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The return of the King: LeBron goes home

LeBron James and the Cavs are taking on the Toronto Raptors. (Photo: Wikipedia Commons)
Expert
13th July, 2014
29

The best basketballer on the planet, LeBron James, has made the decision to return to the franchise he started his career with, the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The move back to his home state of Ohio had been rumoured over the last week or so, though most pundits expected him to remain in Miami. That includes yours truly – I was 98 per cent sure LeBron would be playing for the Heat again next season.

But on Saturday morning, Australian time, the bomb dropped – LeBron was going home.

Once again, LeBron had shocked everyone. Say what you will about The King, but he’s never boring. There was no live television special this time, but rather a carefully and thoughtfully crafted letter to Sports Illustrated.

It was a shock for a number of reasons.

LeBron departed Cleveland in 2010 under fairly acrimonious circumstances. When he announced he was leaving, there were riots in Cleveland, fans burned his jersey, and Cavs owner Dan Gilbert wrote a scathing letter calling LeBron, among other things, a ‘coward’. The letter, in particular, always seemed like it would prevent a fairytale ending of LeBron returning to Cleveland.

There’s also the point that LeBron is leaving his best friends, and championship teammates, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami. ‘The Big Three’ had carried the Heat to four straight Finals appearances and two NBA championships. Though they came unstuck in dramatic fashion in the last three games of the 2014 Finals against the Spurs – losing by an average of 19 points – they remained, essentially, the second best team in the league and primed for more success.

Or perhaps not.

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The Big Three alone was not enough to topple the Spurs, and Wade had clearly began to show his age, while Bosh had hit 30. And the salaries that all three commanded collectively left the Heat with little flexibility to dramatically improve their roster.

LeBron is a savvy guy. He would have looked at the Heat situation, and decided that while the team would have still been successful next year, it was definitely in decline. More championship glory was far from guaranteed.

Meanwhile, Cleveland offered not just a brighter long-term future on the court, but a romantic tale. The narrative quickly became ‘LeBron comes home’, and coupled with the notion that it somewhat atones for the way he left, and it’s a story every bit as dramatic as The Decision.

Though while LeBron gets the maximum contract he desired, and the redemption angle one feels he still needed, things won’t be super smooth on the court next season.

As old as the Heat started to look in the Finals, they were still a better team than this Cavs outfit currently is.

Cleveland has lots of nice young players, but the pieces don’t all fit perfectly at present. LeBron’s versatility can certainly help fix that. But, for example, Kyrie Irving – recently signed to maximum contract – has thus far in his career needed the ball in his hands to be most effective. Needless to say, good things also happen when LeBron handles the ball. The ideal balance will need to be figured out.

There are some other solid players, like rookie Andrew Wiggins, Dion Waiters and Tristan Thompson, but if the Cavs want to compete for the title next season, additional player moves are required, and are being considered.

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Disgruntled Minnesota All Star Kevin Love would be a perfect fit, as a rebounding mad man who also spaces the floor with his three-point shooting, and the whispers are becoming screams that the Cavs are trying to trade for him.

When you have a player that commands as much defensive attention as LeBron, surrounding him with good shooters is essential, so Ray Allen and Mike Miller are in Cleveland’s sights as well.

If the team can also get a ring-protecting big man, they’ll have more than enough to become the best team in the East – which isn’t saying much these days, but it does allow an easy path to the Finals, where anything can then happen.

The bottom line is that as rosy at the Cavs future looks, they still have some work to do to bring that future forward a season or two.

Yet for now, the story remains LeBron.

Prepare yourself for numerous ‘Prodigal Son’, redemption-angle stories. I’d also suggest that we’re going to hear Diddy, Dirty Money and Skylar Grey’s song. A lot.

Another LeBron free agency period has finished. In this one, LeBron gets his money, his homecoming story, and a new challenge.

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And as always, we’ll all be watching.

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