The Circle of LeBron

LeBron James is coming home.  The best basketball player on the planet has announced his return to the Cleveland Cavaliers.  An outcome that was unfathomable four years ago has become reality.  If you have not had the opportunity to read his letter, take a few minutes to do so.  His letter illustrates his maturation as a person.

Make no mistake this was the right basketball decision.  Kyrie Irving is an All-Star point guard, something James has never played with in the NBA.  Number one overall draft pick Andrew Wiggins is raw but skilled and last year’s number one pick, Anthony Bennett, struggles with conditioning but has undeniable skills.  Throw in Tristan Thompson and Anderson Varejao and Cleveland is one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference.

Then there is Kevin Love.  If Cleveland is able to trade for the most underrated and under appreciated talent in the NBA, they will be the best team in the Eastern Conference regardless of where Carmelo Anthony signs.  The new big three will take time to come together just as the South Beach trio did but once James, Love and Irving figure it out it will be dynamic.  Irving and Love have already given us a sample.

As entertaining as Uncle Drew and Wes are, James will still be the linchpin player.  Despite the perceived long odds to his return to Northern Ohio, and many were convinced it would never happen including this writer, it has become apparent that this narrative was inevitable.  American sports fans love two things, aside from dollar beer night and free giveaways.  Those two things are underdogs and comebacks.  James has never been an underdog.

However, this is his Simba moment.  Any number of books or movies fit the following analogy.  Perhaps a more academically inclined article would use Stephen Crane’s Red Badge of Courage.  However, James was born in 1984, which means he was approximately ten years old when Disney’s The Lion King debuted in theaters.  There is no question he saw the movie.  Undoubtedly, he can identify with the cliché but apropos story arc.  The young prince, Simba, oozed promise but an ugly event derailed his storybook life.  Simba felt responsible for his father’s violent demise and James found himself saddled with fifty years of Rust Belt sports frustration.

Simba and James each spent time exiled in a tropical paradise where two new friends rebuilt the fallen king.  It is doubtful that Dewayne Wade and Chris Bosh like the equation to Timon and Pumbaa but such is life.  After a period, the child prodigy has become a man.  In The Lion King, his childhood friend Nala came to the jungle and convinced him to return home to restore the luster to a fallen kingdom.  Cavaliers’ Owner Dan Gilbert journeyed to Miami to the same effect.  (Is calling Gilbert a lioness worse than calling Wade and Bosh a meerkat and warthog?)  As it is a Disney movie, Simba becomes king of his homeland and restores luster to it.  Time will tell if King James can finish his story with the Larry O’Brien Trophy in Cleveland.