The drought is over for Cleveland, and the debate is over as well.<\/p>\n
Best player in basketball?<\/p>\n
His name is LeBron James.<\/p>\n
This is why he went back to Cleveland, to deliver a title, to end the city\u2019s epic championship drought and finally give Northeast Ohio what it craved for nearly 52 years.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s done. And now he\u2019s free. Anything that happens from here is icing atop a three-tiered championship cake for James.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s absolutely nothing left for James to prove. The only thing he hadn\u2019t done on a basketball court was make Cleveland, a city whose sports teams were cursed for so long, a winner. December 27, 1964 was the day Jim Brown last made them one. That is, until June 19, 2016. James was an NBA champion before from his time in Miami, an Olympic champion, an MVP, a Finals MVP … he had checked every box but one, and now that one is filled as well.<\/p>\n
Stephen Curry is the two-time reigning MVP and rightly so, best player on the best regular-season team in league history. Oklahoma City\u2019s Kevin Durant will likely be the hottest free agent on the market this summer, coveted by everyone. Kobe Bryant was the highest-paid player in the NBA this season and this year was a celebration of his 20 years of greatness.<\/p>\n
But they\u2019re all part of LeBron\u2019s world.<\/p>\n
James is the freight train, the most unstoppable force in the game, and he shows no signs of slowing down after 13 years in the league. He\u2019s 31. He rarely if ever misses games. He\u2019s been in seven of the last 10 NBA Finals, including each of the last six. He\u2019s nowhere near his decline, which has to delight even those Cleveland fans who burned his jerseys in 2010. And while winning cures all, he can be a free agent this summer, which should scare some people as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m true to the game,\u201d James said, \u201cand I know what I bring to the table.\u201d<\/p>\n
It bears noting that some of what\u2019s on that table now wasn\u2019t there six years ago, though.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s fair to say, this celebration would not be happening without July 8, 2010, the day James headed to Miami.<\/p>\n
James needed a change and craved a title. He got all that and more. He learned how to lead, he learned the value of structure, he learned from Dwyane Wade and Erik Spoelstra and Pat Riley and Micky Arison, took little bits from each of them, added it all to his already-ridiculous game and made himself better.<\/p>\n
James never went to college. But like many college kids, he went away for four years and then returned home with hopes of making his city better.<\/p>\n
The result: Cleveland is a city of champions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew what I learned in the last couple years that I was gone,\u201d James said, \u201cand I knew if I had to \u2014 when I came back, I knew I had the right ingredients and the right blueprint to help this franchise get back to a place that we\u2019ve never been. That\u2019s what it was all about.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019ll never win over everyone. He\u2019ll never win the argument about who is better, him or Michael Jordan or anyone else who merits mention among the league\u2019s greats.<\/p>\n
He doesn\u2019t care, either. He\u2019ll leave those conversations for others to have. But he put an end to the discussion of who is the best right now.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no denying what he was able to accomplish this series,\u201d a very classy Curry said after Game 7. \u201cHe played pretty great basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n
James is the quintessential American success story. He bucked overwhelming odds by rising above his impoverished upbringing in Akron, Ohio. He\u2019s a global icon who\u2019s earned roughly $175 million in NBA salary, probably that much if not a great deal more from his Nike sponsorship deal alone, has a blossoming entertainment studio and is easily one of the most recognizable faces on the planet.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s on pace to be a billionaire someday like his good pal Warren Buffett, who James can chat up basically any time he wants.<\/p>\n
And now he can do whatever he wants for as long as he wants to play this game. He owes no one anything anymore. Stay in Cleveland, return to Miami, go anywhere else in the NBA; it\u2019s all up to him now.<\/p>\n
For the first time in 13 years, LeBron James is free of burden.<\/p>\n
With that weight lifted, it\u2019s scary to think his best might be yet to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The drought is over for Cleveland, and the debate is over as well. Best player in basketball? His name is LeBron James. This is why he went back to Cleveland, to deliver a title, to end the city\u2019s epic championship drought and finally give Northeast Ohio what it craved for nearly 52 years. It\u2019s done. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":5373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-5372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5372"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=5372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}