Back in December of 2010, LeBron James played in the city of Cleveland as a member of an opposing NBA team for the first time in his career.
After he spent the first seven seasons of his time in the pros with the Cleveland Cavaliers, he teamed up with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh on the Miami Heat in the 2010 offseason.
James was met with great hostility from the fans that packed the arena that December night. He was booed mercilessly, though he didn’t seem to let the crowd impact his quality of play.
He scored a game-high 38 points on 15-of-25 shooting from the field along with five rebounds and eight assists in a game the Heat won by 28.
Dwyane Wade — James’ teammate at the time — also took the floor in the now 39-year-old’s return to Cleveland, and he said that he experienced “hate about being Black in America” during the contest in question.
“I have never saw hate — I didn’t grow up in the times where our parents can tell us about the hate that they experienced about being Black in America,” Wade said when looking back on James’ return to Cleveland. “I wasn’t grew up in those times. But I grew up in the times where I went back to Cleveland with LeBron, and I’ma tell you what I experienced. I experienced hate about being Black in America. That was crazy. Now mind you, I played in Cleveland. Everything was cool when I went back there, but that moment, dawg. People…was talkin’ about my mama in a way I ain’t never seen nobody talk about my mama.”
Wade played at a high level against the Cavaliers as well, even if he didn’t put up the gaudy scoring numbers that James did. The three-time NBA champion nearly totaled a triple-double, finishing with 22 points, nine rebounds and nine assists. He also totaled three steals and converted all but six of his 16 shots from the floor.
The Heat were one of the elite teams in the NBA during the entirety of James’ tenure with them, but Miami didn’t win a title during the season that the aforementioned game happened. Instead, Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks pulled off an upset against the Heat in the 2011 championship series.
James’ Heat held a 2-1 lead in the series at one time, but the team then proceeded to lose three straight games. Nowitzki won the Finals MVP award after he had a playoff run for the ages.
James later rekindled his relationship with the city of Cleveland when he returned to the Cavaliers in the summer of 2014. James also helped the Cavaliers win their first title in franchise history in 2016.
