Finally, LeBron James has a hook. James has long been one of the most popular athletes on the planet; his standing as one of the sport’s all-time greats has long been self-evident and since his first ring, absolutely indisputable. But after last night’s Cleveland win there’s a serious case to be made for James as the best player ever. And it’s all because James has—like he’s done with so much on and off the court throughout his career—found a way to set his own terms.

James, for all his accomplishments, has always been strangely rudderless. With the exception of The Decision, James’s cultural relevance has been largely confined to his accomplishments on the basketball court. Despite his best efforts to the contrary, he’s been an unfathomably good basketball player, nothing more and nothing less. Now, that could all change. This title for Cleveland doesn’t just define LeBron’s legacy. It makes a full-blown hero out of James, a man who came home to deliver a region from over half-a-century of prolonged suffering. It’s a timeless, valiant tale, one that instantly resonates with people who could otherwise care less about basketball.

As if the storybook narrative weren’t enough, James managed to pull it off in the most grandiose fashion imaginable. Feel free to toss around all the superlatives you want; for once, they’re warranted. Between everything that was on the line and the sheer intensity of play, that was one of the greatest NBA games ever. The Cavs winning the title after going down 3-1—the only time it’s ever happened in the Finals—was one of the greatest comebacks ever, regardless of sport. It breaks Cleveland’s 52-year-long major league title drought. They did it against the best regular season team the league has ever seen. And James had a truly phenomenal series, leading both teams in every major statistical category.

What we saw in these last three games was James at his absolute finest, a marvel of an athlete whose exploits seem more suited to tall tales than they do cold fact. Everything that makes LeBron James such a remarkable talent was on full display. James, as it turns out, is still very much in his prime. He remains as agile as he is powerful, as shrewd as he is bombastic, and as selfless as he is utterly dominant, and as deliberate as he is creative. LeBron’s Game 6 may have been single finest performance of his career; he didn’t scale quite those same heights in Game 7 but his play, including a series of vicious blocks, sent a clear message: LeBron James is still the best in the league. And he just may be the best the game has ever seen.

"LeBron James stepped out from Jordan’s long shadow by finding not only a different way to play but a new way to win. And now, he finds himself convincingly mentioned in the same breath as MJ."

Ever since James’s first ring, we’ve danced around the question. When it comes to sheer accumulation of titles, James will never catch Jordan, much less Bill Russell. But whereas Kobe Bryant’s sole metric for excellence was MJ’s six titles—and Russell’s inclusion in the conversation, however unfairly, is based largely on his whopping 11 rings—with this title, James has altered the criteria for GOAT consideration. That single title for Cleveland was as emotional and personal a victory as you can imagine, as demonstrated by the profusion of tears from James and his teammates as soon as the final buzzer sounded. LeBron James stepped out from Jordan’s long shadow by finding not only a different way to play but a new way to win. And now, he finds himself convincingly mentioned in the same breath as MJ.

Part of what made the Warrior such a sensation this season was their ability to make fans of all stripes—even those outside of sports—fall in love with them and their style of play. James has spent most of his career as either utterly divisive or, for many, grudgingly respected. What’s more, he’s simply never transcended sports in the same way that Curry and the Warriors managed to. It’s somewhat baffling: he’s consistently proven himself to be funny, relatively self-aware, intelligent—but it’s always been hard to relate to James as basketball player. There’s a case to be made that Curry’s rise to prominence had a lot to do with image, the simple relatability of his game, and more nefarious factors of race and identity; maybe, however unconsciously, the league and its fans wanted to get past LeBron and so-called “new fans” were afforded a new, more palatable way into the NBA. But it’s just as easily attributable to Curry’s underdog story and the Warriors’ “future of basketball” narrative, the kind of facile thinking that—again, however unfairly—we’ve never quite been able to apply to LeBron.

Finally, though, LeBron James belongs to the world of flesh and blood. He may have elevated his standing in the annals of basketball but he’s also staked out a place for himself that makes him, well, relatable and relevant to our everyday lives. After spending years carefully crafting his public image, LeBron James’s best version of himself has turned out to be the simplest one: The guy who came back home to end the losing once and for all. In retrospect, James’s whole career—if not his life—taken on the kind of prophetic overtones he’s largely avoided since eschewing his “Chosen One” nickname.

Except now, there’s no question: If you believe in destiny, LeBron James has fulfilled his. You can’t say that about many other athletes. It’s feels good to say about someone because it makes us feel like the world makes sense. And that’s something for people to cling to even if they could care less about James’s outrageous abilities. LeBron James has turned into a feel-good figure. In sports, his immortality was a given. But now, James is something else altogether: A success story who does it for all the right reasons.