"We're all on the edge of our seats," SportsCenter anchor Linda Cohn said at 8:05 p.m.

If so, perhaps that came from slumping in our seats, a weary response to too much of too much. By the time James got around to it, the whole thing seemed less suspensful than Geraldo Rivera prying open Al Capone's vault.

At 8:07, nearly an hour and a half before James named the name, SportsCenter co-host Ryan Burr asked, "But now, in the final hour, where things can really start to change, what is coming out of LeBron's camp, now?"

How's that? Things can really start to change in the last hour? How does he know that? Based on past "Decisions?" This one was unprecedented, and for the sake of sports, modesty and dignity, we should hope it stays unprecedented; we should hope nothing this ugly happens again.

As always with TV, the going-to-the-Heat telecast carried the whiff of a fix, of "Follow the money."

Jim Gray, the "chosen" independent interviewer who took James' declaration, did a nice job of keeping it low-key while stretching it, but, according to broadcasting sources, Gray was chosen because of his "special sales relationship" with the online college, the University of Phoenix, one of the telecast's primary sponsors. Gray's Monday Night Football pregame show Westwood One Radio is sponsored by the University of Phoenix.

And James' first day-after exclusive interview has been scheduled to be this morning with ABC's "Good Morning America." That's ABC, owned by Disney, which also owns ESPN.

The one who seemed to bring the most subdued, dignified feel to the night was James, who spoke like a pro, a team guy, a modest guy, a good guy. He came out much better than those who advise him had advised.

One day -- soon, hopefully -- James will take a hard look at the last few weeks and encourage the next free agent superstars to do it differently, to do it more gracefully, to do it better.

And, until ESPN changes its style and direction to replace hype and self-promotion with its original, long-gone good sense of sport -- to avoid doing it on and with ESPN.