During the summer of 2010, LeBron James was an unrestricted free agent and met with six NBA teams: the New Jersey Nets, New York Knicks, Chicago Bulls, Los Angeles Clippers, Cleveland Cavaliers and Miami Heat.
As everyone knows, James signed with the Heat, creating the Big 3 with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh down in South Beach. Multiple reports at the time, though, said LeBron and Wade were seriously considering signing with the Bulls, who had a productive meeting with James, led by owner Jerry Reinsdorf and head coach Tom Thibodeau.
According to Ric Bucher of Bleacher Report, Reinsdorf not only thought his Bulls had a great shot of landing LeBron, but he also had a feeling The King was going to leave the Cavs:
There was one other comment LeBron James made that convinced Reinsdorf, if nothing else, that James was headed somewhere. “I told him he should stay in Cleveland,” Reinsdorf says. “And he said, ‘We're not from Cleveland. We're from Akron.' That's when I knew he wasn't going back.”
LeBron wound up winning two NBA titles and two Finals MVPs with the Heat before going back to the Cavs in the summer of 2014.
In the 2016 Finals, James won his third NBA championship by helping Cleveland win its first-ever title in franchise history. The Cavs became the first team in NBA history to erase a 3-1 series deficit in the Finals, as LeBron and Co. took down the 73-9 Golden State Warriors.
When LeBron left the Cavs in 2010, his jersey was burned all throughout Cleveland. Cavs owner Dan Gilbert even wrote a letter bashing James. With that said, it's pretty incredible that LeBron had the courage to go back to the Cavs in 2014.
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