LeBron James relocates to Los Angeles to hunt the Warriors

Teaming up with the prodigiously gifted point guard Kyrie Irving and the double-double machine Kevin Love, LeBron’s new big three appeared to be the prohibitive favorites to topple the defending champion San Antonio Spurs in 2015. They were younger and healthier than Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh. Together, they would become the dynasty LeBron had attempted to build in Miami. “Not one, not two, not three…” it was The King’s league at last.

Then the Golden State Warriors had to go and fire Mark Jackson.

It didn’t take a genius to see that the Warriors were squandering their offensive weapons under the defense-obsessed Jackson, but no one had the Warriors immediately transforming into an unstoppable 3-point shooting juggernaut under new coach Steve Kerr. Golden State vaulted from the 10th-highest scoring team in the league to the front of the class in the 2014-15 season. They won 67 games that year, then broke a league record by winning 73 the next. Then they added Kevin Durant — rendering the Finals a fait accompli for the foreseeable future.

And this is why LeBron James is now a Los Angeles Laker.

The news that the league’s greatest player is once again leaving home to chase NBA Finals glory will not be met this time with burning jerseys or book-length jeremiads. LeBron fulfilled his promise. He brought the Cavs back from a 3-1 deficit against the 73-win Warriors in 2016 and delivered an improbable championship to titled-starved Cleveland. Some Cavs fans might balk at the four-year length of LeBron’s $154 million deal (he refused to commit more than one or two seasons at a time to Cleveland after returning, which might’ve helped drive his most valuable teammate to his most hated Eastern Conference rival), but The King’s Cuyahoga County debts are settled.

While it’s true LeBron also stated in his 2014 letter that, “I always believed that I’d return to Cleveland and finish my career there,” let’s cut the GOAT some slack. He didn’t see Golden State, pre- or post-Durant, coming. The Cavs have been capped out for four straight seasons, forcing owner Dan Gilbert deep into the luxury tax to keep his team in contention. Whereas the Warriors were built for the long haul, the Cavs have been chaotically broken apart and reassembled on the fly. There have been midseason coaching changes and wholesale team rebuilds. There was no cohesion. Due to this, the team’s four straight trips to the Finals have depended more than they were supposed to on LeBron’s virtuosity. He needed a team with roster flexibility. That team was not the 2018 Cleveland Cavaliers.

Gilbert’s impulsive acquiescence to Kyrie Irving’s 2017 trade demand (even though Irving had two more years left on his contract), and the subsequent trade of the ill-fitting assets received in that deal to the Lakers inadvertently helped L.A. free up the cap space to sign two max players this offseason. And while L.A. might’ve missed on Paul George, they hit pay dirt on LeBron James, who will now don the illustrious purple and gold as he attempts to thwart the Bay Area bane of his basketball existence.

And he will do so with the youngest team (as currently constituted) he’s ever played with in his prime, while competing a full season in the elite Western Conference for the first time in his career. At 33 years old, LeBron’s on a vision quest. No more “Leastern Conference” knocks. He’s coming for the Monstars in their division. Is it November yet?