LeBron is signed through the end of next season. If they don't win next year and/or he doesn't see significant improvement in the Cavs team whereby he at least feels they have a chance of winning it all, I think he moves on.
NBA 2016-17
- Thread starter ArmchairCritic
- Start date
Where to? There's not a team where he would have a better chance of winnning anyway. Irving and Love is a good supporting cast and even if he moved to LA to play with Paul George, they are still not as good as Warriors.
He'll stick around.
Bye bye Kevin Love
LeBron wants to win, but is also into a lot of other things these days one of which is acting/movies. He's actually been criticized by some for spreading himself too thin. I think if he thought that he had as good a shot of winning in LA vs Cleveland, he'd move to LA.
Not a chance. He'll only move if he thinks he is much more likely to win titles elsewhere. He's not going to move for an acting career.
Bye, bye, happiness. Hello...........
Supposedly his folks have been in contact with the Lakers over the last few weeks. He's already got a home about half an hours drive from Staples. But it is hard to say what's real and what's not.
next year maybe...not this year. Going to the Lakers now would be him admitting - he'd done winning.
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Lebron and George in LA won't be enough to defeat Warriors IMO. Lonzo Ball won't be a superstar in his first or even second season.
Getting Paul George to Cavs (at the expanse of Love) should be the key IMO.
Getting Paul George to Cavs (at the expanse of Love) should be the key IMO.
Paul George has made it clear he wants to go to the Lakers. If there's even a sniff of LeBron going there too I don't think he's signing for Cleveland.
....and going to LA would reunite LeBron with Timofey Mozgov.
He might head there one day with his crew, but I don't think he's ready to let go of this Cleveland team just yet. Although the future does look bleak due to their lack of assets.
I think that KD was better than him. Really, James was better than KD only in the fourth and possibly the third game. I mean, he was better than KD in the third game, but KD totally owned him in the fourth quarter, essentially stealing the victory for the Warriors, and so I think that the performance in clutch time matter.
KD on the first two matches was easily (and would I dare say, by a distance) the best player in the match. Yesterday night, he scored 38 points on 0.7 shooting accuracy (0.625 from three pointers) which is pretty much insane (I have no stats with me, but I would be surprised if there has ever been a player who shot as good in a final and who scored more than 15-20 points) in addition to respectable 7 rebounds and 5 assists. Durant also had just a few turnovers, which is also kind of great considering how much the ball was on his hand. And I would say, that he was the best defensive player in these finals.
James has assists and rebounds over him, but KD scored more, had a better real shooting accuracy, far better in free throws, was a better defender, and was an assassin in the last quarter (including yesterday when he went 5-7 including two three pointers after Cavs came just 3 points near the Warriors).
Iguodala got MVP in 2015 because of the unwritten rule that a player from the winning team must get the MVP, but that is not the case with Durant. At the very worst case, there could be made a very strong argument that he was as good as James in these finals (I would say he was better).
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As amazing as KD was.....it's massively because of having Curry and Klay drawing big time attention too, especially Curry, both have shown, as much as Durant, that you can't leave them open, I think the Cavs seem more petrified of Curry 3 pointing from anywhere than anything else, and that opened up Durant a lot, even if that was to 1v1 with LeBron, but still. It was a case of shut down LeBron...shut down Cavs, or allow him to get hot early so the others won't, then shut him down later forcing him to give to cold hands.
Genuinely don't begrudge KD the MVP, he was clearly superior to Iggy and Kawhi, and if they weren't gonna give LoserBron the MVP in 15, it wasn't gonna happen when KD AND Curry both brought it too.
Genuinely don't begrudge KD the MVP, he was clearly superior to Iggy and Kawhi, and if they weren't gonna give LoserBron the MVP in 15, it wasn't gonna happen when KD AND Curry both brought it too.
This year has been shit. No competition till like the last two games. Worst playoffs I have ever seen. Loading two teams up isnt helping the league one bit.
They lost game 5 cause Kevin Love didnt do shit. Everyone else stepped up - Williams, JR, TT.
Cheers!
I would take Kyrie over any other point guard in the league bar Curry and possibly Paul (mostly because of his defense). Harden and Westbrook are fantastic players, but very individual players and really, you cannot build a title winning team around them.
Their salary cap is also a huge issue in them getting the player(s) they need to compete with this GSW team again.
X2.
Westbrook and Harden had Durant and still couldn't win the league because they simply aren't TEAM players. Cavs need a player like Paul George to give Lebron and Kyrie some breathing room. The reason why GSW are a great team is simply because they play basketball with the team in mind.
It's easier to play basketball with the team in mind when 4 of your starters are All-Star level.
Getting someone like Paul George would mean trading Kevin Love. Dan Gilbert will continue to pay the luxury tax.
I'm pretty certain if you handed LeBron to either of Westbrook or Harden in their current teams, they'd be in the finals 3 times in a row too. Kyrie in those wouldn't make the playoffs. Not sure Chris Paul would improve them, but they'd still likely make the playoffs. I'd take Paul in any scenario, except for well a direct swap with Curry.....Curry is the epitome of how GSW are playing, still think they win in that swap, just wouldn't be the same.
Not sure what the Cavs do this summer, but it seems painfully obvious what they could do with is DWade....who will probably join them on the MLE next summer, no chance this year though, well maybe a minor chance, if they can give him a bit more by dropping other things. But they'd want a near prime big 3 + Wade, so it's not a case of just dumping Love. They should look into alternatives for Love, Blake, PG13, whatever. The ship has sailed really.
On the Bulls though, there seems to be genuine discussion of trading Jimmy too.....Jimmy for Love is oddly being suggest as a low chance. Apparently Jimmy just doesn't fit in Hoibergs system.
Not sure what the Cavs do this summer, but it seems painfully obvious what they could do with is DWade....who will probably join them on the MLE next summer, no chance this year though, well maybe a minor chance, if they can give him a bit more by dropping other things. But they'd want a near prime big 3 + Wade, so it's not a case of just dumping Love. They should look into alternatives for Love, Blake, PG13, whatever. The ship has sailed really.
On the Bulls though, there seems to be genuine discussion of trading Jimmy too.....Jimmy for Love is oddly being suggest as a low chance. Apparently Jimmy just doesn't fit in Hoibergs system.
All the ideas about Cavs trading for another top player basically hinge on the possibility of trading Kevin Love for them. They don't possess anyone other that has value to other teams, they cannot trade any of their picks until 2021 which is worthless and their other players are not that attractive. Tristan Thompson has some value but he won't bring you a superstar. They will also not be a big player in free agency because they cannot fit any big contracts under current salary cap. They owe $33M to LeBron, $22.5M to Love and $19M to Irving next season, not to mention numerous $10M - $15M players they have like Thompson, Smith and Shumpert. Even if they got George now, they would not be able to resign him next year so that'd be a rental to get the best of Warriors next season (which might still not happen even with George). I think Indiana might do Love for George trade because of Love's longer contract (runs for two more seasons and then becomes a $25M player option for 2019/20) but even that is a push.
Maybe they'll be able to flip Shumpert for O'Quinn, Tristan Thompson for somebody else and get slightly better but it's not like Thompson can get you George or Butler. If any of those become available, there will be teams running to their current teams with offers much better than that.
I don't see any quick fix. They need to try again with similar line up as this season and hope to do better. Maybe there'll be injuries at Golden State, maybe someone other than Klay Thompson will be out of form in the finals.
No one with any championship aspirations should sign Blake Griffin
I've seen Boston link. If they don't get Hayward, I think they could move for Griffin as second choice. That would be an absolutely terrible fit next to Horford IMO. The sooner they move Horford to 4 and sign a center who can rebound, the better for them.
The Warriors are boycotting a visit to the White House - the entire team. *insert clapping emoji*
I enjoyed this year's playoffs. Ignoring GSW and CLE steamrolls, there was a lot of good play from some other teams in the league. In particular, the following series stood out:
LAC - UTAH
MEM - SAS
BOS - WAS
SAS - GSW would have been fascinating, if not for Zaza (whenever I see him we're fighting). The Pacers pushed the Cavs real close in every game.
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The game 3, he was funny. Making some ridiculous baskets. The kinda stuff you admire even if you don't know much about basketball.
For me more than his handles...it's his ability to finish using the glass. People rave about how good Curry is in the paint (he is!)...but, Kyrie is out of this world.
More than anything, the Cavs need a new coach. Someone who can get Lebron and the others to play defense. Even if you add players like Paul George or Butler, you will still end up with the same result against the warriors unless you are willing to commit to a defensive strategy.
This is just insane. People are overrating Irving big time. Don't get me wrong, he's a fantastic player, but he is playing with LeBron freaking James. Look at how the Cavs did when it was Kyrie's team. Look at how the Cavs go when LeBron is off the floor. Harden and Westbrook are both MVP candidate players and don't have LeBron to help them. His handles and finishing is probably the best in the league though, some of the stuff he makes is ridiculous.
Final thoughts: Even though I believe the Warriors have a superior team to the Cavs, I believe coaching played a big part in why the Dubs eventually won this series. For the last three years, every time the Cavs played the Dubs the Cavs defense has swarmed Steph Curry and basically said to the rest of the team "beat us if you can." In games where Steph broke out, or somebody else did step up the Dubs generally won, when that didn't happen the result was not so good. As expected, this is what the Cavs tried to do in this series. In game one this game plan was so obvious it was almost embarrassing watching the Cavs defense part like the Red Sea as two players went to guard Curry and one went to guard Klay at the three point line while KD drove the lane. On the surface though, the Cavs strategy made perfect sense since as I've pointed out before if Curry leads the Warriors in scoring they are very difficult to beat, if it's anybody else then even though they still usually emerge victorious that win percentage drops significantly (relatively speaking anyway). This time however, the Dubs didn't mind the match up because if the Cavs were going to double team Steph and challenge somebody else to beat them (KD), this essentially meant that LeBron would have to guard KD one on one almost the entire time. This was huge for the Warriors since it meant that LeBron would have to work hard on both ends of the court. As usual, of course, he still got his points (he always does) but he was obviously gassed at the end of pretty much every game and really struggled in the fourth quarter. For me, Ty Lue needed to come up with something different this time because of the KD factor. Even though it worked in game four, ultimately I believe his flawed game plan was one of the main reasons why Golden State are now NBA Champions.
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So you actually mean that it wasn't really coaching but the fact that you had Durant that led to this win - because everything you mentioned was hugely driven by presence of Durant instead of Harrison Barnes? Yes, I agree. Without KD you are probably losing that series, and there's no amount of coaching Lue could come up with to handle that I think.
My point really was that Ty Lue didn't really try to plan/strategize for KD's presence at all. His game plan was exactly the same as they used before KD showed up. KD is not Harrison Barnes. In this series I would have tried to make Steph and Klay beat me. There is a reason it was said (as little as two years ago) that a jump shooting team will never win a Championship. For me that would have been their best bet.
But you can't do that. You have three All-Star volume scorers + annoying Draymond Green to handle. I think if they left Thompson and Curry open and tried to handle Durant, it could have been even worse.
Klay was very hit and miss the entire playoffs, but the point really is that since he really didn't try anything else we'll never know.
...and Draymond is a well behaved model citizen these days. It was LeBron kicking people in the "junk" in this series.
Draymond is a punk.Klay was very hit and miss the entire playoffs, but the point really is that since he really didn't try anything else we'll never know.
...and Draymond is a well behaved model citizen these days. It was LeBron kicking people in the "junk" in this series.
Cavs pretty much have to go for the PG for Love trade, as it's their only chance at winning the title in '18
And i would also like them to poach Carlisle from the Mavs
Go for broke next year, figure it out later
And i would also like them to poach Carlisle from the Mavs
Go for broke next year, figure it out later
Korzemba is listening.