LeBron James Is From Akron, But He Is Cleveland In Every Way

If the following pieces weren’t as great as they are, I wouldn’t even bother bringing up LeBron James today. Hardly a day goes by without a mention of ‘Bron or his team, and here and elsewhere, there will be plenty of LeBron discussion tomorrow. Beneath the bombast of hate and hype percolating throughout the hoops world in anticipation of LeBron James’ return to Cleveland Thursday night, there’s some nuance that’s been lost.

Yes, LeBron left the Cavaliers, but Cleveland wasn’t necessarily his hometown.

And yes, most Cleveland fans resent LeBron, but not necessarily because he left.

To those points, before you immerse yourself in the carnival atmosphere of Thursday night’s Cavs-Heat battle, take a half hour to read through these two pieces:

Excerpts after the jump.

First there’s Reiter at Fox Sports, on LeBron’s relationship with Akron:

Here, on this side, they see LeBron as that kind-hearted kid who left Akron to conquer the world.

As with all conquerors, he has enemies, they believe — including, like with most great men, sometimes himself.

Yet they still believe in him.

Still care for him.

“I love LeBron,” says Dambrot, his former coach. “I love him. Every time you think he’s slipping, he does something to remind you how great a person he is. Right when people are about to write him off, he’ll show you who he really is.”

That moment is now. That moment is crystallized in all its complexities and rage by LeBron’s return to Cleveland on Thursday.

And yet, right or wrong, true or false — or some mixture — much of Akron holds dearly to seeing its Chosen One the way Cleveland did not too long ago.

[...]

...in Akron they’re entitled to see the better side of the Chosen One, perhaps because he’s still just the kid who made this city so proud so early in his life, still the NBA player who asks permission to use his old high school gym with that tinge of respect that comes talking to elders, still the myth who is flesh and blood when he’s home, walking the streets unbothered.

They’re entitled, because in Akron, certainly, they simply loved LeBron.

And still do.

And then ESPN’s Wright Thompson on Cleveland’s relationship with LeBron, and itself:

The Cleveland Indians were favored to finally end the Curse of Rocky Colavito, to bring a title back to northeast Ohio. Raab’s friend wanted to make sure all the forces of the universe were aligned with them, so he formulated a plan. A crazy, unhinged plan. Only in Cleveland could one demented citizen come up with something so desperate and strange. He’d visit the grave of Ray Chapman -- the only major league player ever killed by a pitched ball and, naturally, a Cleveland Indian -- and on the tombstone, he’d place a coin.

This is where Raab begins sobbing, wiping his eyes with a red bandanna, embarrassed, trying to get himself under control so he can finish the story. He changes the subject, composes himself and, 15 or so minutes later, continues.

When his friend got to Chapman’s grave, he found it covered in coins.

That is Cleveland.

Then the Indians lost in the bottom of the 11th.

That is Cleveland, too.

[...]

Cleveland used to be the center of America’s rise. This used to be a factory, and these used to be jobs, and this mill used to be a future, not a silent metaphor for the past. This city used to be home to the third-largest number of Fortune 500 companies. It used to be the home of 400,000 more people. Generations of talent have left, never to return. That’s what they will tell you, and you will realize that there are two Clevelands: the one that exists today and the ghost city floating just above it, in the memory of the people who’ve been here for a long time, and in the imagination of those who just arrived. Everything is defined by these two competing narratives. My friend, Dave Molina, who is from Cleveland, told me this: “They’re both myths. The only thing that isn’t a myth is the present. But it’s so complicated. It’s much easier to be positioned at the intersection of two impossible myths.”

LeBron was part of both myths, and, even in departure, he remains so; a reminder of what could have been and what once was.

He is a 6-foot-8 steel mill.

Taken together, they stuff shed important light on where LeBron’s from, and where he’s not from. What he meant to Cleveland, what he means now, and most interesting, what Cleveland might mean, in general. Somewhere in this tangled web of truth and myth and love and hate, you begin to get a sense of why this has always been about more than just basketball.

It’s about people, cities, ambition, frustration, human nature, and so many cliched intangibles—hope, rebirth, death, family, betrayal—that are borne out in stark reality by the people of Cleveland and Akron that make these pieces resonate so powerfully.

Yeah, the Heat have been all hype so far, but the story in Ohio is something much different.