By: Kenneth Harrison Jr.

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

I was totally wrong about the NBA Finals.

Golden State (73-9) had the greatest regular season in NBA history and they needed to win the championship to cement that. That would give them back-to-back championships and establish them as a dynasty. They would also be considered better than the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls that held the previous record for best regular season at 72-10.

They had a 3-1 series lead over Cleveland (57-25) and it looked like they would easily get one more win. No team had ever come back from a 3-1 deficit in the Finals.

I’ve been very critical of LeBron James in the past and I feel he deserved it. Prior to this series he had a 2-4 record in the NBA Finals. He’s played timid in big moments in the past. Most notably the 2008 Eastern Conference Finals against Boston and the 2011 Finals against Dallas.

In Game 7 he had a triple double with 27 points, 11 rebounds, 11 assists, 3 blocks and 2 steals. He was named Finals MVP and led the Cavs in scoring, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks.

Cleveland won the game 93-89 ending the cities 52-year championship drought.

“When I decided to leave Miami — I’m not going to name any names, I can’t do that — but there were some people that I trusted and built relationships with in those four years [who] told me I was making the biggest mistake of my career,” James told ESPN.com

“And that s— hurt me. And I know it was an emotional time that they told me that because I was leaving. They just told me it was the biggest mistake I was making in my career. And that right there was my motivation.”

Kyrie Irving also had a huge game scoring 26 points, 6 rebounds and 1 assist. He emerged as a super star. He outplayed the unanimous MVP Steph Curry, which surprised me.

Curry only scored 17 points in Game 7. He averaged 22 points for the series after averaging 30 ppg during the season.

As a team the Warriors were down in scoring. They averaged 115 ppg in the regular season. They averaged 100 points per game in the Finals.

With this win LeBron has delivered on his promise on winning a championship in Cleveland. I think this really helps his legacy. I now consider him the best small forward of all time.

James will now be a free agent since the season is over. He has strategically signed a 2-year contract when he returned to Cleveland because the salary cap was going to increase. He wants to make sure he signs a max contract so he can make the most money per year.

I think he has to stay in Cleveland. They have to offer him a max contract and I don’t see why he would want to leave. He just won a championship so they are his best bet to win again next year.

He also received such a terrible backlash the first time he left I can’t imagine he would want to go through that again.

He does enjoy playing with friends and making super teams so that is a possibility. Only time will tell but I expect to see Cleveland versus Golden State round 3 next year.