This is exactly what LeBron James had in mind when he left Miami last summer.
He did not need the Heat to keep himself in the mix for a championship. He is back in the Eastern Conference Finals again after leading the Cavaliers to a 4-2 series win over Chicago, and he is in control. While he was Miami's best player for most of his four-year run, it was never fully his team.
This one is.
“Throughout the playoffs, I have never seen a shadow of doubt or fear on anyone’s face,” Cleveland coach David Blatt said. “I give LeBron a lot of credit. He has become a true leader here. He is really leading these guys to believe in what they can do.”
James is the wise, old sage on a team stocked with players who have minimal postseason pedigree. Kyrie Irving, Tristan Thompson, Matthew Dellavedova and Kevin Love had never set foot in the playoffs prior to this year. James delivered them to the conference finals, which begin Wednesday against Atlanta or Washington.
In Miami, James deferred — at first, anyway — to Dwyane Wade, who had already established himself as a champion. The rest of the locker room was filled with proven veterans like Chris Bosh, Shane Battier, Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis. As spectacular as James was for the Heat, none of those players were star-struck by him the way his new teammates are.
“The way we approached the season was that it was an opportunity to play with one of the best ever,” Thompson said after helping pound the Bulls 94-73 on Thursday. “It motivated us to work harder. LeBron was the first in the gym working out and getting ready for the season. He never stops working on his game. We knew we had to catch up and help him.”
This was the dynamic James desired, along with the chance to return to his roots and have power within the organization that would not have been possible in Miami. The Cavs defer to him in every facet — Blatt even surrendered in-game decisions — and James craves that clout.
Thompson has emerged as a proficient replacement for Love, who is out for the year with a shoulder injury, and Dellavedova lit up Chicago for 19 points in the clincher. At one point when James was dissecting their performances, he commented that, "as a coach and as a leader, you have no problem when they make a mistake because of how hard they play," sounding far more in charge than he ever did with the Heat.
“I have to make them believe they’re supernatural sometimes,” James said.
Very necessary with this group. While the difficulty of Cleveland’s playoff march is somewhat discounted because of a weak Eastern Conference, it is impressive that James has managed to drag such an unimpressive roster this far.
Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith, two key factors in this run, were castoffs from the lowly Knicks. Timofey Mozgov was just another generic center in Denver before the Cavs traded for him mid-season. There were questions about whether Dellavedova, suddenly a star, was competent enough to play for a team with championship aspirations.
It is a scrappy group of underdogs that really is not an underdog at all thanks to the one Thompson half-jokingly referred to as their father.
“Huh? Underdog? Me?” a bewildered James responded when asked a question that painted Cleveland as an upstart. “I would never be an underdog.”
Not when his bad games are pretty good by anyone else’s standards. James missed 16 of 23 shots in Game 6, but worked his way to 15 points, 11 assists and nine rebounds in the blowout. As Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau put it, whether or not he hits shots, “LeBron’s gonna make you pay.”
Every team in the league should put that quote in their scouting report.
James does not have nearly the supporting cast that he enjoyed in Miami, but does not seem to need it. Aside from the rare instances where they pick him up, he is the one carrying this team and he is happy to do it.
“I want these guys to feel this moment — that’s what I came back here for,” he said. “For me to bring the joy of playing basketball to them, that’s what I care about more than anything.”
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