The transformation of the Cleveland psyche has been remarkable ever since the return last summer of LeBron James.

When Anderson Varejao, an All-Defensive second-team center in 2009-10, was sidelined in December, the Cavaliers' forthright reply was to acquire center Timofey Mozgov as well as Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith to transform their defense and shooting.

They've gone 10-3 in the playoffs since All-Star power forward Kevin Love suffered a separated left shoulder in Game 4 of the first round. And on Sunday, they upset the top-seeded Warriors in spite of the season-ending knee injury of All-Star point guard Kyrie Irving.

Can this depleted team of role players rally around James to win Cleveland's first championship since 1964 -- against the deeper, healthier and altogether more elegant Golden State Warriors of MVP Stephen Curry, no less?

What will it mean if the Cavaliers are able to prevail? How will their long-suffering fans react to a championship delivered by this same prodigal son who walked out on them on live TV? It is a lot to process as Game 3 of the NBA Finals comes to Cleveland on Tuesday (9 ET, ABC).

Finding laughter in the pain

"People are either going to love it or hate it," Laura Kuberski was saying of the T-shirt. "Most people love it."

The T-shirt featured the design of a skeleton surfing a wave of orange flame. The shirt was headlined: BURNING RIVER SURF CLUB.

"It's a way to laugh at ourselves," Kuberski said. "Like yeah, we know our river caught on fire. These kinds of shirts are the ones I like the best, because we are able to laugh at ourselves while still celebrating our history."

She was standing in the CLE Clothing Co. souvenir shop, a five-minute walk downtown from Quicken Loans Arena. Her husband, Mike Kuberski, designed the shirts.

"He and his friends looked around and they said, gosh, the team shops all have that merchandise that all looks the same in every city," said Laura Kuberski, director of operations for CLE Clothing. "Clevelanders have this innate sense of pride to begin with, so how can we celebrate that? So that is kind of how this whole thing kind of came to be."

The mission became especially challenging after James, then a free agent, abandoned Cleveland in July 2010 by way of "The Decision." It was a live reality show in which he showed little empathy for his hometown fans while reveling in his move to the Miami Heat, for whom he would win NBA championships in 2012 and '13.

"The way he did it, we were upset with the way he left," Kuberski said. "It was the way that he did it. On TV. Humiliating the city yet again. For me, when they won the first title, it was like seeing the boyfriend that you are still pining for getting married. That's what it felt like."

The loss of James and the instant downfall of the Cavaliers -- who went from an NBA-best 61 wins in 2009-10 to 19 wins in 2010-11 (second-worst in the NBA) - gave way to an unanticipated opportunity. How do you prevent yourself from being defined by a bad event? Dan Gilbert, the owner of the Cavaliers, replied on the night of "The Decision" with an emotional and regrettable condemnation of James. The Kuberskis, over the years to come, have responded with a sense of humor that has clarified the resilience of the city they love.

Their T-shirts are displayed throughout the store one after the other like small ironic billboards.

GREETINGS FROM SUNNY CLEVELAND OHIO

"February is the worst month of the year weather-wise," Kuberski said. "It is dark. It is freezing cold. So we released this one in the middle of February."

VACATION IN CLEVELAND ... YOU'RE GONNA LOVE IT!

This shirt features silhouettes of birds hovering over the Cleveland skyline - a seagull, a hawk and a buzzard. "Down closer to Akron there is this area where the buzzards show up every year, so that is kind of the joke," Kuberski says. "Then one summer a brown pelican found its way to live on Lake Erie, it was really strange -- so he put the pelican in there too."

I LOST MY NERVE ON DEAD MAN'S CURVE

"Only in Cleveland, right?" Kuberski said. "On I-90, just east of downtown, there is basically a 90-degree turn on the highway. They call it `dead man's curve' because there's been tons of accidents. I mean, they warn you - there are those strips to get you to slow down - but it's in the middle of a highway, what the heck! Go figure."

I LIKED CLEVELAND BEFORE IT WAS COOL

This design was practically forecasting the good times to come.

CLEVELAND ... IT'S NOT THAT BAD ... HAVE A BEER!

"A lot of my friends who aren't from Cleveland are like, `But wait, why are you celebrating the fact that he is back -- when you were so upset that he left?"' Kuberski said.

The reason for their change of heart was obvious. It was because he made up with them. The people of Cleveland did not beg James to come back, because they had learned who they were during his time away. They had realized they were bigger than him, and his return to Cleveland served as proof of their revelation.

"He came running back to us," Kuberski said. "And we always kind of hoped he would kind of see the light, and see where he went wrong and maybe come back to make things right. We were just really excited that he figured it out: That Cleveland is not so bad. Maybe he had a beer like our shirt says. Maybe he figured it out that way. Who knows?"

Fair-weather fans need not apply

"There is a provincial nature to this, because everybody that's here in Cleveland pretty much is from here," said David Griffin, who has been general manager of the Cavaliers for 13 months. "It is not a transient city. This is a generational sports town."

Griffin was among the exceptions to the Cleveland landscape. Born and raised in Phoenix, he had risen within the front office of the Suns for 17 years before moving to the Cavaliers in 2010 as VP of basketball operations. He was surprised to be recognized by local fans, to hear them telling him their stories, to be absorbed into the local sports culture.

"The loudest building I've ever been in, before this year, was the day we ended our 26-game losing streak at home," Griffin said of the February 11, 2011 overtime victory at Quicken Loans Arena over the Los Angeles Clippers in the first season without LeBron.

"We were sold out. 'The Q' was amazing that night. The passion that they have for this team is not fair-weather. They are there no matter what. Ever since Kevin Love's injury, they have known they've needed to carry us a little bit, and so they have responded."

It is not difficult to imagine the response of the city to their Cavaliers' remarkable Game 2 victory on the far side of the country late Sunday night. Instead of being defeated by the loss of Irving, the Cavaliers' resolve was strengthened by it. They responded emotionally and tactically by siccing Matthew Dellavedova upon Curry.

"The way we are winning right now fits the city," Griffin said. "It fits to who we are. This is a very, very gritty, tough, substantive place. So it is absolutely more joyful to watch us exert our will on someone defensively here than it would be almost anywhere else in the country."

Without Irving, Love and Varejao, the only way the Cavaliers are going to win is with the teamwork and the heart that must be exerted defensively. It is through this team of underdogs that James, the most talented player of his generation, has connected himself to the soul of Cleveland.

'It's been a long road for Cleveland'

"I really didn't give a damn if he came back or not," said John Klein, the longest-serving fan of the Cavaliers. "Frankly, I'd had enough of him. I was hoping we could win without him."

Klein, 85, has been a ticket holder of the Cavaliers for all 45 of their seasons. He was not a young man when the NBA expanded to Cleveland in 1970 and he and his wife decided to invest in season tickets with friends. In those days they sat in the front row. Over the years, as the team has moved into ever larger buildings, he has been moved back to the third row. It is hard to marry his memories of those early physically-rough games with the athletic high-flying style of play today.

"I saw a lot of lousy basketball, that's for sure, over the years," Klein said. "But there always were some players that were fun and exciting to watch. I think that's why we stuck with it: When they had Bingo Smith, and certainly Austin Carr and Footsie Walker and guys like that, and later on Mark Price and (Brad) Daugherty.

"We had a great year in '76 when we lost in Boston, when Jim Chones got hurt. We had Nate Thurmond in those days and we thought we really were going to go further. That hurt us a lot."

After James declared his return, Klein was like many fans of the Cavaliers. He was skeptical. He watched closely for signs that LeBron was less interested in renewing his relationship than in using Cleveland for public relations.

"The words were there: I'm coming back because it's home, I want to bring a championship to Cleveland and all this stuff," Klein said. "But I think now he's convinced me. I think that he is sincere. I don't think he'll go anywhere from here, do you? I think this is it. I think he's happy here, his home is here. And he's happy that the general manager got him players."

Klein's ongoing support of the Cavaliers has turned into an investment that transcends the emotion of sports. "After 45 years, nothing makes me nervous," he said. "And it's getting tougher and tougher for me to go to the games, because I'm not a screamer and yelling like everybody who is standing up in front of me. I just like to watch the game."

He is fascinated by the idea that his investment in the team, encapsulating more than half of his life, may be consummated. His wife is deceased, and many of his old friends no longer accompany him to the games. His singular loyalty could be rewarded at last. What will it mean to experience a championship? How will he feel?

His granddaughter is graduating from college this week, and Klein has postponed his trip to California in order to attend Game 3 on Tuesday. "I've already changed my reservations once," he said. He will miss Game 4 because he knows the series will not end that night. He will be back in time for Game 6 in hope that the Cavaliers will be clinching the championship.

"I don't think there's any question in those four to five years down there in Miami that he matured a lot," Klein said. "It kind of surprised me that everybody forgave and forgot. But they were right to do so. It's been a long road for Cleveland. They are ready to cheer."

Unlikely road to an unlikely title?

When the Boston Red Sox ended their drought of 86 years without a World Series championship - dating back to their sale of Babe Ruth, who never did return to the cursed team that sent him away -- the 2004 celebrations were private and personal and noisy all at the same time. People cheered even as they cried. They thought about parents and grandparents and all of the years that had passed by, the memories of their team's vulnerability providing a kind of musical score to their own lives.

This is how it will be, someday, for the fans of Cleveland.

When the Red Sox won, they did so by first overcoming a 3-0 playoff deficit to the rival New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series.

Is this how it will happen -- as the biggest of underdogs, against the most unlikely circumstances -- for LeBron and his forsaken Cavaliers?

The homecourt advantage of Games 3 and 4 promises to be unlike any the NBA has ever seen. It is going to feed the defensive energy that has empowered these Cavaliers and propelled them with so much hope. To win, in spite of the harm caused by "The Decision," and now in spite of so many injuries since James' return, is going to require a leap of faith that is counter intuitive. But isn't that how these things happen? Isn't that what makes them magical?

Mike Kuberski has his design for the championship T-shirt all drawn up and ready to go. "When he told me about it," said his wife, "I was like, `That is it. You've got it.' "

Now the only question is what is to be done with it.

"We would probably advance-print 500 of them and have them ready for that night," Laura Kuberski said. "We're a small company, and usually we don't take that kind of risk. But this it is something that we are willing to gamble on as a company and as a city. So we will have it ready to go for people right away."

When the evening of their championship arrives, whether it's this month or maybe next year or the year thereafter, the words are going to be hard to come by. The sadness and the humor will be fused together, and the message of the T-shirt will be just the beginning of the new story. They cannot wait for that new day.

Ian Thomsen has covered the NBA since 2000. You can e-mail him here or follow him on Twitter.

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