Comeback King: A look back on the last three years

OAKLAND, CA - JUNE 19: LeBron James
OAKLAND, CA - JUNE 19: LeBron James /
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LeBron James returned to the Cleveland Cavaliers, he changed the fortunes for himself and the city.

Cleveland sports history is filled with many memories (some good, some bad) but the date July 11, 2014 will forever go down as one of the greatest days in the city’s illustrious sports past.

Free agents are typically attracted to big cities, fame and most of all, winning. When it came to the city of Cleveland not many (if any) of those boxes could have been checked off in the summer of 2014. The Cleveland Cavaliers were off their fourth straight losing season and patience was starting to grow thin throughout the organization and amongst the fan base.

There were rumors of the Cavaliers trading their top player at the time, Kyrie Irving, who was said to be unhappy with the situation he was in at the moment according to ESPN’s Chad Ford. In addition, the team had just fired head coach Mike Brown for the second time in four years.

To add insult to injury, 2013 No. 1 overall pick Anthony Bennett was not raising any eyebrows and appeared to be on his way to being a bust. Not many things were going Cleveland’s way.

While the Cavaliers had cap room and money to spend, there did not look to be a lot of options that could improve the team heading into the following season outside of signing Gordon Hayward.

That was, until a native son made a decision that turned the fortunes of the franchise around.

Coming off a record-setting Finals loss to the San Antonio Spurs, LeBron James seemed to be frustrated with his current situation as the Miami Heat were an old team that was mostly full of players who were past their prime. Eventually, he was likely tired of the Heat’s front office and their unwillingness to spend money to put the players he wanted around him.

At the time, Heat president Pat Riley even called out James in a press conference at the end of the 2014 season saying, “You’ve got to stay together if you got the guts. And you don’t find the first door and run out of it” (quote transcribed by USA Today’s Jeff Zillgitt).

As the beginning days of July passed one by one, the possibility of LeBron making a return to the team and the region he spurned four years ago seemed quite real. Between fans sitting outside of LeBron’s Bath Township home in Ohio and fans tracking owner Dan Gilbert’s private plane as he flew down to Miami to meet with the marquee free agent, the LeBron hysteria was growing rapidly.

Then came that fateful day of July 11th, 2014, when Sports Illustrated released a story that set the internet on fire.

The reaction from the local media was that of shock and disbelief as you can see from the video below.

No one was really sure how to react because this was something that hardly anyone actually believed would happen. Fans took to the streets of Cleveland to celebrate the return of the NBA’s best player.

With the main piece now in place, the Cavaliers now had to build a championship contender on the fly and it wasn’t easy.

The first move was to trade 2014 No. 1 overall pick Andrew Wiggins (who was left off LeBron’s return letter) and other pieces for All-Star power forward Kevin Love (who was feuding with his former team and desired by James). This would create Cleveland’s own “Big Three” with Love alongside James and Irving.

The team began James’ first season back in Cleveland with a subpar 19-20 record, which caused those in the media to question James and his choice to return home. Many thought he took on too tall of a task and was overwhelmed by the pressure to win with his hometown team.

That all changed in early January when thanks in large part to the wizardry of then general manager David Griffin, the team brought in three new players (J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert and Timofey Mozgov). Once they were aboard, the ship was righted and the Cavaliers coasted through the rest of the regular season, finishing with a 53-29 record.

In the 2015 NBA playoffs, the road to the Finals surely was not easy, but the Cavaliers overcame adversity to come within one step of completing the task of winning the organizations first championship.

Even with odds stacked against him and after seeing his top running mates Love and Irving suffer season-ending injuries in the playoffs, James (literally) carried the Cavaliers to within two games of winning a championship. It was a masterful performance even in defeat.

While it was tough to see the team get so far, only to come up short on the biggest stage, there was plenty of hope for the following season. James had seemingly made the phrase “Waiting for Next Year” feel more like a promise than a curse to the loyal fans of Cleveland.

At the start of year two, it took a little while to get the ball rolling as both Irving and Love were still recovering from their injuries. Around Christmas time both players were back in the lineup and healthy and the Cavaliers were at the top of the Eastern Conference once again.

But just when all seemed well in Cleveland, a move was made that virtually no one saw coming. Then head coach David Blatt was fired in the middle of the year.  The fingers once again pointed to James, who had a rocky relationship with Blatt, but got along better with the man who replaced him, Tyronn Lue.

From that point on, the Cavaliers played only decent basketball the rest of the regular season, suffering a few head-scratching losses against teams they easily should have won. It should suffice to say that the Cavaliers were not exactly on fire heading into the 2016 playoffs.

However, the Cavaliers flipped the switch when the postseason began and only lost two games in the Eastern Conference playoffs.

James’ biggest challenge as a leader was still ahead of him.

The Golden State Warriors won a record 73 games during the 2015-16 season and looked to be an unstoppable unit on the basketball floor. Going into the 2016 NBA Finals, James and his team were sizable underdogs.

After falling down 3-1 to the Warriors in the Finals that year, things looked even more bleak and the doubters were out in full force once again, criticizing James to no end. He was no longer being unanimously accepted as the league’s best player and there were some out there that believed James’ best days were behind him.

What would happen next would go on to not only re-write Cleveland sports history for good, it would also cement LeBron’s legacy and forever silence his many critics.

James scored 41 points in back-to-back games and then followed it up with a triple-double in Game 7. His performance in that epic game seven clash with the Warriors was completed when he pulled off the greatest defensive play of his career as he chased down Andre Igoudala and emphatically blocked him from behind.

All the scrutiny, drama, pressure and weight that had rest on James’ shoulders since he was a 16-year-old kid seemed to be washed away by the spray of champagne in the visitors locker room that night following their championship victory.

Not only had James ended the 52-year Cleveland sports ‘curse’ he also led this Cavaliers team back from a 3-1 deficit in the NBA Finals, the first team to ever do so in league history.

The emotion poured out of James following their triumphant victory.  As James held both the championship trophy and NBA Finals MVP trophy, ESPN reporter Doris Burke asked James why this title meant more to him than the first two he won in Miami. James answered with two resounding, yet simple words that everyone in Northeast Ohio could relate to, “I’m home.”

This is a journey and a story that is usually saved for books and movies.  Seeing Cleveland finally win a championship was a surreal feeling for fans across the country who had long supported the Cavaliers. For LeBron though, this was a moment he always envisioned happening.

In year three of LeBron’s return, the franchise and the fan base were still riding the high of the championship from the previous year but after the ring ceremony it was back to business for James.

If LeBron wanted to repeat in Cleveland as he did in Miami, he would have to get past a Warriors team who added perennial All-Star and MVP Kevin Durant to their team in the offseason.

Once again the Cavaliers struggled to find much consistency in the regular season.  However that was not the case for LeBron, who averaged 26.4 points, 8.6 rebounds (career-high) and 8.7 assists (career-high) while shooting 54.8 percent from the field during the regular season. That was the first time in NBA history that any one player has put those numbers in one season.

Even though the Cavaliers were unable to capture the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference again, James led the Cavaliers through the first three rounds of the playoffs with little trouble.  Along the way he put up one incredible stat line after another and made a statement that even in year 14, he was still King James.

For the third straight year the Warriors lay in wait for Cleveland.

James treated the world to an all-time performance in the NBA Finals this past year. While the series ended in five games and Cleveland lost, James averaged a triple-double. He is the only player in NBA history to accomplish that feat. Even though the Cavaliers lost, it was not due to the effort of James.

As of right now, the Cavaliers are in choppy waters as they are without a general manager and there is the real possibility James could leave the Cavaliers once again after next season. That, however, is talk for another day.

Regardless of what happens next season or anytime in the near future, we should all be grateful LeBron chose to come back to Northeast Ohio. For many years, it was nothing more than a pipe dream and there seemed to be no chance LeBron would actually ever come back.

But he did, and more importantly James accomplished what he set out to do from the time he stepped foot in the NBA, win a championship for the city of Cleveland.

James’ emotional celebration that night in Oakland was the culmination of an unbelievable journey that began when he was a young, 18-year-old who had aspirations at becoming the best. Since then, he has endured quite a bit and continued to work relentlessly at becoming not only the best player of his generation but the best player of all-time. Luckily, we have all had a front row seat to watch LeBron’s greatness on full display.

From day one, that is what it had always been about for James; winning a championship for the area he grew up in, struggled in and now thrives in both on and off the basketball court. They say home is where the heart is and for James, a three-time champion, his heart will always reside in Northeast Ohio no matter where the rest of his career may take him.

Related Story: Could 2017-2018 be the last stand for the championship contending Cavs?

*All stats referenced from www.basketball-reference.com