The LeBron Chronicles will finally come to an end Thursday night, and it will do so in the one place that all sports soap operas must these days: With a live ESPN special hosted by Stuart Scott.

That it took “sources” to inform an in-house reporter of a programming change on his own network showed just how convoluted and out of whack the whole process has become.

It has been four years in the making, since the summer of 2006 when LeBron and Dwyane Wade elected to take shorter extensions and hit free agency at the same time. Maybe that was always the plan, because it’s becoming clearer that the only way for LeBron James Productions to provide the big climatic finish this story so desperately needs is to have James and Wade join forces with Chris Bosh in Miami.

That’s the only way for LeBron to steal the attention back from Kevin Durant, who just celebrated a quiet five-year extension with the Thunder with his summer league teammates in Orlando. 

The juxtaposition is almost too perfect between the two players: The superficial LeBron vs. the basketball-driven Durant. It’s also not lost on NBA circles that Durant is represented by Aaron Goodwin, the same agent who LeBron kicked to the curb in favor of his childhood friends.

The operative word for the great free agent chase of 2010 is tacky.

Pat Riley flashed his rings in an effort to impress LeBron James, and really shouldn’t it be the other way around for a player who has never won so much as a game in the NBA finals? New York bowed down to him and the Russian billionaire showed him the path to true world domination. The Cavs made a cartoon.

While franchises willingly imploded themselves for the right to simply talk with LeBron, the self-proclaimed King arrived for these two and three-hour presentations in shorts and sweats, underlying the fact that at 25 years old, he is still just an overgrown kid who likes to be told how great he is.

The media went along for the ride, breathlessly reporting the latest developments when the plan all along was to usurp their power — what little of it there is left — and keep the spotlight focused squarely on LeBron.

And then ESPN upped the ante, by becoming a partner with Team LeBron — and his myriad of attendant sponsors — in broadcasting the announcement as if it’s actual news complete with a Jim Gray interview. But then, the key letter in the network is E for Entertainment, which is what this puppet show has become.  

True, it was a good show while it lasted, with plot twists, tales of in-fighting and more constructed drama than an episode of Entourage. But now that we are reaching the end no one comes out of this looking good.

Not James, who will instantaneously go back to being a basketball player first and a marketing strategy second, no matter where he ends up. A basketball player who will now undergo scrutiny and criticism the likes of which he has never seen.

Not Dwyane Wade, who dangled his turbulent personal life as a giant tease to his hometown of Chicago before deciding to go back to Miami.

Not Chris Bosh, who comes across as a needy dependent; Johnny Drama to LeBron’s Vinnie Chase and Wade’s E.

And certainly not the teams that left themselves to the mercies and whims of the free agents. Will any of them be complete by October?

It this comes to pass, the Heat are still going to be looking for pieces to the puzzle, although it would be an even more fascinating project than the Celtics trio of assembled stars. (Not for nothing, but Mario Chalmers is no Rajon Rondo). 

The Knicks will be left scrambling for the discarded remains of underwhelming point guards and complimentary players. The Cavs, even if LeBron does return, are still a player or two short and capped out.

The Bulls will still have a nice, young core but we’ve been saying that about them since the days of Eddy Curry and Tyson Chandler. The Nets are still the Nets, although perhaps a little more ambitious than we used to know them.

Even on the periphery of the James sweepstakes, the Hawks and Grizzlies were left to hopelessly overpay their own free agents, Joe Johnson and Rudy Gay, and neither seems likely to offer much of a return on their investment. 

While the teams that were left out of the chase have used free agency to drastically overspend on role players like Drew Gooden, Darko and Chris Duhon. How, exactly, are the NBA owners supposed to cry poverty when a new collective bargaining agreement is negotiated after next season?

Left standing through all of this are the NBA’s two best teams: the Celtics and Lakers.  (Provided Ray Allen returns and they are able to fill in the gaps on their respective rosters.) 

The Lakers remain the prohibitive favorites as long as Phil Jackson coaches, Kobe Bryant breathes and Pau Gasol remains upright. The Celtics may be old, but as they proved this past spring, you have to drive a stake through their heart to kill them off — and there is the chance that Rondo may still wind up better than anyone can possibly imagine.

They have different approaches, organizational philosophies and fanbases, but the Lakers and Celtics remain refreshingly old-school. Make no mistake: Jackson and Doc Rivers came back for another shot at a championship and each other. Nothing more, nothing less. 

Against the backdrop of the last two weeks, their seven games of blood and guts basketball is a reminder of why we go through all of this in the first place. Until someone can challenge them on their terms, the present seems not all that different from the recent past.

And still, the endearing image on the day after the big announcement about the pending LeBron announcement is Durant and the Thunder agreeing on a five-year extension.

To put it another way, whose future would you rather have: Oklahoma City’s or Miami’s?