There was no drama this time for LeBron James. No garish and awful hour-long televised special that broke the hears of a whole city. And—on the flipside—no heartfelt, emotional letter to those who’d had their hearts broken four years before. James is joining the Los Angeles Lakers, and the announcement came via a tweet from his agency. It was all business, and that is fitting.
James has unfinished business—he wants more championship rings—and it was hard to see how that would happen if he stayed in Cleveland. Even when the Cavaliers had a legit “Big Three” in James, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Love, it took all they had to squeak out an NBA Finals victory over Golden State in 2016. And then the Warriors responded by adding Kevin Durant to a team that had just won a record 73 games.
The result: In 2017, the Warriors beat the Cavs in five. This season, when the Cavs’ roster consisted of James, Love, and some spare parts and outcasts? A sweep.
To be fair, it’s not immediately clear how LeBron will be able to march to a championship wearing purple and gold—or even get past the still-stacked Warriors in the West. The Lakers haven’t been good since long before Kobe Bryant retired. Los Angeles is trying to negotiate a trade with the Spurs for Kawhi Leonard, a two-time all-NBA first-team shooting guard, but the Lakers face competition from the Philadelphia 76ers on that front. But I suppose the chances of LeBron getting a superstar sidekick—if not next season than perhaps in 2019-2020—are slightly better in Los Angeles than in Cleveland.
Even so, James’ departure doesn’t not suck for anyone from Cleveland. I remember hearing the news that he was coming back to Ohio. The giddiness was shocking, because his return was the kind of thing that just doesn’t happen for the tortured souls in the 216. Cleveland fans are used to losing, and doing so in the most excruciating ways possible.
But James spent the next four years helping those fans adjust to the unsettling idea of expecting success. Heck, in his very first season back, he had the Warriors on the ropes in the 2015 Finals despite losing Kevin Love (bum shoulder) and Kyrie Irving (broken kneecap) along the way. The Cavs began that series on the road, and after losing Game 1 (and Irving, alas) in overtime, beat the Warriors in their own arena in Game 2. When the Cavs returned home for Game 3, you could feel the emotion even through the TV screen: The city was rocking. Fans unfurled a huge banner—it covered two sections of seats—that read “There’s always this year.” And we all believed it.
Of course, the Warriors won the series in six. But Cleveland’s stand set the stage for the following year, where the entire playoff stretch wasn’t even fraught—it was actually fun. There was the second-round game against the Atlanta Hawks when the Cavs rained down 25 3-pointers and the game was so lopsided that the Hawks started making fun of themselves on Twitter. There was the way the Cavs toyed with the Toronto Raptors in the Eastern Conference Finals, letting them steal two wins before crushing them by 38 points and 26 points in the last two games, a blow so devastating that the Raptors were never again competitive in the playoffs against Cleveland. There was even goofiness like Lil Kev, a photo of a Tommy Bahama model who looked a little too much like Kevin Love and became the team’s unofficial mascot.
And then there was the Finals: Multiple 40-point games for LeBron. The artistry of Kyrie Irving. The drama of going down three games to one and then having to steal two from a historically great Warriors team on the road. And then, Game 7. Game 7! A battle that was decided with three huge plays, one each by James, Irving, and Love. The Block by James, kept the Warriors close. The Shot by Irving, turned out to be the winning basket. And with The Stop, Love kept Steph Curry from sinking a bucket that could have sent the game into OT. And then there was LeBron, looking into the cameras and screaming, “Cleveland, this is for you.”
We’ll always have that.
So yes, this is disappointing. But it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as the other soul-crushing heartbreaks this city has experienced. And it doesn’t hurt as much as it would to watch the best player in the game—maybe the best who has ever played it—to while away the rest of his career as he has the last two seasons.
Cleveland should put his jersey in the rafters. Build him a statue. And wish him well.
