Let me start by sharing some words from The Lyons Den, circa July 26th, 2017:
“Now here is where we are going to fundamentally disagree. Some of you are even going to be tempted to call me names (hahahahahaha). But I’m going to just come out and say it, LeBron leaving next year (presumably) is not a subject of sorrow for the Cavs. I think they welcome it. Now it’s going to hurt, no question about that. But I’m sure they’d like to abandon this monarchy and if they have to lose one of the best basketball players on the planet to do so then well……………Since LeBron’s been back his reign over ‘The Land” has been semi-tyrannical. Surely the people who are paid to run the franchise will welcome the opportunity to do so on their own terms again. It can’t be fun to operate under the restrictions of one of your players. And speaking of players, I’m sure the ones on the Cavs would love to get back to business as usual. While it’s paired with a lot of praise, there is some hidden criticism in regards to playing with James. The “stand and watch” game they are reduced to isn’t exactly the ideal system for many of his teammates.”
Now let’s look at what’s happened since these words were spoken. Kyrie gone. Teammates complaining about folks “stat padding” and ” playing for personal stats”. Massive trades. Endless turmoil. And pretty much dysfunction at every turn. But look at where we are today. With one stroke, the Cavs have youth, athleticism, a serviceable vet and they still hold the Brooklyn Nets first round pick for the upcoming draft. These aren’t small tweaks for a championship run this season. This is a revamp for the future. With the pieces they have now, if they can make a move or two in the offseason they will remain a playoff team next year no matter what happens. There’s some silver lining here. You’re going to lose LeBron (presumably), you’re gonna lose a few nationally televised games but it seems like the organization is learning from their mistakes. While I’m sure if the opportunity presented itself to keep LeBron James in Cleveland they would take it but it looks like they are trying to put themselves in a position to have a “Hey we’re good either way bro” attitude. It looks like it’s working.
But it honestly looks like everybody’s winning in this situation. LeBron is going to be ok regardless, this we all know. The Cavs are going to be in a pretty good spot. All the players that were moved seemingly get to play basketball again and the newbies get to experience a deep playoff run (let’s be real here, the basement for the Cavs is the Eastern Conference Finals). I’d say that’s a good day all around.