Pierre Haessig / Everybody’s crazy (DR)

A couple for more than two decades, LeBron and Savannah James are a very close-knit pair.

However, that didn’t stop the King’s wife from having a deep disagreement with him a few years ago, at a pivotal moment in his career.

It’s a proven fact in the NBA : it’s difficult to have both a successful sports career and a fulfilling love life.

The two tend to influence each other: multiplying conquests can have disastrous results on your professionalism, while focusing on the courts in order to shine for a long time pushes you to sometimes neglect those around you. A real headache…

It is therefore quite rare for model couples to form within the big league, especially since players’ team changes generally involve moving and therefore a big upheaval in private.

Something that had not happened for Damian Lillard, whose partner and children had stayed in Portland during his trade to the Bucks… A separation from which he suffered greatly.

Savannah worried ahead of LeBron’s return to Cavs

In LeBron James ‘ case , the situation was a little different. His wife Savannah and his children accompanied him to each team change, the first one being in 2010 when he left the Cavaliers for the Heat.

A highly publicized move that earned him torrents of hatred in Ohio… His sweetheart was therefore dreading his return home in 2014, as she explained on her podcast recently.

LeBron said, ‘I’m taking my talents back to Cleveland,’ and I was like, ‘What? No, I don’t want to go back.’

As a reminder, Cavs fans had burned hundreds of jerseys with his name on them while Dan Gilbert, owner of the franchise, had publicly castigated him for his departure to Miami. Suffice to say that he had become persona non grata there…

However, the treatment of him would also extend to his wife and especially his children.

We imagine that Savannah did not want her family to be slandered on a daily basis and fortunately, this did not happen while LBJ brought a title to Cleveland in 2016.

She remains grateful to the franchise for having selected the King in 2003 with the first pick, she and he being after all local kids:

Obviously, LeBron was drafted by Cleveland when we were younger, and I’m from Akron, 30 minutes from there, but I don’t know. If I were to ask him, if he was sitting here… I think he’d say the same thing: “I don’t know what would have happened.” So, thank you to the Cleveland Cavaliers… We’ve talked about it a lot. Yeah, thank you guys for continuing to love me.

LeBron James had left the Cavaliers as a traitor in 2010, having become the most hated man in Ohio. A status that was bound to have consequences for those close to him, too. No wonder Savannah had reservations.