LeBron James can’t be retiring this season.
There’s just no way his last game in Cleveland would come and go without him giving Cavs fans an opportunity to say goodbye, to shower him with love, to both celebrate and grieve their last opportunity to see him.
James’ return to Cleveland on Wednesday was a tentpole moment in a season filled with uncertainty.
He has maintained that he’s unsure whether he’s going to retire, as he did Wednesday after the Lakers’ 129-99 loss to the Cavs. But it’s inconceivable that the franchise’s hometown hero, who carried the team to five NBA Finals and their only championship in their 55-year history, would quietly slip into the night without a mutual acknowledgement of the profound finality of it all.
The Cavs celebrated James, but not enough to mark the magnitude of the end.
Outside of the Lakers’ locker room, the Cavaliers hung a photo of James holding his 2016 champion and MVP trophies with the words, “Welcome home, LeBron.” There was also a photo of an 11-year-old Bronny celebrating the Cavaliers’ title, as well as a photo of James’ right-hand man, Randy Mims.
There was a quick video tribute to James early in the first quarter that included clips of him scoring 25 straight points in Game 5 of the 2007 Eastern Conference Finals as he led the Cavs to a 109-107 double-overtime win over Detroit. James received a standing ovation after it played.
He choked back tears, something he hadn’t done during the previous seven tribute videos he received since leaving Cleveland in 2018.
“Didn’t expect that,” James said after finishing with just 11 points, three rebounds and five assists. “But obviously a lot of memories here, A lot of history. So, just super grateful and thankful for the time spent here and the memories. I obviously looked up there, I remember that moment like it was yesterday.”
His unusual outpouring of emotions could make some people believe he’s on the verge of retirement.
But if that were the case, wouldn’t he want Cavs fans to know? Wouldn’t he want to give everyone in the arena the opportunity to scream from the moment his name was called during introductions, instead of the reception he received Wednesday, which was a warm cheer with only a smattering of people standing.
If it were the end, wouldn’t he want cameras to pan to his mother, Gloria, and his wife, Savannah? Wouldn’t he want his childhood friends to greet him by his locker, as they did when he became the league’s all-time leading scorer in Los Angeles in 2023?
You’d think James’ final game in Cleveland would feel momentous?
This didn’t. This was no goodbye.
It can’t be goodbye.
Not for James, who arrived in Cleveland as an 18-year-old with a crushing amount of pressure on his shoulders after he was labeled “The Chosen One” by Sports Illustrated and selected as the No. 1 overall pick in the 2003 draft. James went on to exceed expectations.
He took a Cavs team to the 2007 Finals that had no business being deep in the playoffs. He then carried the franchise to four straight Finals from 2015-2018. He engineered the greatest comeback in NBA history, helping his team roar back from a 3-1 series deficit in the 2016 Finals against the Warriors, the league’s modern day dynasty, fulfilling his promise of putting the franchise on the mountaintop.
After that, he called himself the greatest player of all-time.
All of this happened in Cleveland, just 38 miles from Akron, where he was raised by a single mother living below the poverty line. All of this happened just a 35-minute drive from where James has devoted himself over the last two decades to uplifting his community through his I PROMISE School and various other philanthropic endeavors.
You think he’d step foot in Rocket Arena for his last time without letting fans know this was the end? Without getting properly celebrated?
Impossible.
James is no Tim Duncan, who sailed into the sunset without letting anyone know he was retiring.
James likes fanfare. He announced he was going to MIami with a one-hour TV special in 2010. He moved to Los Angeles to play for one of the top-two media markets in the NBA in 2018. Heck, he even appeared in the movie, “Space Jam.”
When James spoke to the media after the game, he insisted he was still undecided about his future. James claimed he hasn’t even thought about a farewell tour, adding, “I haven’t had the conversation with myself and my family on when is it over.”
But he also said he said he wants to see “how much juice I can squeeze out of this orange,” adding, “I’m in a battle with Father Time and I’m taking it personal. I’m going to see how many more times I could be victorious over him.”
James still has a lot to give.
He’s averaging 22.4 points, 6.0 rebounds and 6.7 assists a game in his 23rd season. It’s unprecedented. James didn’t play like James on Wednesday. It’s hard to imagine he’d go out like that. He wouldn’t let Lakers coach JJ Redick pull him out of the game after only playing 3 1/2 minutes in the fourth quarter if this were it.
He’d want to put on a show.
For the people in and around Cleveland, James means everything. A 38-year-old fan named Shanice Cheatham bought season tickets for Cavs games next season in hopes that James would return for a third stint with the team in free agency.
Another fan, 26-year-old Aidan Dance, called James “my hero,” adding that if James returned to Cleveland, “I’d be a grown man crying.”
James isn’t going to disappear so quietly. Cleveland means too much to him. And he means too much to the city. There’s no way he wouldn’t let his fans know this was their final goodbye.
He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.
