In the first of those incarnations, with a roster that included Dwyane Wade and Derrick Rose, the common line on the Cavaliers was that they were a virtual All-Star team — from a half-dozen years ago. They were old. They were fragile. And the trade-deadline deals this past February that remade the Cavaliers roster — though welcomed by an exasperated James — must have made him feel as if he’d already left Cleveland for a second time.

Beyond making the Cavaliers younger and fitter, those trades didn’t exactly elevate Koby Altman, Cleveland’s general manager, to the larcenous level of Danny Ainge, the Celtics’ impresario whose managerial touch in personnel operations has turned everything but the Celtics’ uniforms to gold.

Of course, James’s insistence on signing short-term contracts to maximize his leverage surely contributed to the trading of Irving to Boston last summer and to the Cavaliers’ ongoing roster issues. Upon his return from Miami in 2014, James also lobbied for the acquisition of Love, a fine player though unlucky with injuries, the latest being his collision with the Celtics’ Jason Tatum early in Game 6 that put him in concussion protocol and left him on the sidelines on Sunday night.

And yet, his organizational power-tripping aside, James has been everything Cleveland desperately wanted back after his 2010 departure prompted Dan Gilbert, the Cavaliers’ owner, to publicly disparage him. Over the last four seasons, in his second run with the Cavaliers, James has stretched the limits of his long-established greatness, encapsulated by his chase-down of Golden State’s Andre Iguodala late in Game 7 of the 2016 finals against Golden State.

That blocked shot preceded the Irving 3-pointer that delivered Cleveland its first major professional sports title in 52 years and climaxed a rally from a 3-1 deficit in the series against a team that had won a record 73 games in the regular season.

It was a historic title, and a profound achievement for James. It was also his last Game 7 until he conquered the Indiana Pacers in the first round of this year’s postseason. And then came Sunday night, which only took place because James notched 46 points, 11 rebounds and 9 assists in Game 6 against the Celtics. And now James, and his grateful teammates, wait to see who will win Game 7 of the Western Conference finals, with the Warriors needing to beat the Rockets in Houston to take on the Cavaliers a fourth straight time.