CLEVELAND — The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s apathy.
LeBron James has gotten many receptions from Cleveland Cavaliers fans over his 24 seasons in the league. None have been as half-hearted and uncarring as Friday’s.
There’s always been a certain buzz in the arena when James plays in Cleveland. That has been the case since he was in high school.
That juice, however, was lacking in his first trip back home in a Philadelphia 76ers uniform. There were empty seats before tip-off. The ovation for him when he was announced in the starting lineups was positive, but hardly more than respectful. No tribute video was played, as has been the case for the last eight seasons. There were smatterings of boos and cheers throughout the night, but nothing more than what any other high-profile player gets at Rocket Arena. And a good number of fans were content heading out while James was still on the court.
In short, LeBron was just another guy participating in one of 41 home games against the Cavs.
“At this point it’s become normal,” Donovan Mitchell said of James’s return. “My first year, you see it, and now it’s just, we’re playing the Sixers, to be honest. You obviously understand that the stands are going to be packed and obviously cheer for him, and rightfully so. He’s a champion, he’s from here, and he deserves all that and more for what he’s done for the city. At this point it’s just regular. … For us it’s normal.”
The normality of this reception stands in stark contrast to what we saw last year. Then, the crowd showered him with praise all game, ultimately moving him to tears. At the time, it seemed unfathomable that he would receive anything but love in the building he called home for 11 years. This summer, however, changed that.
James chose to leave the Los Angeles Lakers in free agency at the end of June. He then spent the first three weeks in July dragging his feet, leading those within the city and organization to believe he was returning to Cleveland. But then James threw a curveball and decided to go to a city he had no previous connection with and build a super team with the 76ers.
LeBron has earned the right to ring chase at the age of 41. But that comes with consequences, especially when you choose a conference rival over returning to a good team back home that also has a chance of winning a championship.
We saw the fallout of that choice on Friday night. There wasn’t the pain and vitriol from 2010. There wasn’t the love in all of his returns since 2018. Just emptiness.
LeBron understandably preferred this reaction to what he got when he first returned as a member of the Miami Heat. “Nothing can get as worse as December 2, 2010, from a reception standpoint,” James said. “I’ve seen the end of the depths of hell when it comes to a reception here.”
That night in 2010 was an absolute disaster. Cleveland should’ve handled that moment better. They have deserved all of the blame and condemnation that has come from how they handled that. Yet, hate comes from a place of passion. It comes from pain, an emotion that’s real. Fans cared about what happened that night.
On Friday, I’m not sure if anyone cared too much anymore. There was appreciation, but there wasn’t undying love. There was frustration, but not enough to actually voice that displeasure. Just a tiredness of a decades-long relationship that keeps oscillating back and forth, without either side really being sure how much they mean to the other.
That uncarrying is the saddest place a relationship can find itself, especially one as personal as this. Arguably no professional athlete has meant more to a region than LeBron to Northeast Ohio. The journey from being the teenage prodigy from Akron to delivering the first professional championship in over half a century for a sports-starved region is truly impossible to put into words.
The relationship between LeBron and northeast Ohio will continue in some form beyond this. Maybe that appreciation is there if he plays future games in Cleveland. And most likely, that outpouring of love will return for the inevitable statue and jersey retirement ceremonies.
But then again, that isn’t guaranteed. James’s choice to presumably end his career in a different uniform could just be the straw that broke the camel’s back. The rift that caused both sides to continue drifting apart forever.
Friday could have been LeBron’s last professional game in Northeast Ohio. Nothing about the future is guaranteed. And if so, there couldn’t have been a more pitiful way for things to end in Cleveland.
