If LeBron leaves again, Cleveland can’t be mad

CLEVELAND – No matter where LeBron James goes, his legacy will remain in northeast Ohio.

The entertainment district that thrives in downtown Cleveland. The pride in a region that, for decades, was the butt of a nation’s jokes. The school for at-risk kids that will soon open in Akron just down the hill from where James was once nurtured and protected, ensuring he would have his shot.

As Cavaliers fans brace themselves for the possibility of James leaving again this summer, they do so without the anger or resentment that greeted

his decision — “The Decision” — eight years ago. They will be disappointed, of course, and no one wants to see him go.

But they won’t begrudge him if he does. He has done what he promised, on and off the court, and Cleveland is a better place because of it.

“If he leaves Cleveland now, he leaves with a championship and four straight trips to the Finals. And all the stuff he’s done from a charitable aspect,” said Cari Linden, a Cavaliers season ticketholder. “I’d be super disappointed, extremely disappointed, but forever grateful that he’s changed this town.

“The things he’s done have changed the city in a way that no one else could. He’s done his work.”

James has said little about his decision, telling Cleveland.com in April that family and winning will be his determining factors. But that hasn’t stopped rampant speculation. When people aren’t debating whether James is the greatest player in NBA history, they’re arguing about whether Philadelphia, Houston or Los Angeles would be a better fit.

Meanwhile, the fans who have watched James grow up, who have perhaps the most unique relationship with a superstar there has ever been in sports, hope his reasons for coming back from Miami in 2014 still hold true.

If not, well, he’s given Cleveland its elusive title — and so much more.

“He came back and said he was going to win a championship for Cleveland,” said Brad Markle, one of the owners of Barley House, a bar that sits along a portion of Akron’s Main Street known as “King James Way.”

“He did what he said he was going to do.”

So much was put on James’ young shoulders when he was drafted by the Cavaliers straight out of Akron’s St. Vincent-St. Mary in 2003.

Not only was he going to make Cleveland the “City of Champions” again, he was going to revive a city and region that had been jilted time and again by the manufacturing industry and was now looked down upon as some kind of purgatory.

When James bolted for Miami then, it was seen as one more betrayal. Only his was considered so much worse because he was abandoning his own city, his own people. This wasn’t an athlete making a career decision, no matter how he tried to spin it. This was personal, and it was devastating.

Fans burned his jerseys. The massive banner of him that hung across the street from Quicken Loans Arena came down. He was booed when he returned to Cleveland with the Heat.

“You don’t say he went to the Heat. You say he left Cleveland,” Linden said.

But James has more than made amends over the past eight years.

He led the Cavaliers to the 2016 NBA title, the first in franchise history and first championship by any of Cleveland’s professional teams in 52 years. Were it not for the juggernaut that is the Warriors, who beat Cleveland in the Finals in 2015 and 2017 and take a 2-0 series lead into Wednesday night’s game, the Cavaliers would be a bona fide dynasty.

His work off the court is no less impressive.

Once a desolate stretch with little to offer, the area around the stadiums where the Cavaliers and Indians play has been transformed into an entertainment and residential hub. On Monday afternoon, the patios of restaurants along Prospect Avenue were filled with people getting drinks and dinner after work. Locals and tourists alike strolled along 4th Avenue, visiting restaurants and music venues that could just as easily be found in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles.

“He single-handedly turned it around,” Dave Howes, a manager at Harry Buffalo’s, a bar that sits in the shadow of the Q, said of the area’s resurgence.

In Akron, his “I PROMISE” scholars group identifies students who are falling behind in reading and other academic measures. James, who was raised by a young, single mother, has said often that he easily could have been a statistic, yet another child who slipped through the cracks. He didn’t because he had people — his mom, teachers, coaches, people in the community — looking out for him, and he’s determined to pay it forward.

Starting with about 250 kids, “I PROMISE” now has 1,300 students and the original class of third-graders is finishing its freshman year in high school.

Three years ago, James partnered with the University of Akron to guarantee college scholarships for kids in the program. Next month, the I PROMISE elementary school will open, the physical embodiment of the work his foundation is doing.

Located less than a mile from St. Vincent-St. Mary, I PROMISE will be part of the Akron Public Schools system but will have a longer school year and extended school days. It will start with third- and fourth-graders and expand each year until it is a full, first- to eighth-grade school.

“He still does for the community,” said Markle, the bar owner in Akron. “If I go to Las Vegas and say I’m from Akron, they know where it is. That’s all him.”

As tough as it would be to see James leave again, Cavaliers fans say they will wish him well if he does.

They want the best for him, because that’s what he’s given them these past four years.