INDEPENDENCE, Ohio — Nobody will be there, Cavaliers coach Mike Brown thought as he left the house early one morning last May.

It was a few days after Cleveland's disappointing season ended with a bitter Game 7 loss on Boston's famed parquet floor and it was down time. The Cavs had dispersed to Cancun, the French Riviera and other vacation spots for rejuvenation and reflection.

Brown was headed to the team's plush training compound with his son, Elijah. Time for some father-son bonding with nobody around but security guards.

But as the Browns walked in the door, the lights were on in the gym. And as they neared the courts, they heard the thump, thump, thump of a basketball kissing hardwood.

One Cavalier stayed home.

LeBron James was already back at work.

A life lesson diagrammed like an inbounds play in front of him, Brown turned to his impressionable boy.

"I said, 'See, LeBron doesn't just show up at the games with his Superman outfit on,"' Brown recalled. "He works harder than anyone. That's why he's LeBron."

And since that spring day, James, the NBA's most unstoppable force, hasn't ceased working.

The likely MVP is beyond driven, more like obsessed.

"I have never seen LeBron more focused and more determined," said Maverick Carter, James' business partner and lifelong friend.

Motivated to win his first title and deliver one to a sports-obsessed region — his home — that has waited 45 years to sip championship champagne in any major sport, the 24-year-old superstar has the Cavaliers on the cusp of greatness.

This could be his year. Their year. Cleveland's year.

"The goal since day one has been a championship," James said. "Nothing less."

And if his play in Cleveland's first-round playoff obliteration of Detroit is any indication — he almost averaged a triple-double in the four-game sweep — James will settle for nothing less than winning everything.

Get out of his way.

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Head down, eyes trained on his Nikes, James stormed off the court in Boston last year. No congratulatory handshakes or good-luck hugs. No words.

He was disgusted. Never again, James promised himself.

His 45-point performance in Game 7, overshadowed by Paul Pierce's 41 in the Celtics' triumph, wasn't enough to get the Cavaliers back to the finals. The team had underachieved and never gelled following general manager Danny Ferry's massive roster overhaul at the trading deadline.

James needed help, and at the postgame news conference he indirectly ordered Ferry to get him some.

"We need to continue to get better," James said as Ferry stood in the back of the room. "If that means some personnel changes that need to happen, then so be it."

James then set out to change himself.

He took two days off and then was right back at Cleveland's opulent, 50,000-square foot facility, located a short drive from James' almost-as-big mansion. The Beijing Olympics were looming, and if a championship ring wasn't in his cards, well, he was getting that gold medal.

Cavaliers assistant coach Chris Jent remembers a more determined look in James' eyes during those pre-Summer Games workouts.

"He was so locked in," Jent said. "His concentration was different than anything I had ever seen before. He was just, I don't know, different."

For the first time in his career, James got serious about weightlifting and developed a program he has stuck to this season. He lifts for up to 30 minutes before each game and has added at least 10 pounds of muscle. He also added yoga to his routine.

With Jent's help, James began reconstructing his jumper. He spent five days a week, two hours per session, refining his outside shot, still the weakest area of his immaculate game. James finished the regular season shooting a career-high 49 percent.

Like Tiger Woods teeing off balls for hours on the driving range, James took thousands of shots in practice.

Fans "just see the fantastic plays and his God-given ability," Jent said. "They don't understand that there were kinks in the armor and he wanted to figure them out. He wanted to straighten them out and he wanted to be better and the only way to do it is by working.

"When things are going good he works, and when things are bad, he works harder."

James doesn't slack — ever. Two summers ago, Jent accompanied the All-Star to New York for the week leading up to him hosting "Saturday Night Live." If James wasn't practicing his lines or rehearsing a skit, he was on a midtown Manhattan court making himself better.

"When you go on the road with him and you say, 'O.K. let's work out at 9 a.m.,' he's in the lobby at 8:50," Jent said. "There is never an issue. There is never a day when we walk in the gym that you're not going to get the same effort out of the man. He cuts no corners. There is no discussion with what we're going, we're doing it. There's no bull with 'Bron."

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Mo Williams had his doubts.

Acquired in a trade last summer from Milwaukee, the point guard who has become James' long-sought sidekick, didn't know Cleveland's star very well before joining the Cavs. As an outsider, he appreciated James' awesome talents but wondered if there was substance behind the style.

He knows now.

"It surprised me," Williams said. "I knew he was good, but you always want to get around somebody who is great and see how they go about their business. I know how hard I work. His drive and work ethic are off the charts."

James has made his greatest strides on defense. Often guarding the other team's best player — something he rarely did in past years — he has become a ferocious stopper. His chase-down blocks now rival his dunks for air time on TV highlights, and he finished second to Orlando's Dwight Howard for defensive player of the year.

He improved his defense by making it a priority.

Ben Wallace, who came to Cleveland in a trade last season and was on the floor for those excruciating final seconds of last season, understood James' pain then and his desire never to feel it again.

"You can't appreciate winning a championship until you get your heart broken a couple times," Wallace said. "That's happened to him. He's got a gold medal, and now he wants to win a championship. You can tell. You can see it in everything he does and the way he's picking up the rest of his team and carrying us along with him."

James' passion to play has rubbed off on all the Cavaliers.

After practice, this tight-knit team of gym rats practices some more.

"We enjoy each other's company and it shows," James said. "Nobody wants to go home."

Once Brown is done with them, the Cavs often hang out and play shooting games, try to one-up each other with trick shots and horse around like a bunch of teenagers crashing a parent-less house after school.

Their ringleader and head clown, the one usually with his shirt off doubling over in laughter, is also their best player. He's also the one recently forced to do push-ups after badly losing a 3-point contest.

"I hate to lose in anything," James said. "I invented that game and I've lost one time — I was upset about it."

Recently named coach of the year, Brown feels blessed to coach the self-motivated James, whose selflessness has inspired teammates, coaches, front office personnel — everyone around him — to do more.

"He sets the tone for the culture here," Brown said. "I could preach all day, 'Hey, get 1,000 extra shots and stay late and do this and that. Guys aren't going to do it unless it's required or they're faced with fines. We don't have anything like that here.

"Because with a guy like LeBron, everybody follows."