat could not carry James.
His disappointing season ended on Sunday night with the Dallas Mavericks' 105-95 victory in Game 6. James started strong and faltered at the finish, just as the Heat did in this series.
James said the loss felt like a "personal failure" but also said "it hurts of course, but I'm not going to hang my head low."
He averaged just 17.8 points in the series, few of them coming in the clutch situations. He tried to console himself by noting that he won two more games this time than he did in his first finals try, when his Cleveland Cavaliers were swept by San Antonio in 2007, and that maybe he could win two more next time.
He will need to. Because until then, the accusations of quitting against Boston in last year's playoffs, of shrinking under the pressure this time, will grow louder.
"That doesn't bother me," James said. "I understand this is a huge stage, and you want to perform well for nobody else besides your teammates. That's ultimately what it's about for me."
Miami simply could not overcome James's poor fourth quarters in most of the series. He had only 11 points in the final periods of the first five games. He had seven points in the final quarter of the last one, but he had gone too long without impacting the game after scoring nine of Miami's first 14 points.
"Sometimes you got it, sometimes you don't, and that was this case in this series," James said. calling Dallas an underrated defensive team that kept him out of the paint.
And while they celebrated in Dallas, there was surely a big bash in Ohio, James's home state. Fans there were stunned when he decided to leave the Cavaliers, and the hurt turned to rage when he opted to do it in a television show called The Decision, which included the announcement that he was taking his talents to South Beach.
