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LeBron James has taken his talents to the West Coast but the stories revolving his second stint with the Cleveland Cavaliers continue to surface. Now, this is nothing out of the norm, these reports always “leak” out after a player moves on from a team, but this one is fascinating, to say the least, due to the fact it involves LeBron.
During a CBS roundtable podcast featuring long-time Cavaliers beat writers Jason Lloyd of The Athletic, Dave McMenamin of ESPN and Joe Vardon of Cleveland.com a very eye-opening story came up while discussing LeBron’s second stint. While explaining LeBron and Kyrie’s rocky relationship, Lloyd shared that Irving never wanted LeBron to make his return in the first place. McMenamin threw in that Irving and his camp were leaning towards demanding a trade after making history and defeating the Golden State Warriors bringing home the Cavs first title in 2016. They eventually decided not yo and we know how that eventually all played out in the end.
“It has been made clear to me by multiple people, Kyrie never really wanted LeBron to come back (to Cleveland) in the first place. He didn’t think it was necessary. LeBron said something to Kyrie on the court following a game when he was with Miami something to the effect of, ‘Keep going, keep doing what you’re doing. You never know, I could be back here one day.’ And Kyrie basically said, ‘What’s he talking about, we don’t need him,'” Lloyd recounted.
While many can argue that Kyrie definitely needed LeBron to win a chip on that team, it’s clear he is no big fan of LeBron the teammate. With LeBron now a Laker and Kyrie leading the way on a very dangerous Celtic squad there is a chance these two can battle it out in NBA Finals matchup and reignite the Celtic-Laker rivalry.
