If you've been listening to Mike and Mike this morning, you would have heard them making the case that they don't think New York is the favorite for where LeBron will end up. That's because the American public is mostly confused as to which market the NBA (and Nike) is trying to sell him to. When you get right down to it, it really doesn't matter which city LeBron ends up in if they're trying to market him if it was an American market they were catering to. You really think LeBron's going to be more exposed in New York than he already is in Cleveland? I doubt that - he's already for the most part the biggest household name in America right now. Just how much bigger can he get in New York? In fact, it's not an American market they're trying to sell him to - it's actually China. And the Chinese don't really give a rip about the marketing power of New York or Chicago or Cleveland - they care about how many championships a player has won. During the Olympics a couple of years ago, why do you think it was Kobe that got Nike's "special" shoes for the Olympics and not LeBron? It's because Kobe's the more marketable guy in China - and it has less to do with the fact that he's spent his entire career in Los Angeles and much more to do with the fact that he had 3 rings on his fingers (at the time).
Basically, the NBA and Nike aren't concerned about selling LeBron to the American public - that's already done and that's not going away. What they're trying to do is sell LeBron to the 300 million people living on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, and how they do that is by LeBron winning championships. New York is YEARS away from that happening, even with as much cap space as they have to work with. His best chance to win a championship quickly is either to sign with Chicago (who, if they had LeBron this year, would have been better than the Cavs with LeBron this year), or to resign with Cleveland with the stipulation that they must bring in another body that's actually able to take some of the load off of him.