Grande: LeBron James Returning To Boston, The Place Where His Career -- And The NBA -- Changed
(CBS) -- Boston. Where LeBron became a King
"…and the Celtics have not only shocked the NBA world..they may just have changed it."
- Celtics Radio Network, May 13, 2010
He played his first game here.
You don't remember it, I'm sure. Why would you?
I doubt there were 500 people there, crammed into UMass Boston on a hot July night in 2003, most to see him. NBA Summer League, where hopefuls try to catch on and rookies get their NBA feet wet.
But this wasn't just another rookie.
An 18-year-old LeBron James jogged on to the court that night and all eyes were on him immediately. This is supposed to be where you say, "We didn't know that night what we were about to see." But we did. At least we were told we did.
And that's always been my point about LeBron James.
We can debate his skills, his accomplishments, his decisions, both capitalized and not. And we can debate whether he will end up as the best who ever played. (Yeah, he will. I said it first on the air in 2006 and I see no reason to change that view ... but let's talk again in five or six years.)
But what we can't debate is that in 2003, no one ever had the expectations, scrutiny and media attention from their first professional steps that he did. It's hard enough to place any modern-day athlete in historical perspective. It's impossible when you're doing it with an athlete who's walked a path no one ever had to walk before him.
Every step, and particularly every misstep, has been documented. And that's digital-age documented. Tweeted, Facebooked, Vine'd, Pinterest'ed, you name it.
LeBron returns to Boston tonight. To the building that's been a mile marker in his halfway-to-best-player-ever career. Against the team that was his standard, the team that was the hurdle he eventually had to clear to reach the finish line. What the Bad Boy Pistons were to Michael, the New Big Three Celtics were to LeBron.
I've gotten pushback before (so what else is new?) from fans who think I've been too kind, lavished too much praise on LeBron. And if your green-colored glasses don't ever come off, I get it. By the way, I've gotten in my share of playful digs when it was warranted, like during his disappointing performance in the 2011 Finals.
But he's going to be the best I've seen, if not the best ever. I came into the NBA in 1998, three months after Jordan hit the shot over Bryon Russell in Utah. I didn't see him in his prime. And three weeks from tonight when he comes to town, maybe we'll talk about Kobe and his place in this conversation (not to mention his rarely discussed love of Boston).
But that said, I've been fortunate to call all 27 of LeBron's games at TD Garden. These are my top five most memorable LeBron games in Boston.
5. May 9, 2011 – Eastern Conference Semifinals – Game Four
This one gets forgotten. And with good reason. Chris Bosh hit the big shot in this game. Dwyane Wade was without question the series MVP (both for his offense and for taking out Rajon Rondo in Game 3). But in a series that meant so much to him, finally getting past the New Big Three Celtics, evidenced by his emotional reaction to the Game 5 series-clinching win two days later, LeBron was very, very good in this game. His 35 points and 14 rebounds were big, but his response after a mental error late in regulation, dribbling the ball out of bounds, was noteworthy. He shut down Paul Pierce at the end of regulation and OT, made big shots and gave the Heat the 3-1 series lead.
4. February 14, 2006
Everyone remembers number two on this list. But not a lot of people remember that was a reprise. By LeBron's third year, the Cavs had turned the corner and were clearly on the rise. The Celtics, in Doc Rivers' second year, would end up missing the playoffs for the first time since 2001. It was a significant year for Boston in the development of the players that would be the bait for Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen (Al Jefferson, Ryan Gomes, Delonte West, etc.). But this was also the year Paul Pierce went from leading scorer, to team leader. From star, to captain. And on this night, that always-fascinating last game before the all-star break, LeBron and Paul Pierce would stage, well, the second-greatest head-to-head duel of their lengthy rivalry. Although he ended up with a triple-double, LeBron was hardly messing around. Forty-three points, 12 rebounds, 11 assists and 4 blocks and more to the point, just weeks after his 21st birthday, leading his young team to an overtime win on the road. (Pierce of course would record the only 50-point game of his career. Little did we know at the time, it would begin the near NBA-record run for the Celtics, they'd go over six years without another 40-point game in the regular season, until Pierce would do it again, in New York in April of 2012.)
3. May 13, 2010 – Eastern Conference Semifinals – Game Six
The word I used all night was "cauldron."
I'd never seen anything like it. In a series in which the Celtics were treated as simply a backdrop in a national referendum on LeBron, it seemed like the world descended on TD Garden, and LeBron's back for Game 6. James and the Cavs, you may recall, had steamrolled the Celtics six days earlier at the Garden to take a 2-1 lead. But the Celtics then began one of the best six-game stretches in franchise history. Coming back to win Game 4, blowing the Cavs away in Cleveland in Game 5 (considered by many as one of the worst nights in Cleveland's well-documented star-crossed sporting meme), the Celtics returned home with a chance to, well, do what I said as the clock hit triple zeros (see above).
It was a 27-point, 19-rebound, 10-assist triple-double for LeBron that night. But I've never seen anyone look so alone. ESPN opened SportsCenter before the game at 6:30 with four reporters in a "four-box," TV-term for a split screen where you can see everyone at the same time (think Brady Bunch, or if you're under 40, all the different apps on your tablet). And all were covering LeBron. Not the game. Not the game he loves. Not the game he dies for ... they were talking about LeBron.
I don't know when he made the final decision, to make the Decision to go to Miami. But calling those games it felt like the narrative changed during that last week. Which is why I said what I did when he walked off the floor.
2. May 18, 2008 – Eastern Conference Semifinals -- Game Seven
You know how you ask broadcasters (or players, or coaches, etc.) sometimes what their favorite games was? The game they felt they were at their best? The one they enjoyed the most? The one they remember the fondest? And they hem and haw and don't give you a real answer?
I won't. This is mine.
For a variety of reasons. But I'll say this. A longer story if I ever write a book someday. Or whatever will replace books in our e-future. (I assume one day we'll just be able to think something, and it will show up on your device, or on the inside of your glasses or something.) But you may remember for all those playoff games that got away from the Celtics, they had the NBA's best record wire-to-wire and never trailed in a playoff series. That said, there was only one real hurdle to Banner 17. Doc Rivers knew it, I can tell you that. And it was LeBron. It's usually the team with the best player that wins a best-of-seven series. It takes the teams, the special teams that have beaten LeBron to overcome that. The Spurs in 2014, the Celtics in 2010 ... and of course, the championship Celtics of 2008. People like to point to the historic comeback in Game 4 of the Finals as the signature moment.
No chance. It was this day.
This had to be what the '80s felt like at the Boston Garden. It was just living history from the jump. And to watch LeBron and Paul Pierce take their place alongside Bird and Dominique, was beyond special. It was the day Paul's Celtic legend became immortal. But LeBron that day was spectacular.
I remember thinking many things that day, but one of them was -- what would have happened if Paul Pierce doesn't have that kind of game, and LeBron had been even better?
We'd find out four years later.
1. June 7, 2012 – Eastern Conference Finals -- Game Six
Forty-eight hours earlier, Rajon Rondo had played the game of his life, Paul Pierce stuck a dagger three in LeBron's face and the Celtics had won their third straight game, now needing only a home court win to go from a 15-17 start, to a third NBA Finals trip in five years.
As we closed out the postgame show in Miami after Game 5, Max talked about the environment the Garden was going to be for Game 6, about how improbable an Eastern Conference title was for this aging Celtics team. I almost tossed it back to the studio, but I couldn't help myself.
"But…there's just one more thing," I said, turning to Max. "If ever the stage was set for LeBron James, it's now. If there was ever a chance for ultimate redemption and to change his legacy ... this is it."
Don't even think it -- it was not my fault.
But remember the climate. LeBron had lost to the Spurs in '07, the Celtics in '08, the Magic in '09 and the Celtics again with the world watching in 2010. The Decision had turned 95 percent of the country against him, and most folks reveled in his Finals struggles in 2011. This was it. Another high-profile loss as a favorite? Another year with so many expectations and no championship? Who knows what happens?
But in what simply was one of the greatest games played by any one player in the modern era, with stakes astronomically high, he delivered for his team. He delivered for the league. And he delivered for himself. It was a night that changed the trajectory of his career, and as a result, his legacy.
How different was this night?
Tonight will be LeBron's 28th game at TD Garden and his first back in the wine and gold of the Cavs since that highly intense night four and half years ago.
The Celtics did change the NBA that night.
But since then, LeBron's the one who's changed the most.
And when it's all said and done, I don't know if he'll be the best ever, or one of the best. But whatever his place in NBA history turns out to be, he'll owe a lot of it to Boston.
Where so very much of NBA history has been written.
Sean Grande has been calling Boston Celtics games since 2001. Hear his call of the games alongside Cedric Maxwell on 98.5 The Sports Hub starting 30 minutes prior to tipoff! Click here for a list of affiliates on the Celtics Radio Network.
MORE CELTICS COVERAGE FROM CBS BOSTON
