LeBron James has a matching set of NBA titles.
Four NBA MVP awards. Two Olympic gold medals. Eleven All-Star appearances.
He is the third highest-paid athlete in the world, according to Forbes ($72 million and change). He is a corporate alchemist, getting his own signature flavor of Sprite, introducing other strange fruit flavors to the band.
Yet, not until he brings a championship to Cleveland — a daunting quest, like trying to bring poetry readings to a truck stop — will his greatness be fully formed. What he will do in his return to Cleveland figures to be every bit, if not more, personally and professionally revealing than all the victories in the contrived setting of Miami.
And now it is the Hawks’ misfortune to be standing between James and his quest. Through two games of the Eastern Conference finals, he has shown that he will bulldoze any Bazemore and circumnavigate any Carroll who gets in his way.
Had James been born in Alpharetta rather than Akron how different things might have been. But the accident of his birth, and his homecoming decision — lower case this time, unlike the regrettable, overblown Decision to leave for Miami five years ago — have made it a priority for the world’s best player to step over the Hawks.
The words ascribed to him in Sports Illustrated when he announced he was going back to the Cavs this season ring clearly now as the series with the Hawks enters its Cleveland phase:
“Before anyone ever cared where I would play basketball, I was a kid from Northeast Ohio. It’s where I walked. It’s where I ran. It’s where I cried. It’s where I bled. It holds a special place in my heart. People there have seen me grow up. I sometimes feel like I’m their son. Their passion can be overwhelming. But it drives me. I want to give them hope when I can. I want to inspire them when I can. My relationship with Northeast Ohio is bigger than basketball. I didn’t realize that four years ago. I do now.”
The Hawks are getting a first-hand look at just what James is willing to do to try to deliver Cleveland its first sporting championship since the 1964 Browns (28 years before Johnny Manziel was born).
The LeBron they are running into now is much more complex than the one they knew in Miami. Much more than a player who drops 30 points in a postseason game as routinely as Stephen King drops a novel.
“He’s matured,” said James Jones, who has played with James in both Miami and now Cleveland. “He’s not the same player he was a few years ago. His IQ continues to improve, but more importantly, the confidence he instills in his teammates — he’s getting better and better with that every day.
“Where he’s at right now is where we need him — which is on a totally different level.”
There’s no Dwyane Wade or Chris Bosh in Cleveland. Now there’s not even a Kevin Love or a whole Kyrie Irving to help him. What James has shown even in just these two playoff games against the Hawks is a complete commitment to be whatever Cleveland needs him to be.
The spectrum of responsibilities that James has taken on at the age of 30 in his Cavaliers redux seems as wide as the horizon.
He is the prolific scorer who with a flip of a switch becomes the guy who dishes 11 assists Friday against the Hawks. The same superstar who has called the assist his favorite play in basketball because, “You always get the excitement of two guys being able to benefit from a pass.”
“His greatness is evident, but the other guys are completing him, and that’s what you want from a team,” Cavs coach David Blatt said.
As the NSA-quality network microphones have focused on James this series, his command on the court has gone all the more public. Blatt is the coach in name, yet it is James whose voice seems dominant as he directs his teammates during play. Just as it was James who called his own No. 23 for a game-winner against Chicago in the previous round.
If the Cavs need a sponsor for a sometime troublesome player, James raises his hand. What was his reaction when the Cavs were considering trading for J.R. Smith? “I got him. I’ll take care of him. Just get him here, I got him,” James recalled last week.
If, in the midst of rampant injury, they need a symbol of strength, James cinches up his shoe a little tighter and plays on after rolling his ankle against the Hawks in Game 1. He took a break earlier this season to rejuvenate his beat-up body, but this is championship time, and he won’t allow himself to feel pain.
“That’s another one of those things that makes him special … certainly considering the minutes and the number of hits that he takes, the kind of pounding and stress he has put on his body throughout the years,” Blatt said.
“He’s the closest thing to Superman out there is the only way to explain it. I don’t have a logical explanation,” he said.
“I mean a lot to this team. Don’t want to have an injury obviously, you can’t predict them,” James said. “But if you take care of your body sometimes it makes the process easier to come back.”
This Eastern Conference final is back in Cleveland now, back where James once was considered the craven deserter and is now Dudley Do-Right again. Back where news of his return was greeted with wild predictions of an economic boon to the rust-belt town (since scaled back) and of championships falling like the January snow (since escalated). Back where the full force of James’ considerable will meets his hometown’s insatiable hunger. Back where the world’s best player intends to gild his legacy.
How, the Hawks must ask themselves, can we hope to turn all that around and bring this series back to Atlanta?
