LeBron James is going home, where his legacy will truly be written

The title drought in Northeast Ohio is 50 years and counting. It’s been five decades since Jim Brown and the Cleveland Browns – the last team to win a title in the city – brought an NFL championship to the blue collar, Midwest town.

During that retched span, the Cleveland sports fan has endured a laundry list of gut punches, from the “The Shot” to “The Drive” and beyond.

Heck, the city’s beloved football team even upped and left once upon a time.

Then of course there was the night of July 8, 2010 -- “The Decision – when Akron native LeBron James dumped the Cavaliers on national television. In the aftermath of that debacle, I kept asking myself one question.

How much can one fan base take?

But that’s exactly why Friday was such a special day in sports, as LeBron eloquently announced in an essay that he’s returning to the Cavaliers. There was something so cruel, so organically unfair about the raw deal the city of Cleveland got when King James bolted for the Miami Heat four years ago, but Friday felt like the Sports Gods had righted a past wrong.

People have since questioned the loyalties of the Cavaliers fans who were seen rejoicing in the streets as news broke of LeBron's Decision 2.0. Weren’t these the same people burning his jersey in those same streets four years ago?

Cavaliers fans famously burned LeBron James jerseys in 2010.

Sure they were. But that shouldn’t matter. Friday’s events weren’t a product of some cookie cutter bandwagon effect that consumes all sports markets when the local team is on a roll. What we saw in Cleveland runs so much deeper.

After such a magnificently tragic 50 years, the Cleveland teams have ostensibly become the Kennedys of the sports world. Remember, this is the same fan base that has endured 141 consecutive seasons – across multiple sports – without a championship parade. That’s the longest active drought for any city.

In LeBron’s open letter announcing his decision to resign with the Cleveland Cavaliers – the team he spent the first seven years of his career with -- he writes that his decision to return to Cleveland wasn’t purely about winning championships.

It wasn’t about legacy or even basketball as a whole.

It was about going home.

His was a letter written by a person who truly understands his place in the world and where he belongs.

Yet, while the promise of rings isn’t the reason LeBron is returning to Cleveland, the prospect of that happening is the undercurrent that fueled the celebrations in the streets on Friday.

Sure, he could have stayed in South Beach, won two or three more titles with a revamped roster and inched closer to Michael Jordan’s magic number of six championships. Perhaps that would have been the prudent move for his legacy, as if that word were solely rooted in the number of championship rings that rest on your fingers.

No, LeBron’s legacy can be about so much more than raw talent or jewelry.

That’s why his decision to leave was so hard for me – with no rooting interest and no connection to Cleveland – to swallow in the first place. Rightly or wrongly, I couldn’t understand how he could divorce himself from the prospect of being the guy to bring a championship to Northeast Ohio, even if it was just one.

Just do a bit of homework on Mark Messier, and you’ll understand.

In 1991, the New York Rangers traded for Messier, a five-time Stanley Cup champion with the Edmonton Oilers. Three years later, Messier spearheaded an epic Cup run that ended the organization’s 54-year title drought and vaporized a World War II-era hex.

Five Cups with the Oilers, but it’s the title he won in 1994 with the Rangers that just might be Messier’s finest accomplishment. It was a legacy-cementing championship – one that still echoes on the streets on New York and in hockey lore.

Perhaps LeBron wasn’t ready for that type of a moment. Maybe he didn’t have the foresight or the vision to fully understand the opportunity that lay before him four years ago.

It sure seems like he does now. And if that’s the case, haters and fans alike should recognize and respect his choice to return home, his decision to slay Cleveland’s ancient demon.

His nickname is The King, but these days it feels more like “The Savior.” Then again he won’t be considered that until he ends the vaunted title drought that’s lingered on the shores of Lake Erie for a half century.

When LeBron does that, and only then, his legacy will truly be complete. Not in Springfield, Mass., on sports talk radio or in bar stool conversations that will follow in the years to come, but the one place where it truly maters.

Home.