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CLEVELAND — Thursday morning, hours before he would take the floor as a Cavalier for the first time in more than four years, LeBron James seemed to suggest that he would approach this opening night like pretty much every night of his career. He was tired, he said, and would go home for a nap.
But James did acknowledge that this night was a little different than most, and that since announcing his return to Cleveland after four years with the Heat in mid-July, he spent many idle moments picturing how it would feel to take the floor here at Quicken Loans Arena for the first time.
“I have had may thoughts about how it might be, how loud it might be, how great it is to be back on this floor,” James said. “It’s going to be exciting, not only when my name is announced, but when the rest of the guys on the team come out on the floor.”
Exciting, it turned out, was an understatement. After a day’s worth of pregame hype that included the unveiling of the new building-sized James banner across from the arena, a free concert by Kendrick Lamar and Imagine Dragons, live SportsCenter broadcasts from the promenade on 4th Street downtown, celebrity sightings galore — we had Geraldo Rivera AND Justin Bieber in the crowd, folks — and a rendition of the national anthem from Usher, the moment James imagined had finally arrived.
The Cavaliers' lineup was announced just after 8 p.m., and like James, the fans in the building certainly understood the importance of what was happening — after all, four years without James yielded zero playoff appearances, three different coaches, two general managers and a 97-215 record.
By the time PA announcer Olivier Sedra got to James, the building was already in a lather. When James strode onto the floor, the arena crowd let loose a collective release of four years of pent-up frustration.
James acknowledged the applause. And then, at long last, things got back to normal for James — he was back in Cleveland, starring for the Cavs.
“It’s a pretty huge day,” he said earlier in the day. “I understand how much I mean to this team, this franchise, to this city and this state. I am calm and excited at the same time.”