By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog, Tel: (216) 659-0473 Kathy Wray Coleman is a community activist and 20 year investigative journalist who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
CLEVELAND, Ohio-Cleveland's favorite son, NBA mega star LeBron James (pictured), is returning to the majority Black major American city to again play for the Cavaliers, a team he left in 2010 to join the Miami Heat, of which he led to two of its three NBA championships, one in 2012, and the other in 2013. Cavs owner Dan Gilbert has agreed to pay James $42.1 million over two years, a contract he signed on Saturday.CLEVELAND, Ohio- Cleveland's favorite son, NBA mega star LeBron James, is returning to the majority Black major American city to again play for the Cavaliers, a team he left in 2010 to join the Miami Heat, of which he led to two of its eight NBA championships,one in 2012, and the other in 2013. Cavs owner Dan Gilbert has agreed to pay James $42.1 million over two years, a contract he signed on Saturday.
His transition back to Cleveland puts the Cavs in a likely playoffs contenders position after losing four straight years in a row.
"When I left Cleveland, I was on a mission. I was seeking championships, and we won two. But Miami already knew that feeling," said James in an exclusive Sports Illustrated interview last week. "Our city hasn't had that feeling in a long, long, long time. My goal is still to win as many titles as possible, no question. But what's most important for me is bringing one trophy back to Northeast Ohio."
An Akron native, which is a city some 30 miles south of Cleveland, the beloved James, 29, whom many consider the best basketball player in the world, unnerved Cleveland fans when he left the Cavs, also though, after seven years and no NBA championship ring. Some of his fans got so upset that they took to the streets and burned their replicas of his jersey, the then infamous No. 23, which he will likely wear again, beginning this year when the NBA season starts.
But James says that he has always had a soft heart for Northeast Ohio and had longed to return with his family.
"I always believed that I'd return to Cleveland and finish my career there. I just didn't know when," James said."But I have two boys and my wife, Savannah, is pregnant with a girl."
James said that " I started thinking about what it would be like to raise my family in my hometown."
Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, the city's third Black mayor, called James "the best player in the world."
A Democrat, Jackson is an astute politician, and brings results, and is supported and protected by Cleveland's Old Black Political Guard, who help catapult Carl B. Stokes as the first Black mayor of a major American city in 1967.
Jackson convinced Cleveland voters to pass a 15 mill Cleveland schools tax levy two years ago, then just last year won reelection to a third term with a mandate of 68 percent of the vote against millionaire business man Ken Lanci. And better yet, Cuyahoga County voters approved a $270 million sin tax renewal on alcohol and cigarettes in May with the mayor's urging. Moreover, Jackson announced at a press conference last week that he had sealed the deal to for Cleveland to host the Republican National Convention in 2016. Jackson, some say, is on a roll.
Congressman Tim Ryan, a Niles Democrat who represents Ohio's 13th congressional district, was so excited about LeBron returning home that he emailed a welcome home card and sought digital signatures online. Click the following link to sign the digital card by Congressman Ryan, who welcomed son Brady Zetts Ryan last month with his wife Andrea. Help us welcome LeBron James home by signing our card for him!
Several factors contributed to his decision, sources say, including the firing of Cavs coach Mike Brown, who is Black, the Cavs drafted Andrew Higgins in the first round of the NBA draft last month, the Miami Heat lost the championship this year to the San Antonio Spurs, Kyrie Irving will stay on with the Cavs, and the timing was right.
Though a free agent this year, as he was in 2010 when he left for Miami, few of his fans truly believed that James would come home to Cleveland, but he did.
James played high school basketball at St Vincent-St Mary High school in Akron and after graduating he was selected as the first overall pick in the 2003 NBA draft by the Cavaliers. He went on to lead Cleveland, in 2007, to its first finals appearance, losing to San Antonio. He left for Miami as a free agent in 2010 amid a dispute with Cavs owner Dan Gilbert. He was chosen, in both 2012 and 2013, as the most valuable player of the NBA championship series.
