12 Devastating Sports Departures

When LeBron James left the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers in the summer of 2010 and became a free agent, many teams tried to gain his services. A media frenzy ensued and in the hours leading up to the announcement of James’ new team, speculation reached a fever pitch. Finally, he ended the suspense and announced that he would sign with the Miami Heat.

The Cavaliers were forgotten in the chaos and without him they became just another team, at one point losing 25 games in a row and, according to analysis from one sports investment banker, are now worth $100 million less than the $375 million that owner Dan Gilbert paid for them.

Many other sports teams have seen their fortune go from good to bad when a star athlete jumps ship, and though they may not have been as costly as the James-Cavaliers defection, the team suffers nonetheless and may take years to recover, with some feeling the pain more than once. These defections are a direct result of the player’s choice, instead of them being traded from team to team, so these moves were basically all up to the players.

Click ahead to see some of the most painful defections in sports history.

By Daniel Bukszpan, Special for CNBC.com
Posted 18 Feb 2011

After playing on LSU’s basketball team, Shaquille O’Neal was a hot property. The team with the good fortune to get him was the Orlando Magic, who picked him first in the 1992 NBA Draft. He won Rookie of the Year for the 1992-1993 season and led the Magic all the way to the 1995 Finals. However, greener pastures called and he signed a seven-year contract with the Los Angeles Lakers that was worth $121 million.

The team he had left behind was completely destabilized by the loss. Halfway through the 1996 season, coach Brian Hill was fired. His replacement, Richie Audabato, didn’t last either and the following season was their first in five years in which they failed to make the playoffs. The Magic would not see the Finals again until 2009, a full 14 years since O’Neal had led them there.

Vladimir Guerrero signed with the Montreal Expos and made his debut for the team in 1996. He quickly gained a reputation as an overeager hitter who would swing a bat at any pitch that came his way, but despite his perceived recklessness, he built up a solid record that included a 31-game hitting streak. In 2003 he became a free agent, and the Los Angeles Angels snapped him up with a five-year, $70 million contract.

While Guerrero had cited his Latin heritage as a motivating factor in his decision to join the California team, it wasn’t hard to guess why he might have left the Expos. The team had struggled for years, and by 2002 there was talk of moving or even selling it. When he decided to leave, the team was experiencing yet another losing streak, but after his departure they lost 11 of the first 13 games that they played. They finished their last season as a team in last place.

David Beckham is best known in the US for his current stint with the Los Angeles Galaxy soccer team, but before that he played for Manchester United and Real Madrid. Beckham joined Real Madrid in 2003 for $50 million, but he found himself in conflict with the team’s head coach and its president, so when he signed with the Galaxy in 2007, club president Ramon Calderon trashed the outgoing footballer in the press and basically advised him not to let the door hit him on his way out.

When the smoke cleared, the team’s marketing director, Jose Sanchez, disclosed to The Sun that Real Madrid had sold one million t-shirts in the first six months of Beckham's tenure, and in the four years that he had played for them, their merchandising profits had increased by 137%. That was now gone, and although the team remained a force to be reckoned with on the field, they took a major hit in terms of lost revenue.

1993 Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Reggie Jackson went from player to superstar when he was a New York Yankee. Known as “Mr. October,” he became famous for his powerhouse World Series hitting, which led the team to two consecutive World Series titles. However, his history stretched back to the 1960s, when he played for the Oakland A’s, a team that won the World Series three consecutive times with his help.

In 1976 he signed a five-year contract with the Yankees worth almost $3 million, and went on to be immortalized in the halls of baseball history and even got his own candy bar. The A’s, on the other hand, finished out their first season without him in last place, a feat that they would repeat two years later, all while suffering more than 90 losses in the three years following Jackson’s departure. They hit bottom when a 1979 game against the Seattle Mariners was attended by 653 people.

Michael Jordan is one of the greatest players in basketball history, but he was also a defector in his own right. After being one of the most prolific scorers in the NBA, he led the Chicago Bulls to three consecutive championships during the 1991 through 1993 seasons and was the centerpiece of a sports dynasty.

However, in 1993 Jordan announced his retirement, citing a lack of desire to play basketball after the loss of his father. He jumped ship to pursue a professional baseball career in the Chicago White Sox farm system. Although making the playoffs in the first season after Jordan’s departure, the Bulls struggled in 1995 to maintain a .500 record and was considered a shell of the championship team of two years earlier. Near the end of the 1995 season, after his baseball career floundered, Jordan returned to basketball and lifted the Bulls back into playoff contention. Although they lost to the Orlando Magic that year, the team went on to win another three consecutive championships in 1996, 1997 and 1998.

Manny Ramirez is one of only 25 baseball players to hit over 500 career home runs. He started out in 1993 with the Cleveland Indians and became a regular home run hitter in his second-ever Major League game. He came one spot shy of being voted Rookie of the Year after his first season, and during his time with Cleveland he topped RBI records that had been unbroken since the 1930s.

In December 2000, the Red Sox signed him to an eight-year contract worth $160 million. Two years later, Indians owner Larry Dolan made a shocking announcement --- despite playing to sellout crowds for most of a decade, the team was running out of money and Dolan sold off players to insure the Indians’ ongoing solvency. The team’s performance was affected, and it would take three years before they began winning more games than they lost during the season.

In a career lasting more than 20 years, Barry Bonds distinguished himself as one of the best players in the history of baseball. He racked up seven Most Valuable Player Awards and he holds both the home run record for a single season and the all-time home run record. When he joined the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1986, the team was at a low point in its popularity. But within a single season he helped the team regain its fan base and over 52,000 people attended the 1987 home opener as a result.

In 1993, Bonds signed with the San Francisco Giants for $44 million, a record at the time and the equivalent of over $66 million today. Bonds’ absence from the Pirates was felt immediately. The team, who had played in the National League Championship Series just one year earlier, finished the 1993 season in fifth place, and two years later, they finished in last place, a feat which they repeated in 1998 and again in 2001. Out of baseball, Bonds is currently facing trial over perjury and obstruction of justice in a federal investigation into steroid use. He has pled not guilty to the charges.

Deion Sanders is the rare athlete who excelled in two separate sports-- baseball and football. His football career began with the Atlanta Falcons in 1989, and his tenure with them lasted until 1993. During that time he excelled on the field, leading the league in kickoff return yards, return touchdowns and yards per return, all in 1992. The San Francisco 49ers soon came knocking, and they signed Sanders in 1994.

As he did with the Falcons, Sanders excelled with the 49ers. The team advanced to and won, Super Bowl XXIX, but Sanders was already thinking about moving on, and he signed to the Dallas Cowboys after just one year in San Francisco. In his absence, a rash of bad luck struck the team, with injuries sidelining key players. The 49ers recovered in time to salvage the season with an 11-5 record, but that was quickly forgotten in the Divisional Playoffs, when they were trounced by the Green Bay Packers in a 27-17 loss in front of their own hometown crowd.

Larry Walker played right field for the now defunct Montreal Expos. He signed with the MLB team in 1989 and graced their roster during their remarkable 1994 season, in which they topped the National League East, broke attendance records and established a 74-40 record. By late summer, few doubted that the team was on its way to the playoffs, but that was derailed by the baseball strike which stopped the season cold and mooted both the playoffs and the World Series.

When the strike was over and games resumed in 1995, the Expos had lost star players, including Walker. The right fielder had moved on to the Colorado Rockies, and in subsequent seasons he broke multiple records and became the first Canadian to win the Most Valuable Player Award. However, the Expos saw attendance at their games plummet, and in contrast to their incredible 1994 season, they ended the 1995 season in last place. The team was sold to Major League Baseball 2004 and are now the Washington Nationals.

Greg Maddux is a former pitcher who was paradoxically nicknamed both “The Professor” and “Mad Dog.” He is the only pitcher in Major League Baseball history to win at least 15 games in 17 consecutive seasons, and he has won a record 18 Gold Glove Awards. His first team was the Chicago Cubs, whom he joined in 1986. After seven years with them, contract renegotiations went sour, so rather than re-sign with them, Maddux walked away and signed a five-year contract with the Atlanta Braves worth $28 million.

After Maddux left, the Cubs continued to live up to their nickname, “The Lovable Losers,” one that they’ve earned with their dogged refusal to win a single World Series title for over a century. The team fell into last place in 1994 with a 49-64 record that was mercifully cut short by the player's strike. In 1997 the team lost their first 16 games of the season and finished in last place, doing so again in 2000. They made it to the World Series in 2003 and seemed poised to win, but a fan interfered with a ball hit into the stands in the 11th hour, and the team ultimately lost.

Pete Rose played baseball for the Cincinnati Reds for a fifteen-year stint that started in 1963. Nicknamed “Charlie Hustle,” he is the all-time leader in at-bats, games played, hits and outs, and he even played in 17 All-Star Games in five different positions. The 1970s lineup of the Reds that he played for was known as “The Big Red Machine,” and it was considered one of the greatest ball clubs in the history of the game, with such legendary players as Joe Morgan and Johnny Bench appearing alongside Rose.

In 1979, the unthinkable happened, and the Reds lost Rose to free agency. He went on to join the Philadelphia Phillies, and by 1981 most of the other players associated with the team’s glory days had moved on as well. This break from the past was never clearer than in the 1982 season, in which the Reds finished in last place, and then did so again in 1983. It was a tragic, stunning fall for a team that just a few years earlier was considered elite and unstoppable.

Terrell Owens, known to fans as T.O., is a wide receiver that most recently played for the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals. However, he began his career in 1996, playing for the San Francisco 49ers. The flamboyant athlete quickly made a name for himself as much for his playing ability as for his habit of getting into controversial situations, including a well-publicized feud with fellow teammate Jeff Garcia. However, in 2003, both players were purged from the third-place team as the 49ers sought to rebuild from scratch.

It didn’t work. The new team that took the field without the purged athletes was a shadow of its former self, which was obvious when the team suffered embarrassing losses in their first three games of the season. It was a painfully accurate omen of things to come. The season ended with the 49ers posting a 2-14 record, the worst in the history of the franchise.