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Selena Roberts writing in the current Sports Illustrated : The Cavs won"t say they are threatened by James"s friendship with a rival owner, but for every Cleveland game Jay-Z attends, for every Yankees cap or pair of pinstriped high-tops LeBron puts on, there is more speculation about the two joining forces in New York in 2010 -- the year James becomes a free agent, the year loosely scheduled for the ribbon cutting on the Nets" new arena in Brooklyn. Are Jay-Z and James plotting a merger? As the NBA"s president for league and basketball operations, Joel Litvin, notes in an e-mail, "Although we would not prohibit Jay-Z and LeBron from having a social relationship, they cannot discuss LeBron"s employment with the Cavs or the possibility of LeBron playing (at any point in time) for another team." It must be tempting for Jay-Z and James to ponder, in a Seussian dream, "Oh, the places they"d go" if they partner up in Brooklyn. But that"s an outsider"s view. Their inner circles promise the two never discuss business. Pinkie swear. To doubt them is popular, but it"s a disservice to reduce their friendship to a camaraderie of convenience. As LeBron quickly points out, his looming free agency "doesn"t mean anything" to them. "We were friends way before he was part owner of the Nets," he says. In other words, James" relationship with Nets" part owner Jay-Z is not based on recruiting James to the Nets ... it"s much deeper than that. No wonder Cleveland fans are getting to know the LeBron James leave-o-meter .