Lebron James's Story Is A Fairy-Tale That Walt Disney Couldn't Even Produce
Now and then, when I'm about to put my head on my pillow at night and call it a day, I look around and look at my 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers NBA Championship towel hanging on my wall and think about the finals run that season, how happy I was and the rest of the city of Cleveland after the 52-year title drought ended on June 19th, 2016. Still, most importantly, the thing I think of most was the man who was the creator of that moment, Lebron James.
If you were a young boy growing up in Northeast Ohio in the early to mid-2000s, you had a basketball in your hand and wanted to wear the number 23.
Like young boys growing up in the late '80s and '90s in Chicago who wanted to be like Michael Jordan, it was the same but better because James was one of us; he was born and raised in Northeast Ohio and was drafted and able to start the first part of his career in the city he grew up 40 miles from.
I was too young to remember James's high school career at St. Vincent-St. Mary in Akron, Ohio. Still, I've seen the highlights, films, movies, and shows, and he was one of a kind, ready to take on one of the biggest challenges in his life and get drafted number one overall, but he didn't know where he was going until May 22nd, 2003.
2003 NBA Draft Lottery
May 22nd was the day Cleveland changed forever. Going into the lottery, the Denver Nuggets and Cavaliers had a 22.5% chance of getting the first pick, the best among all teams. The lottery continued, and NBA Deputy Commissioner Russ Granik was reading picks off from 13 to four. When Granik read that the Toronto Raptors would make the fourth pick, the Cavs were in the Top Three. Cleveland fans could feel the hometown kid was just a few lucky ping-pong balls bouncing away from saving a franchise and city from an epic disaster.
The two other remaining teams that had a chance to pick number one were the Nuggets and the Memphis Grizzlies.
Of course, like any great show, there is always a tease and a commercial break right before the big event, precisely before the Top Three were revealed.
Host Mike Tirico returned us from the commercial break and interviewed the remaining three teams. He began with the Grizzlies, whom Jerry West was representing. West is one of the best NBA players of all time and is the logo of the NBA and was the general manager of the Grizzlies in 2003. The Grizzlies were in a tough spot because they only got a pick in the draft if it was number one overall. If it were the second or third pick, it would be heading to the Detroit Pistons because of a trade they made in 1997 that sent Otis Thorpe from the Pistons to the Grizzlies for a conditional first-round pick, and the pick had to be from selections two to 18 for Detroit to receive it.
Granik started to read the picks off again. The Denver Nuggets would make the number three pick. Cleveland fans could feel that pit in their stomach turning. You know that girl you have a crush on for months, and you're too scared to say anything to her, and all you get is that butterfly feeling every time you're around here? It was that feeling but 100 times better: the man who would bring every woman and man in Northeast Ohio happiness was just one card away.
Finally, the second pick was read, and the Memphis Grizzlies would make it.
The hometown kid was staying home and would put on the wine and gold. It was like the Cavs winning the NBA Finals because that's how bad that franchise was.
The Cavs came off a 17-win season and five straight years of finishing below .500.
Lebron Was Saving More Than Just A Team
The Cleveland Indians were coming off of some great years, making two World Series in 1995 and 1997 and having many more playoff runs. The Cleveland Browns were back after moving to Baltimore in the mid to late 90s, so everyone had Brown's fever again. Cleveland is a football town first, so that is expected. And the Indians were coming in hot, so they were second, and that left the Cavs a distance third, and it felt like the distance between them was from Cleveland to California. That's how big of a gap it was.
The Cavs needed James in more ways than one, and he single-handedly had to bring the team out of the basement in the NBA and keep the team from moving out of Cleveland. If the ping pong balls had fallen the other way on May 22nd and James was on the Grizzlies, there was a good chance Cleveland wouldn't have had a basketball team in a few years.
The Cavs took James Thursday, June 26th, 2003, and the next NBA great was upon us.
On October 29th, James made his NBA debut vs. the Sacramento Kings, scoring 25 points and bringing in six rebounds and nine assists in a loss, but everyone saw the greatness in him that night at the age of 18.
James would go on to win Rookie of the Year, and by year three, he was in the playoffs. And year four was magical for him, the Cavs, and young me, who was about to be open to the game at the age of seven.
James Impact Starts To Hit In More Ways Than One
2006-2007 22-year-old Lebron James would bring the Cavs to new heights they never thought they could reach, and seven-year-old Danny Fisher would step onto a basketball court for the first time in his life playing at his local church in a league called Upward.
Upward was your typical league for young kids; you could travel, double dribble, sit in the corner, and cry. It didn't matter, but for me, it was like stepping onto the floor of the Quicken Loans Arena, where the Cavs played their home games.
Was I good? No, I was seven and didn't know what was going on half of the time, but I sure treated it like I was the man who wore number 23 and played in the city of Cleveland.
James was my idol. I wanted to be just like him no matter what I did. If it was on the basketball court, off of it, I looked up to him. There was no better person for a young kid to look up to at the time than James. He was from Northeast Ohio, like me, and he played for my favorite NBA team and the sport I loved the most and played.
Michael Jordan had a Gatorade Commercial in 1998 titled Be Like Mike, where Jordan was running around dunking, dribbling, shooting the basketball, and people singing to one of the most catchy tunes you will ever hear with the lyrics.
Sometimes
I dream
That he is me
You've got to see, that's how I dream to be
I dream I move, I dream I groove
Like Mike
If I could be like Mike
That's how exactly James felt to me, just like how the kids felt in the 1998 Jordan commercial, but James didn't need some catchy jingle for people to sing about being like him; they just turned on the television almost every night in the winter and watched a young man who was hardly past the legal age to drink put on a show.
The winter of 2006 was terrific; the Cavs were rolling, my minor basketball career was starting, and my Aunt Kim bought me my first Lebron James jersey that Christmas. It was the Cavs road wine jersey. It had Cleveland on the front in all-white letters, and the C to start the word Cleveland was gigantic, making the city name stand out.
I wore that jersey forever, from school to basketball practice. I had that thing, and on my eighth birthday in January of 2007, I went to my first Cavs games against Baron Davis and the Golden State Warriors. Sadly, James didn't play that night, but the Cavs still won.
2007 Playoffs! King James Was Born
Spring of 07 arrived, and it was about to be the movie for me and all Cleveland fans.
The NBA playoffs were about to start, and the Cavs finished with a record of 50-32, and that was good enough to be second in the Eastern Conference, right behind those big bad Detroit Pistons.
The Pistons won the NBA Finals in 2004, lost in the finals in 2005, and lost to the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals in 2006. Who went on to win it all, so getting matched up with the Pistons would be no easy test for James and the Cavs.
The Cavs swept the Washington Wizards in the first round and beat the New Jersey Nets in six, setting up a match-up with the Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals.
The Pistons took the first two games of the series, and it seemed like the city of Cleveland would fall short once again. Still, a switch flipped on the night of May 27th, right before the tip-off to Game Three, and the Cavs would win 88-82 and then take Game Four, tying up the series, and Playoff Lebron was about to be born right in front of our eyes in Game Five, but nobody knew it.
The Cavs headed back to Detroit, and let's forward to the end of Game Five when James took the team on his back, scored the last 25 points for Cleveland, and made the game-winning layup to send the Cavs back home with three games to two lead and could send the Cavs to their first NBA Finals in Franchise history on their home court a few days later.
The Cavs would win Game Six, and Cleveland was heading to the promise land, somewhere the basketball team in Cleveland had never been.
Unfortunately, the Cavs ran into the San Antonio Spurs, who had some of the best NBA players we had ever seen, including Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginóbili, and one of the best coaches, Gregg Popovich.
The Cavs got swept out of the thing and had no chance from the start, but don't tell an eight-year-old kid that his beloved team wouldn't win it all after Game One. James did everything he could to get the Cavs to the Finals, but at the end of the day, they didn't have enough to beat a great basketball team full of Hall-of-Famers.
The good news was that James was still very young, the team would get better, and we would see so many more NBA Finals down the road, so don't sweat losing this one too much.
2007 was a great and a horrible year to get into sports in Cleveland; the Cavs were in the NBA Finals but lost, the Indians were in the ALCS and blew a three-game to-one lead to the Boston Red Sox, and the Browns were 10-7, but couldn't even make the playoffs.
Cleveland had a good amount of success, but at the same time, all three teams heartbreakingly ended their season, going out in Cleveland style.
2008-2010
The Cavs would return for the 2007-2008 season, and of course, all Cavs fans thought they were returning to the finals. Still, a super team was formed that season in the Eastern Conference when the Boston Celtics acquired Hall of Famer Kevin Garnett in a blockbuster deal and the best shooter in the NBA before Steph Curry stepped foot into it, Ray Allen, to go along with Celtics star forward Paul Pierce.
The Cavs just got swept in the NBA Finals the previous season by a team with three Hall of Famers, and now they will have to go up against three more to get out of their conference.
The Cavs lost to the Celtics in seven games that season in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. Boston would go on to win the entire thing, and the Cavs got great news in 2009 when the Orlando Magic eliminated the Celtics in the semi-finals. The Cavs were about to have an easy road to the finals, but Orlando did have this center named Dwight Howard, who was a stud and ended the Cavs' season in six games.
Even though the Cavs didn't win that series, one of the best playoff moments happened In Game Two. The Magic were already up one game in the series, and Cleveland was down 95-93 with 01.0 seconds left. The Cavs were about to be down two games to none and had given up their home-court advantage. Cavs point guard Mo Williams would inbound the Ball, find James at the top of the three-point line, and splash a three in front of Magic's Hedo Türkoğlu face to give the Cavs the 96-95 win.
I remember James putting his fists up in the year after hitting the shot and running toward the team's bench while teammate Sasha Pavlović grabbed him from behind to hug him while James ran and jumped into Anderson Varejão's arms.
It's still one of the best moments in Cleveland sports history, even though the series didn't go the Cavs' way.
I still sit there and think about that moment from time to time, thinking differently about how it would be remembered if the Cavs did indeed win that series.
The Cavs now went two straight seasons in a row without making it back to the finals, and they were about to head into James' seventh year with the team and his free agent season.
The Cavs would run into the Celtics again in the Semi-Finals, and James and the Cavs would be on the losing end again in that series, losing in six games. One of the most iconic scenes in NBA history happened that day. James was walking off the court, giving a kiss to his mom, and right before he entered the locker room, he threw his wine headband into the crowd and then was seen tearing off his wine number 23 jersey, the same one I got for Christmas years back with his clear mouthpiece hanging out his mouth. Everyone wondered whether that would be the last time we would see James in a Cavs jersey.
The Decision
July 8th, 2010 came and James would have an ESPN special that night called The Decision, telling the world where he would play basketball.
I remember that night and my childhood friend Dakota swinging on swings at the local baseball field, joking with the other kids that James would be leaving Cleveland to join the Miami Heat; we were only kidding then, but our jokes became a nightmare a few hours later.
I would return home and find my mom and sister watching the special upstairs in my sister's room, which had green and pink walls. It looked like Trix yogurt; sadly, that wasn't the worst thing I had to look at that night. I stared at James sitting in a plaid striped shirt, still unsure if the color was red or purple, but it looked like a candy cane. I can tell you Christmas was not about to come for me; I must've been bad that year because what James was about to say next would be a giant lump of coal in my stocking.
The words "I'm going to take my talents to South Beach and join the Miami Heat" came out of number 23's mouth, and just like that, my hero was gone.
The city turned on James in second, and rightfully so. People were burning his jersey in the streets, saying he back-stabbed Cleveland, who gave him everything since he was 15 years old, and now he turns on them.
Everyone knew the Cavs were about to return to the toilet, and basketball was dead again in the city. The Cavs were the only way to get Clevelanders through the winter, and now that was over.
What hurt Cleveland fans the most is that James left a city with some of the best sports fans in the world, for a town that wouldn't know who Dwayne Wade was if he fell on them.
Miami is a terrible sports town, and why would they care about sports when they have warm weather, a beach, and a million other things to do? Cleveland has five things to do, most of which revolve around sports.
I had to sit there the night when Wade, James, and newly acquired free agent Chris Bosh had their welcome party, and all we heard was Not One, Not Two, Not Three, Not Four, Not Five, Not Six when it came to how many rings they were going to win together.
They laughed like little school girls, thinking this was funny, and all these Heat fans were celebrating a guy they didn't even care about.
The Return
July 11th, 2014, is a day I will remember forever. I listened to ESPN Cleveland and radio host Aaron Goldhammer shouting from the roof that Lebron was coming home. He started to read the I'm Coming Home Letter on the air that James and Sports Illustrated Lee Jenkins did.
All the emotion was flowing in Cleveland, and everyone felt like the Cavs were about to win the title; we had the key to it back in our hands, and with Irving becoming one of the best point guards in the league, we knew another piece was coming who would be Kevin Love the Cavs would be the favorite.
The Cavs headed to the finals that season and lost Love and Irving in the playoffs due to injury. The Cavs fell to the Warriors in six, but everyone felt good like they did in 2007 when they lost because they knew they would be back, and without the second and third-best player getting hurt, the Cavs would've won.
2016 came, and it was a nightmare waiting to happen. The Warriors would finish the season with the best regular season record ever at 73-9, and Cleveland would meet them again in the finals.
Games One and Two in Oakland were blown out in favor of the Warriors; the Cavs came home and won Game Three, then lost Game Four, fell three games to one, and it was over.
I remember the next day, the local minor league hockey team, the Lake Erie Monsters affiliate of the Columbus Blue Jackets, was up three games to none in the Calder Cup finals, which was the finals for the AHL, and my dad bought tickets for him and me. He said this would be the only championship I would ever see.
This man was defeated. He lived through The Shot, The Drive, The Fumble, the 1997 World Series, and The Decision, and now would be very close to seeing another title loss for one of his teams
The Monsters won that night, and maybe that sparked the run for the Cavs because Game Five happened, and the Cavs would get the win back for Game Six get the win at home, and two of the best words in sports were about to happen, Game Seven
Nights like Game Seven were why James came home to deliver a title to Cleveland, and June 19th, 2016, will be a day I remember for the rest of my life.
It was Father's Day, and I watched Dustin Johnson win at the 2016 U.S. Open, watched the Indians walk off the White Sox in the bottom of the tenth inning, and then it was time to get in the car and head down to Cleveland for the Cavs watch party to see Lebron deliver the promise.
The arena was wild, and it felt like the game was happening in Cleveland, but it was happening in the Bay Area in Oakland, California.
The game was tied at 89 a piece for a while down the stretch in the fourth quarter, and with 1:57 left, Irving went to do a hop-step floater; he missed it, and Warriors Andre Iguodala came down with the rebound.
It was a two-on-one fast break with Iguodala and Curry, and the tale is as old as time goes like this from ESPN's Mike Breen.
"Rebound was taken by Iguodala, Iguodala to Curry, back to Iguodala, up for the layup, OH, blocked by James."
James comes out of nowhere and makes one of the best plays ever. The Quicken Loans Arena was on fire after that moment, and there was no way the Cavs would lose.
With a minute left, Klay Thompson was guarding Irving, and J.R.Smith set a pick to force Curry to guard Irving. Irving would go one-on-one with Curry, and Irving would pull up from the right wing for three with 53 seconds left to give the Cavs a 92-89 lead. Cleveland would score one more point that night, and the Warriors wouldn't score again, and the curse was broken.
The Akron, Ohio, kid came home, delivered his promise, and screamed the five most significant words in Cleveland sports history.
"CLEVELAND, THIS IS FOR YOU."
The city of Cleveland was going wild; people were hugging strangers; it didn't matter what you looked like or your skin color in a world that's so evil sometimes. None of that happened on the night of June 19th, 2016.
Everyone loved each other, and everyone was each other's best friend. Sports can bring so many people from different walks of life together, and that night, it did its job.
The party didn't stop there because a few days later, the Championship Parade was heading through Cleveland. Over one million people supposedly attended the parade, but that number was never confirmed. I'll roll with it.
The great news was everyone was coming back again the following season, but a few weeks later, Kevin Durant signed with the Golden State Warriors; the Cavs would lose to them in the finals in 2017; the Cavs broke up the summer when Kyrie Irving requested a trade and then was dealt to Boston and James was able to make one more final run in 2018 got swept by the Warriors and got on an airplane a headed out west to join the Los Angeles Lakers.
Lebron would win a title with the team in 2020 and then broke Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's scoring record for a career in February of 2023.
Do I miss Lebron James? Of course, I do. Sometimes, I think about what would've happened if he had never left the second time and where the team would be now. The Cavs are in a good place right now, but that's always a thought that crossed my mind.
What hurts the most is when he has these all-time moments, like breaking Abdul-Jabbar's scoring record. It was in a Lakers uniform and not a Cavs one, and that is always going to be something that makes my stomach upset. Still, James promised Cleveland to end a drought of 52 years, and I will always be forever grateful to him.
With James possibly being a free agent at the end of the season, it's time to come home and have one last run with the team that drafted him. It's time. Who says you can't go home again and again? The entire city will welcome you back with open arms, and you can add one more ring to that finger.
Only Walt Disney can write fairy tales like this one. Cinderella Doesn't Lose Her Shoe at the Ball even comes close to the one about a young boy born in Northeast Ohio, drafted by his hometown team to be the savior of the city and franchise, leaves after seven seasons and becomes the biggest villain in the area he grew up, returns and delivers a title for the first time in 52 years, heads to La-La land and comes back home for his final farewell.
If this is indeed the end and we never see Lebron James back in a Cavs jersey again, it was sure one heck of a ride, and it couldn't have happened anywhere better, but in a little town they call Cleveland.
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