Doyel: I made a kid cry - with LeBron's help

For his 13th birthday, Nathaniel Dunica wanted to see LeBron James.

For his 60th, so did Frank Adams.

Nathaniel lives 90 minutes away in Winchester. His parents got him a ticket to the Pacers' game against Cleveland on Friday night, tickets for him and his brother Nick and even his best friend, Jaiden Stewart. All three attend Driver Middle School in Winchester. All three attended the game Friday night.

Frank Adams came three hours from Columbus, Ohio. His sons, Derick and John, spent nearly $500 on a trio of tickets to see LeBron.

All six of them – the three teenagers from Winchester, the three men from Columbus – wore LeBron shoes, jerseys or both to Bankers Life Fieldhouse on Friday night. They were here. They were ready.

LeBron didn't play. Didn't even show his face.

LeBron was in the building, but he was a late scratch and stayed in the visitors locker room as the Pacers beat the Cavaliers 93-86.

Near the court under one basket, Nathaniel Dunica tried to put his birthday present into words. These are what he came up with:

"When I heard he wasn't playing," Nathaniel said, "I thought: 'Well, crap.' "

About 30 rows behind the opposite basket, Frank Adams came up with two more:

"This sucks."

* * *

An NBA season is a marathon, and each team has to run its own race. The Cavaliers didn't owe it to Indianapolis to put LeBron on the court for the second game of a back-to-back blot on their schedule, a blot made worse by mechanical problems with the team's aircraft that had the team unable to land in Indianapolis until Friday.

But even if nobody's wrong, what happened to Indianapolis isn't right.

What happened again, rather.

This is the second time in five days one of the NBA's biggest stars was a game-time scratch at the fieldhouse. On Sunday it was Golden State sitting Stephen Curry with a sore ankle, an ankle so injured that he played two days later against Washington – and scored 32 points.

Friday it was Cleveland and star point guard Kyrie Irving, who missed the game with a strained shoulder. An MRI was negative, but no matter. Irving didn't make the trip to Indianapolis, which had Cavaliers coach David Blatt choosing to give LeBron a rest as well. If the Cavaliers were going to struggle on the road against a defensively difficult Pacers team – which beat Cleveland at full strength 103-99 on Feb. 6 – well, why bother putting LeBron through that?

"My decision," Blatt said.

Right decision for the Cavaliers, who have NBA title aspirations and will benefit from the day off for LeBron. But wrong decision for Indianapolis, which filled up the fieldhouse in a mostly lost season for Stephen Curry on Sunday and then LeBron James on Friday – and saw neither of them play.

In Row 5, Kourtni Bymaster was angry.

"Go ahead and say it," Bymaster told me. "I'm pissed off."

She's a nurse at Methodist Hospital, and she had to rearrange the schedules of a handful of colleagues to get the night off for herself and her friend, Nyoka Lamey. The tickets cost Bymaster $750, awfully close to a week's wages.

"I had to work overtime to pay for this," she said. "I'm obsessed with LeBron."

Like at least 100 other people in the building Friday night, Bymaster came in a LeBron jersey.

"One of the ushers saw [my jersey] and said, 'You know he's not playing, right?'" Bymaster said. "I thought it was a joke. I sat down, Googled it, and wanted to cry."

* * *

LeBron did make one kid cry.

Well, OK. It was me who made the kid cry. But it wasn't my fault! Well, maybe it was my fault. But it wasn't my intention! I was near the tunnel leading from the court to the locker rooms, a tunnel lined by LeBron fans wearing LeBron jerseys, where I was talking before the game with Brent McCoy of Ironton, Ohio. McCoy teaches second grade at Rock Hill Elementary, but not Friday, he didn't. On Friday he took a personal day off work, drove four hours to Indianapolis with his sister Valerie – a P.E. teacher at Rock Hill – and took his spot above the tunnel, waiting for LeBron.

And waiting.

By the time I got there, Brent McCoy was scowling. He had just learned he'd wasted the day off, the gasoline to get here, the $400 for tickets. After hearing his damages, I literally said the following:

"I'm so sorry LeBron isn't playing. I wanted to see him, too."

A kid in the next row, a kid maybe 10 years old and wearing a wine-colored LeBron jersey, overheard what I said. That's how the poor kid found out his hero wasn't playing. From me.

The kid broke into tears and ran to the concourse.

I tried to follow him, to apologize to him or his mother or father – whoever was here with the little guy – but he was gone.

And immediately replaced by another kid who could break your heart.

This little fellow's name is Brady Sharrett, he's 6, and he was decked out head to toe in LeBron gear. On his hat was a $40 Cavs hat. He wore a LeBron jersey. On his feet were $80 LeBron shoes by Nike.

Brady was sitting courtside under the basket near the Cleveland bench. LeBron's his favorite player, and his dad made this happen for him. His dad is Chris Sharrett of Indianapolis, and he was feeling pretty good two weeks ago when he dug deep to get the best two tickets he could find. It cost him $4,000, but that's his boy. And this was LeBron.

But LeBron didn't show. Didn't play, didn't even sit on the bench 30 feet from those $4,000 tickets.

Brady looked sad. His father looked devastated.

"I'm disappointed for my pocketbook," Chris Sharrett said, then draped an arm around Brady's shoulders. "But I'm hurting for his heart."

Find Star columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter: @GreggDoyelStar or atwww.facebook.com/gregg.doyel.