Not Even LeBron Can Save These Cavs

As the final seconds ticked away in Game 4 of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ season-ending loss to the New York Knicks, thousands of Cavs fans begrudgingly shuffled their way out of Rocket Arena with the same single thought racing through their minds: LeBron James will save us again.

This season, even at the ripe age of 41, LeBron proved he still has a lot left in the tank. He averaged 20.9 points, 6.1 rebounds and 7.2 assists across 60 games acting as the de facto third option with the Los Angels Lakers. In the playoffs, with Luka Doncic out with a bad hamstring, LeBron turned back the clock, put the Superman cape on one more time, and led an injury-depleted Lakers team past the Houston Rockets in round one.

In most cases, adding LeBron to a team that just reached the Eastern Conference Finals and featuring a future Hall of Famer (James Harden), a 3x All-NBA player (Donovan Mitchell), a Defensive Player of the Year (Evan Mobley) and an All-Star center (Jarrett Allen), would seem like a slam dunk.

If only it were that simple.

Don’t let the ECF appearance fool you; these Cavaliers are nowhere close to championship contention. Against New York, the Cavs, who have a reputation for being an offensive-minded team, only scored 100+ points twice in four games – and they

needed overtime to do it in Game 1. They lost all four contests by at least 11 points, including a 37-point shellacking at home in the decisive Game 4. With a postseason record of 8-10, the Cavs became the first team since 1987 to make the conference

finals and still finish with a losing record in the playoffs.

But wait, there’s more.

For Cleveland to even entertain the thought of landing LeBron for anything more than a veteran’s minimum salary (which Rich Paul has indicated his client would never accept), they’d have to dump at least one of their core four players. What’s more, because the Cavs currently operate as a second apron team, they don’t have access to the taxpayer mid-level exception, can’t combine salaries to make the salaries match in a trade, and

can’t use trade exceptions to absorb a player’s salary. So even if Dan Gilbert and Co. could convince LeBron to take a third tour of duty in The Land, they’d do so knowing that The King would be joining a Cavs roster that looks vastly different than the one we saw win two playoff rounds.

And that’s not even the worst part.

This current Cavs group is an unserious bunch. Point blank, period. After falling behind 0-3 in the series against New York, head coach Kenny Atkinson told reporters, “Analytically... we’ve won two out of three”. That’s cool Kenny, but the numbers on the scoreboard – not the spreadsheet – are the ones that ultimately matter in sports. Later, after that 37-point blowout in the decisive Game 4, Harden told reporters, “They dominated us 4-0, but... I do feel we are the better team”.  Seriously?! Your team just lost four straight by an average of 19.2 points per game and you still think you have the better squad?! What are we even doing here?!?

Look, LeBron James is one of the greatest players in NBA history. He has shown in the past that he’s capable of carrying far less talented teams than this group in Cleveland to the NBA Finals. But I think we can all agree, not even LeBron can save these Cavaliers.