On January 1st, Beijing time, after the Lakers' victory over the Cavaliers, James' actions after the game basically cut off any hope of him returning to the Cavaliers for a fourth time, ending his third homecoming trip prematurely and depriving the Cavaliers players of the opportunity to embrace him.
The Lakers suffered a crushing defeat at home to the Cavaliers, failing to win even against the league's top team in back-to-back games. This game was actually quite an opportunity for them. They were trailing earlier and had just finished a physically demanding match against the Warriors, yet they still managed to defeat the Los Angeles Lakers. There's not much that can be done about it. The Lakers had been resting and recuperating for so long on their own, while their opponents were at a physical disadvantage. What more could they ask for?
In the final moments of this game, James made a move that showed his extreme dissatisfaction with the loss, which also meant that he had no emotional ties with the Cavaliers, as he didn't even bother to greet or acknowledge anyone from the Cavaliers team and immediately left without looking back.
Even more surprisingly, James did something unexpected during the game. He didn't wait until the end of the game to leave; instead, he walked to the sidelines and talked to his teammates for a few seconds before leaving. It can be seen that with 10.4 seconds remaining, James turned to the bench, then spoke to his son Bronny for a moment, lifting his shirt and heading towards the player's tunnel with only 3 seconds left.
The game hadn't even ended, and he had already left without saying a word. At that time, Mitchell looked back in the direction of the Lakers' bench, wanting to embrace and greet James, but unexpectedly, LeBron left without giving the Cavaliers a chance to greet him. With this scene unfolding, one can feel that James has completely severed ties with the Cavaliers; it's impossible for him to return. There was no embrace, no handshake in the end.
Moreover, not only did he fail to shake hands and embrace the Cavaliers players, but he also left after losing the game. More importantly, he didn't even communicate with his own teammates, ignoring the four teammates on the court, including Davis and Reeves, and rushed straight to the locker room. After such a situation occurred, it became clear that the difficulty of him returning to the Cavaliers is very high, and it's basically impossible. After deciding to join the Lakers for the third time, this is undoubtedly the place where he chose to end his career.
Otherwise, if he really wanted to return to the Cavaliers, he should have at least established a good relationship with his future teammates, especially having a good chat with the core players of the Cavaliers like Mitchell and Garland. However, he chose to ignore them and walk away, which can only mean that Emperor James didn't take these younger generations seriously and isn't prepared to fight alongside them in the future.