LeBron James will technically be a free agent this summer. His one year back to ‘The Land’ will end with ‘The King’ opting out of his deal with the Cleveland Cavaliers. No need to worry, it is expected that he will return to the team and he won’t send the fans of the Cavaliers on an emotional roller coaster culminating with the torching of number 23 ‘James’ navy/yellow/wine Cavs jerseys.
He’s definitely ‘All In’ and there’s no doubting that. Did you see what he did in the NBA Finals? There’s no way you do all of that, follow it up by sitting in your locker room for a good 15 plus minutes with your jersey on and a towel over your head just soaking up the season that was and the thoughts that accompany it to end up leaving that team. Not again at least.
Following from ESPN’s Brian Windhorst.
When James does re-sign with the Cavs this summer, it’s probable it will be to another one-year contract plus a player option. Even if this route makes financial sense for James with the salary cap expected to surge following the 2016-17 season, it will keep the Cavs uncomfortable going forward.
But that’s the point: He doesn’t want his organization to be comfortable.
LeBron’s willingness to just sign these short deals help him in more ways than one. He can always just leave (of course in a worst case scenario), he can sign for more money each season as the salary cap continues to go up and he also isn’t committed to anything long term. It’s a smart business decision from one of the smartest business men in the league.
The end of James season might not have went the way he wanted it to, but that’s not his fault. He averaged a near triple-double in the NBA Finals playing 5 out of the 6 games in the finals with only 1 player who averaged double figures in points during the regular season. No Kyrie Irving, no Kevin Love and LeBron was 2 wins away from bringing a championship back home to Cleveland.
Now, for a short amount of time, the Cavs will reflect on their season and go forward. The organization has a ton of possible decisions they have to make and some of them won’t be easy.
A majority of these guys will be back so there won’t be a massive turnover, despite the fact they could have up to 10 free agents. The cream of the crop, of course, is LeBron and his often controversial counterpart Kevin Love.
Whether Kevin Love stays or goes, if J.R. Smith gets a new contract from the Cavs or even if they decided to match any money thrown at Matthew Dellavedova, the choices made by the team won’t be front office based alone. A certain ‘King’ will help to decide who plays on his court.
More from Windhorst.
Welcome to the modern NBA, where James doesn’t just control every facet of the game, he controls every facet of the organization.
Ideally for the Cavs, James would come into his exit meeting with strong opinions: Sign this guy at any cost; don’t worry about this guy; try to keep this guy, but don’t break the bank.
No, this is not how things are supposed to be done in a classic NBA hierarchy. But the reality is the Cavs prefer James to be invested in their decisions so that everyone is on the same page. It’s better than operating in a gray area, where they’re uncertain of James’ investment in working with a player going forward.
‘GM LeBron’ or ‘Coach LeBron’ has been a joke thrown around on the social media world for a while now, especially after he took 2 weeks off during the season to ‘recover’ and heal some injuries. In that time, the Cavs made 2 pivotal deals that might have changed their entire season. They gave up 2 first round picks for Timofey Mozgov, which looks like a steal right now, and acquiring J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert helped their playoff run, despite the duo’s horrible NBA Finals play. LeBron was a big supporter of Smith and didn’t want the Cavs to do the deal for Shumpert unless they also got Smith. It was also reported that LeBron was the driving force behind Andrew Wiggins being shipped out of Cleveland and sent to Minnesota in the Kevin Love deal.
LeBron has his fingerprints all over this team. Whether you like it or not, his role with this team going forward will be bigger than just the best player, he’ll be the player making all the choices for the team. He will be making it into ‘LeBron’s team’, the team that Cavs fans hope will bring a title home.
