Great or not, to do what he did—come back to his hometown solely to bring a title he knew he could bring to a city that wanted it so desperately—is pure civic pride at its finest and most honorable.
One of the amazing "firsts" that came out of last night (other than leading
both in teams in points, rebounds, assists, blocks and steals, first to overcome a 3-1 deficit) is that he is the first Finals MVP to win the award while playing for a team from his home state. What that means is that this whole "going home/playing for your home team" thing is very rare. So for him to come back home for the express purpose of breaking a 50+ year old drought...it's just unique. When I saw him collapse in tears when the game was over, and saying "This is for you Cleveland!", it was confirmation that he absolutely
got it. He was truly one of us.
One thing he has always said is that his favorite city in the world isn't L.A., or Miami, or Paris, or New York...it's rusty old Akron Ohio. And when he was asked why he's always given that answer, he talked about his very hard upbringing (single mom 16 years old) and how the city just kind of took care of him from a young age. Even after word started getting out about him early in high school, Akronites wouldn't give national reporters stories about who is father was (even though it's been known in this area), or stories about his mom (quite the piece of work). They looked out for their kid. He moved in with one of his youth coaches when he was a fairly young kid because his mom was not exactly a good parent.
The point of all this is that his reason for him loving the city wasn't the nightlife, or partying, or that it was the "cool" place to be from (it isn't). It's because the city was his family, and it raised him, and took care of him. Not the government -- just the people. And that kind of thing is pretty special, and it takes a pretty special young man to truly appreciate it. I mean, with a poor role model as a mother, no father, and entering the league straight out of high school and instantly making millions of dollars, there's never been a hint of scandal. No drugs, no hanging around with bad actors...none of it. Given his circumstances, the kind of man he's become is pretty remarkable.
We're pretty fiercely loyal people up here -- you'd have to be to keep supporting the generally pathetic excuses we've had for sports franchises for the last 50 years, and all the Cleveland jokes. It's kind of like we all bonded over it as can be seen from myself and
@musiclady instantly relating. So when you're from an area willing to be that loyal, and that is reciprocated by LBJ coming back here expressly to win one for us....We love that guy, and I can say that any guy on this team, even if he didn't play a minute in the finals, will be a hero here for the rest of his life.
