LeBron James is great, but ‘The King’ can only do so much. That was shown to be true in the 2015 NBA Finals as a injury-depleted Cleveland Cavaliers faced off with the Golden State Warriors and lost in six games. The biggest factor in that finals series was health. The Warriors had a roster full of healthy and talented players while the Cavs were missing their two biggest stars not named LeBron James in Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love.
Before the NBA Finals tipped off, Kevin Love was long-lost to a shoulder injury during the Cavs first round series against the Boston Celtics. Love’s suffered a shoulder injury that is still sidelining him today. Kyrie Irving, on the otherhand, was reportedly battling injuries all season long and it appeared that his body finally reached its breaking point during game 1 of the NBA Finals when he went down with an injury in overtime, an injury that ended not only his but the Cavs season as well.
LeBron did all he could as he put up historic numbers in the NBA Finals but it wasn’t enough, he couldn’t do it by himself.
So a return to the NBA Finals could be in the cards once again for the Cavs in 2016, that is if they remain healthy. They shouldn’t have a big problem getting through this year but they need to first be sure that two of their big stars are healthy and it appears that they will be participating in the Cavs upcoming training camp on a limited basis.
Following from Chris Haynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Irving (fractured knee cap) and Love (separated shoulder) will be active during camp, but on a limited basis. The Cavaliers will work the two in slowly and cautiously. The anticipation is that Love will be fully cleared with no limitations before Irving is given the green light, I’m told.
Love said on the “Late Night with Seth Meyers” talk show Sept. 11 that he was “a month and a half away” from returning.
Kyrie Irving was reportedly not expected to return to the Cavs until January due to issues with his injury rehab. Since then, word has come across that the report is far from the truth and the two Cavs stars attending training camp, even in a limited role, is a good sign.
Besides Love and Irving, big men Anderson Varejao and Timofey Mozgov, both coming off their own injuries, will be also participating in Cavs training camp. Cleveland’s run back to the finals begins in just a few short weeks.
