Cleveland Cavaliers: 5 reasons LeBron James should re-sign

3. Rebuilding a legacy of loyalty

Thanks to professional athletes having more power and control over their careers than ever before, free agency and forced trades have helped shape the NBA in ways that a lot of people do not appreciate.

There remains a large segment of sports fans, media and athletes who still hold traits like loyalty in high regard, and they’ll give players brownie points for staying with one franchise over the long haul. They’ll also praise the athletes who “tough it out” in challenging situations rather than “take the easy route” by going to another, better team.

For those people, staying in Cleveland is the right thing for LeBron to do.

The million-dollar question is, of course, will those same individuals who’d praise LeBron for staying in Cleveland turn around and criticize him when he still can’t lead underdog Cavaliers squads to championships against the kind of loaded teams he could have joined?

The Cavs don’t have much money to spend in free agency in 2018, and probably won’t have much in 2019 either. If they want to add the kind of players needed to topple the Warriors, they’ll have to make some trades — but it’s going to be difficult to unload highly-paid veterans like J.R. Smith and Tristan Thompson given their subpar performances lately.

So while LeBron would likely be signing himself up for more NBA Finals failure by staying in Cleveland, he would (in theory) earn the respect of those old-school types who view loyalty from athletes as a virtue.