LeBron Gets The First Laugh

That the hotly anticipated return of LeBron James to Cleveland on Thursday night ended in a dull, sour blowout makes a bleak kind of sense. LeBron and the Heat won the game handily, dispatching the overmatched Cavaliers 118-90, but it was tough to call it a victory, if only because of how queasily joyless it all felt. And as brilliant as LeBron himself was, putting up 38 points and eight assists over three jeer-packed quarters, he certainly didn’t seem to enjoy himself much in doing so. The Heat were impressive, LeBron was dazzling and yet the whole experience felt, in some broader sense, anticlimactic and notably un-triumphant. Wasn’t this supposed to be fun?

That the hotly anticipated return of LeBron James to Cleveland on Thursday night ended in a dull, sour blowout makes a bleak kind of sense. LeBron and the Heat won the game handily, dispatching the overmatched Cavaliers 118-90, but it was tough to call it a victory, if only because of how queasily joyless it all felt. And as brilliant as LeBron himself was, putting up 38 points and eight assists over three jeer-packed quarters, he certainly didn’t seem to enjoy himself much in doing so. The Heat were impressive, LeBron was dazzling and yet the whole experience felt, in some broader sense, anticlimactic and notably un-triumphant. Wasn’t this supposed to be fun?