CLEVELAND — In professional sports, the moniker "coach killer" is a pejorative. In standard use, the modern-day scarlet letter spotlights a player who defies or undermines his respective head coach to the point of termination. 

Through the history of the NBA, arguably the most player-driven league of all professional sports, the list of coach killers is constantly evolving—and so is the term itself.  

Days after being named NBA Coach of the Year by his peers, Toronto's Dwane Casey is the latest lead man to get the axe, per ESPN.com's Adrian Wojnarowski. He's also the most recent coach to have LeBron James seal his fate, falling victim to a Cleveland Cavaliers sweep after winning 59 games and earning the top seed out East. 

How does James feel about the notion he's to blame for Casey's unvoluntary departure?

"I don't know," said James on Friday morning. "I'm definitely not a one-man army."

Just as he has redefined the way franchises are run and the standards used to determine greatness, James has used his 15 seasons in the NBA to redefine "coach killer," whether he recognizes it or not. The term no longer applies exclusively to coaches left in his own wake, but for how many other organizations have made  changes to account for his overarching effect on what it takes to contend.

In the years leading up to his free agencies, the NBA has seen multiple teams tear down rosters in order to preserve salary-cap space. In other seasons, it has been teams no longer feeling they can compete for a championship with James flourishing, opting for a different direction in hopes of greener pastures.

After all, if you're going to compete for a championship in the Eastern Conference, James has made himself enemy No. 1 and a player to plan for throughout the majority of his playing days.

"I've been fortunate enough to play for two great franchises in my career, and play with some really, really good players and have had some success in the postseason," James said. "I've had a lot of success in the postseason. I don't really get involved in the [coach-killer] narrative with social media. I'm the last guy to ask about what people say on social media—it's not a field of my life at all."

To clear the air on James himself being the common definition of coach killer, keep in mind that only two head coaches have been fired while he has been a part of the organization: Paul Silas in 2005, and David Blatt in 2016. James was in his second season in the league when Silas was relieved of his duties following an ownership change. Blatt, who was surprisingly let go midseason, was hired by the Cavaliers weeks before James announced his return in the summer of 2014.

Mike Brown's dismissal in 2010 was a move spearheaded by Cavaliers ownership in hopes of retaining James. A host of Brown's assistants—Mike Malone and John Kuester among them—eventually went on to earn head coaching gigs, in part due to their individual success while coaching James.

Outside of Cleveland, however, on the dark side of James' moon, is a graveyard of other coaches. While Saturday Night Live has dubbed James' teammates "The Other Cavaliers," coaches ranging from Mike Budenholzer in Atlanta to Stan Van Gundy in Detroit could easily find themselves in a coaching version of similar ilk, their teams opting for different directions as James casts shadows on plans that were once thought to be sound.

In the lead-up to James' free agency in 2010, the New Jersey Nets experienced a massive teardown. Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov took the reins as team owner in the fall of 2009, fired Lawrence Frank that November and hired Avery Johnson that following summer. "This is the beginning of what I hope will be many more exciting announcements to come before the start of the season," Prokhorov said, hinting toward the Nets as a potential suitor for James. The Nets did not win over James that summer, instead trading for Deron Williams, while Dan Gadzuric and Travis Outlaw were their second- and third-highest paid players. Johnson was fired midseason two years later.

During this same time period, the New York Knicks were undertaking similar tactics just down the street. Mike D'Antoni was hired in May of 2008, inheriting a plan that involved a roster purge and dreams of James wearing his No. 23 in Madison Square Garden 41 nights per year. When James opted for Miami in the summer of 2010, the Knicks gave the money they had earmarked for him to Amar'e Stoudemire to pair him with Carmelo Anthony as focal points. D'Antoni resigned midseason two months after Johnson was ousted by the Nets.

Budenholzer's Hawks were the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference during the 2014-15 season. He led a team that sent four players to that year's All-Star game, rolled off win after win while Sir Foster rattled off a variety of hip-hop songs on his in-arena organ, and appeared primed to represent the conference in the NBA Finals—at least until they were swept by James' Cavaliers in the conference finals that spring, the fourth and deciding game being by 30 points.

"We'll learn from tonight, we'll learn from this series, and we'll be better going forward," Budenholzer said after the game. 

Cavaliers head coach Tyronn Lue shared a court with the likes of Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal and Michael Jordan during his playing days. As a coach, he made a stop in Boston with the first iteration of the modern day Big Three in Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce, and today, he has James. He understands how a star-driven league works.

"It's very hard to be a coach in the NBA," Lue said following Friday's practice. "You have guys getting paid millions of dollars. The players make more than you do, so it's hard to tell a guy what to do. There aren't a lot of jobs where the employees get paid more than the boss, so it's a different atmosphere. Players run the league and we understand that, but it's a tough job when you have stars and superstars. It's more about managing egos and personalities than it is about X's and O's, and that's the toughest part."

As tough as James' time in the league has been on coaches, it has been just as difficult on a variety of the league's second-tier stars. The Washington Wizards were James' punching bag during his first tenure with the Cavaliers, as the Gilbert Arenas and Antawn Jamison-led team fell multiple times to the Cavaliers. The John Wall iteration today has yet to top James' brilliance. Derrick Rose's MVP campaign in 2009-10 was ended by James and the Miami Heat. Al Horford is a player who took the brunt of James' impact when with the Hawks, and then again the past two seasons as a member of the Boston Celtics. Paul George saw multiple seasons end thanks to James and opted to leave the conference all together, getting dealt to the Oklahoma City Thunder this past offseason.

The latest example, of course, is Toronto's pair of All-Stars in Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan whose joint future hangs in the balance as the Raptors look to replace Casey and determine the future of their organization as a whole.

In James' world, players are traded, draft picks are swapped, and coaches are shown the door. Possessing a staggering level of influence, he has been the sun around which the rest of the NBA has revolved.

A host of organizations throughout the league have long waited for his sun to set, but as James continues to triumph over Father Time at age 33, all it has produced is a laundry list of individuals who have been burnt.

"It sucks that with the great season that they had—and I'm just going off my own mind—but the level of success they've had over the last three, four years, they've improved in winning percentage every single year," James said of Casey and the Raptors. "But I guess their front office wants playoff success, and that's what really counts."