“It’s like you have a shiny new toy, and you feel guilty for playing with it because you think someone’s going to take it away again,” said Jason Herron, a 44-year-old season-ticket holder.

Herron, the general manager of a car dealership, is a fan of some repute. In 2010, when James announced that he would sign with the Miami Heat after spending the first seven seasons of his career with the Cavaliers, Herron was filmed by a local television news crew igniting a bonfire outside a bar. He used a James jersey as kindling.

James, of course, returned to Cleveland in 2014 and delivered a championship in 2016. If he were to leave again, Herron said, there would be no hard feelings. James, who grew up in nearby Akron, came home to win a title, and he made good on that pledge. But people are still anxious. The LeBron agita is real. It is persistent. It is not going anywhere anytime soon.

On Sunday night, Herron attended an event for season-ticket holders at Playhouse Square, a performing arts center in Cleveland. James was joined on stage by his teammates.

“LeBron was talking about how loaded the team is and how excited he is, and someone yelled from the back: ‘Please don’t leave us!’” Herron said. “Yeah, he heard it. He kind of smirked.”

Fans here are susceptible to a range of emotions that James is uniquely capable of stirring, all at the once: pride and pleasure, pain and panic. Last month, he seemed to offer some assurance about his future when he reiterated to reporters that he intended to close out his career in Cleveland. But then he left the door ajar.

“Any time I’m able to be a free agent or my contract is ending, I’ll approach that when the summer comes,” he said. “I don’t ever cheat my teammates or cheat the fans or talk about free agency all year long, because I’m not going to give energy to something I can handle in the summertime.”