It makes sense on an emotional level. The mantra of the Celtics has always been that they haven't lost yet when their starting 5 is healthy. So, they wanted to keep the same 5 as their starters for next season to make another run. Problem is that they're all a year older. We'll see if it works out.
I expected him to make the full MLE, but Celtics don't mind paying more I guess.
On Lebron, don't even blame the media for the whole thing. Sure, they have a part in it, but it was Lebron's team who called ESPN up. He loves all the attention. It was him that said a couple years back, "July 1, 2010 is going to be the biggest day ever." He calls himself King James on his Twitter when not even Jordan called himself Air Jordan. 1 hour press conferences != "I'm back." There are numerous instances of Lebron making the first statement to get attention.
It's not necessarily a bad thing that he's a media whore since there are the 2 extremes. There's the KD style who is low key and there's Lebron who treats the whole thing like a giant reality show, which we know is really popular in the US with all the Survivor and other shows that did well. Just 2 different types of people and styles of handing the NBA. One isn't really better than the other since they'll both attract new fans and keep old fans to the game.