On Oct. 30, 2014, the Cleveland Cavaliers staged a pregame ceremony to mark a homecoming for LeBron James, who had left four years earlier to play for Miami.
About a minute into the observance, before an arena packed with fans who waved sabers that glowed red, a video of James appeared on the so-called humongotron that hangs from the ceiling of the arena.
“If there’s one thing we all know,” intoned an announcer, before the video cut to James. “There’s no place like home,” James finished, before tossing chalk into the air as tends to be his pre-game ritual. The fans, who seemed to embody the chalk’s trajectory, leaped from their seats.
Fast forward to Friday, when we awoke to news that the Nets had upset the Cavs the night before in Brooklyn.
The Nets entered the matchup with 20 wins in 71 tries and ranked 14 of 15 in the NBA’s Eastern Conference. The Cavs started the game atop the conference and, seemingly, poised to compete for an NBA championship after losing to Golden State in the finals last year.
The loss to the Nets capped a week that featured a series of questions about James’ ability to lead the Cavs back to the finals and his commitment to the team after this season.
Five days earlier, the Cavs lost in Miami after James spent halftime chatting with his friend and former teammate, Heat guard Dwayne Wade, rather than warming up with the Cavs, who trailed by 21 points at the half.
That earned James a talking-to from coach Tyronn Lue, who said James apologized for his behavior. “I just told him we can’t have that, being down like we were and him being the leader,” Lue told cleveland.com.
On Monday, a tweet appeared that suggested James had unfollowed the Cavs’ Twitter feed. (James declined to discuss it.)
Then on Wednesday, James received another talk, this time from Cavs general manager David Griffin. The prompt: a story by Howard Beck in the Bleacher Report that quoted James as saying he hoped to team someday with his besties Wade, Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony.
The talks seemed to have their effect. “I just need to do more,” James told reporters after the loss in Brooklyn.
James will have his chance on Saturday night in New York, where the Cavs will take on the Knicks. “I feel like we’re ready to make a championship run,” James told reporters on Saturday morning before Cleveland’s shootaround.
In a gift of scheduling, the game at the Garden will feature a matchup between James and Anthony.
Of course, the Cavs all need to do more if they hope to return to the finals. “These handpicked Cavs, with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, should never have to be a one-man team, and they’re doomed if they are,” Barry Petchesky noted on Deadspin.
Though James, 31, has said he plans to end his career in Cleveland, he also has signed a series of one-year deals that enable him to become a free agent again this summer.