Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James: NBA title still surreal

“It still hasn’t hit me, what actually happened,” said Cavs star LeBron James at the rally. “For some crazy reason, I believe I’m going to wake up and it’s going to be like Game 4 all over again and we’re down 2-1 still. I keep feeling that because it’s so surreal. I was talking to my wife, and I was like, ‘Babe, we did it.’”

James promised a championship in 2014 when he returned to Cleveland after four seasons with the Miami Heat. He delivered Sunday when the Cavs beat the Warriors 93-89 in Game 7 at Oracle Arena in Oakland, Calif.

The party began that night — the Cavs stopped in Las Vegas on the way home — and continued Wednesday. Some fans arrived Tuesday and planned to sit near the rally stage all night to guarantee a good view. Some got in line at 5:30 a.m. Wednesday. Others took the train into downtown from the suburbs or hiked across bridges from nearby neighborhoods.

Somehow a group equal to almost a tenth of the population of the entire state found a way to congregate along the parade route. The fans sweated. They banged elbows, lining up 30-40 rows deep on each side of the streets. They waited, in some cases, seven hours to catch a glimpse of the players. They found perches in parking garages. One woman climbed a walk sign.

The size of the crowd delayed the start of the parade for hours and put the whole parade in doubt. Cleveland police officers, some on horses, finally cleared enough room in the center of the street to get the parade moving. Even then, the cars, trucks and assorted vehicles squeezed through with inches to spare.

For most fans, the wait was worth it, especially when James, who earlier in the day announced he would return to the Cavs for the 2016-17 season, rode by toward the end of the parade.

“This means so much, seeing him come from where he came from,” said one fan, Monet Williams, from James’ hometown of Akron. “He started from the bottom and made it all the way to the top. This means a lot. This comes from the heart. I can understand his struggle.”

“LeBron has done so much for Akron,” said another Akron resident, Elisabeth Jackson. “It hurt us more when he left, but when he came back, it meant more, and when he won, it was everything.”

James stole the show with his speech at the rally. He talked about each of his teammates. He reserved his greatest praise for the Cavs’ young point guard, Kyrie Irving, who hit the go-ahead 3-pointer in the final minute of Game 7 against the Warriors.

“(Irving) thought I was blowing smoke up his (butt) early in the season when I said he could be the best point guard in our league and also the MVP in our league,” James said. “I know every single one of you who watched the finals saw what this guy is capable of doing, and he’s only 24. Oh my goodness. He doesn’t reach his prime for another three years.”