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CLEVELAND, Ohio — No one knows how much longer LeBron James will play. No one knows when that final game at home will come.
The Akron native is about a month away from his 39th birthday. He’s in the midst of his 21st season. He’s accomplished nearly everything he wanted on the basketball court. While he continues to defy the odds, introducing the NBA world to an entirely new level of sustained excellence and longevity, the sand inside the hourglass will soon reach the bottom.
That’s why everyone, LeBron included, is savoring the small handful of games he has left in Cleveland — the blue-collar, Midwest city he once promised to light up like Las Vegas, the place where his prodigious career began.
Saturday night was James’ latest homecoming — a 121-115 Lakers win over the Cavs in which James made two critical shots down the stretch to thwart Cleveland’s late-game comeback attempt.
“It’s always special to come back here,” James said after the game. “I felt that feeling of it as well when we went back to Miami, just knowing the history. But even a little bit more here, because I spent 11 years here. Being able to come back after my Miami stint and win a championship here for this franchise, for this city, I think it was a 52-year drought or something like that in the city of Cleveland for any sports team, I think that was just something I will never forget no matter how old I get.
“Stepping back on this floor is always a pretty cool feeling, looking up there and pretty much being a part of all the banners in this arena. And the No. 1 banner, the one that sits in the middle, was that ‘16 championship. That’s pretty cool.”
Because he plays for the Western Conference powerhouse Lakers, James only makes one visit to Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse each season. All these years later — two decades since the Cavaliers made him the first pick in the 2003 NBA Draft and six seasons since his last game in the wine and gold — LeBron’s return is still a spectacle.
Fans adore him. Opponents show appreciation. A-listers flock downtown to see him. The organization reveres him.
“He is great for the game of basketball,” Cavs coach J.B. Bickerstaff said before discussing James’ prolonged greatness. “He keeps proving to us that he can do it, so it doesn’t seem surprising anymore. I think at 35, we were surprised. Now it’s just like this is what he does.”
On Saturday night, the deafening roars nearly drowned out the pregame introduction. Then, during the second stoppage of the first quarter, the Cavs honored James for becoming the NBA’s all-time leading scorer last season, noting the former Cavalier scored more than 23,000 points in his 11 unprecedented seasons with Cleveland — a run that featured the franchise’s first ever Finals appearance in 2007 and lone championship in 2016.
At the end of that video tribute, fans rose to their feet and serenaded their beloved King with applause while James — the franchise’s career leader in points, rebounds, assists, steals, minutes and games — brought his hands together in the shape of a heart.
There was also a brief cutaway to the rafters where the evidence of James’ indelible impact proudly hangs.
On the court, below those banners, in front of Cavs majority owner Dan Gilbert, who was seated along the baseline in his seat that has been occupied more this season as he keeps regaining strength after battling the effects of a 2019 stroke, and Browns owner Jimmy Haslam two rows back, James got the better of his old team.
It wasn’t quite a throwback James performance — he scored 22 points on 8-of-23 shooting, including 1-of-9 from 3-point range to go with six rebounds and six assists in 36 minutes — but it was good enough. And, just as he has done so many times in the building that he used to call home, the King came through when it mattered most.
He not only opened the scoring with a vintage and-1 but James also tallied eight points in the fourth quarter, making back-to-back timely buckets — a mid-range floater and thunderous two-handed dunk — over the final few minutes to give Los Angeles just enough cushion, extending the Lakers’ lead from one to five.

The Lebron James Museum is open at House Three Thirty in Akron. The museum takes a room-by-room look at The Kid from Akron – his upbringing, family, career and philanthropy.Marc Bona, cleveland.com
The latest victory, which avenged a 2022-23 season series sweep by Cleveland, came hours after the grand opening of “LeBron James’ Home Court” at his family foundation’s House Three Thirty in nearby Akron.
The museum dedicated to his life is stocked with mementos from his 21-year NBA career, his four years as a teenage phenom at Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary High School and the last apartment he and his mother, Gloria, lived in before he turned pro. The oversize white suit he wore on draft night is in there. Same with game-worn sneakers from some of his biggest games. Admission is $23, matching his longtime uniform number, and museum guests begin their tour by turning an apartment key on a string to open unit 602 — exactly like James did when he moved into Spring Hill Apartments.
House Three Thirty also features a Starbucks to train adults enrolled in his mentoring program, a sports bar, pizza shop and retail store.
Gloria was in attendance for the opening of the museum.
“I used to get on my mom a lot about saving everything since I started playing sports,” James said. “She kind of threw it back in my face when the stuff was being prepared down at the museum because a lot of the stuff in there is because of the stuff that she saved. And that’s pretty cool.”
There are even trophies from James’ first ever basketball game as a kid and the time he won league MVP at nine years old. Some other keepsakes from his football-playing days are displayed as well.
“Things that I haven’t seen in years,” James said. “I didn’t even know that she still had it. I think it’s pretty cool that I’ve been able to do some things in my life to bring back to my community, continue to highlight my community and give my community a place where people want to visit, want to see and want to be proud of it. I am. I’m definitely proud of the fact that my foundation has been able to do some great things.”

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In the days leading up to Saturday’s highly anticipated showdown, Bickerstaff was asked to define greatness. He paused for a moment and tried to find the right words.
“It’s easy to see and tough to explain — if that makes sense,” Bickerstaff said. “Greatness is more than an individual basketball trait. A lot of good players in the NBA who can score points, rebound, pass, impact a game. But there are very few players who have the magnitude and ability to change and carry franchises and organizations to a championship level. That’s what LeBron has proven to be able to do everywhere he has been.”
James’ brilliance should never be taken for granted and with the end coming eventually, each visit to Cleveland leads to an outpouring of mutual love and support. It causes the fondest memories to rush back. Saturday night was no exception. LeBron even allowed himself a moment to reflect.
“Anytime you walk these hallways, I look back to a lot of games,” James said. “From my time when I was a rookie all the way up until the last time that I played here. Just taking a couple more steps going down to the locker room down the hall. It’s just special. It’s very special to be a kid from Akron. I grew up 30 miles south of here. When I was drafted, I said I wanted to light this place up like Vegas.
“I feel like I did a decent job of doing that.”
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