What about what Irving said?

Top three GarPax (who you hate) moves: Wade Rondo Lopez.

Top 3 James moves (who you love) moves: Love Thompson Smith.

What about what Irving said?

I didn't even see this post. With a win-now team centered around a 30+ year old LeBron there is no "long-term" plan. They are perpetually in win-now mode until LBJ runs out of gas. Again they'd be in paralysis with or without Thompson locked up - that's simply the cost of doing business in the NBA as a win-now team. The Warriors will also hit the luxury tax and Houston may as well, especially if Melo goes there. All those teams will be similarly constrained, just as the Cavs are. I think you're editorializing a bit about Kyrie's motives for leaving - there are reports that he wanted to leave right after they won it all because he wanted more shine. Likely the same case now, not because of LeBron playing around.

Btw, you need to get an avatar man. I'd suggest this one:

Kyrie as the best player is not winning a title.

People use this type of line as a criticism far too often, imo. In the last 18 years, there have only been 11 guys that were the best player on a title winning team - Duncan, Shaq, Rasheed Wallace, Wade, Kobe, Pierce or Garnett, Dirk, LeBron, Steph, Kawhi, KD.

So yeah, Kyrie probably isn't one of the 10 best players over the past two decades, but that's not really saying much. He's still really damn good and in the right situation he can easily be like a Pierce or Rasheed where he's either the 1a or 1b on a title team.

People use this type of line as a criticism far too often, imo. In the last 18 years, there have only been 11 guys that were the best player on a title winning team - Duncan, Shaq, Rasheed Wallace, Wade, Kobe, Pierce or Garnett, Dirk, LeBron, Steph, Kawhi, KD.

So yeah, Kyrie probably isn't one of the 10 best players over the past two decades, but that's not really saying much. He's still really damn good and in the right situation he can easily be like a Pierce or Rasheed where he's either the 1a or 1b on a title team.

On the one hand it seems to me like you want to excuse Lebron's approach to next season due to turmoil/uncertainty regarding the owner/GM, yet on the other, you also seem to be denying the existence of any turmoil at all when presented with the idea that Lebron may be responsible for a fair bit of it with your repeated references to their success the last 3 seasons. Irving may have wanted out anyway, but Lebron's own history of leaving teammates high and dry and the warning signs for next year probably played a part in his wanting out first too.

He was 1A on last year's team and one could have easily made the case that he was MVP of the finals too.

I didnt really mean it as a criticism. He is a really good player. But it is just reality that I dont think he can be the best player on a team to win a title. So if his goal is to win titles then that should impact his decisions. If his goal is to be the best player on a team, then take your trade to the Knicks and be on mediocre teams for the remainder of your career.

Also, SA being on his list sort of destroys the notion that he wants to be the best player on his own team.

You and I see that. But I would bet that Kyrie believes he would be the best player on that team. Now clearly that is a bad thought.

But that would easily be the best situation for him. Although I think Popp might kill him at times with his overdribbling me ball moments.

I think most really good players in the NBA always assume they are the best player on the team/court. I don't see it as much of an issue.

True. But then how can you say that SA destroys the notions that he wants to be the best player on his own team?

Lebron being both the best player in the league and a huge source of revenue for the Cavs does not automatically mean catering to his every whim in terms of personnel gives the team a better shot at a championship. In fact, keeping him happy by giving Tristan Thompson $82 million last offseason for instance may have ultimately made sense for business reasons due to his drawing power in the area but I'd say hurt their long-term ability to compete, especially since it didn't even seem to placate James enough to commit past this season.

I tend to side against owners as a general rule and despise Gilbert in particular, and I've been accused of being too easy on Lebron in the past, but I really don't understand exempting him for the current paralysis of the franchise given the amount of support he's received. What great moves were the Cavs kept from making because of Gilbert being too stingy or the GM being too incompetent? And if no one can answer those questions, then why exactly is he so unhappy that he's being coy about jumping ship next year to such an extent that Kyrie wants to leave first?

Doesn't mean much since a month ago he said he wanted to retire a Cavalier.

Are you really trying to argue that LeBron probably leaving after this upcoming season isn't influencing this? There were reports that Butler was told he didn't want to come to Cleveland because LeBron is leaving. Kyrie is closer to Butler than any other Cav. It's not hard to put two and two together here.

No, I'm just going where Kyrie's own thoughts take us. He's a pretty straightforward guy and you can't get anymore straightforward than his quote about having his own team. There were reports that Kyrie wanted to leave after they won it all in 2016 - that had nothing to do with LBJ.

On the one hand it seems to me like you want to excuse Lebron's approach to next season due to turmoil/uncertainty regarding the owner/GM, yet on the other, you also seem to be denying the existence of any turmoil at all when presented with the idea that Lebron may be responsible for a fair bit of it with your repeated references to their success the last 3 seasons. Irving may have wanted out anyway, but Lebron's own history of leaving teammates high and dry and the warning signs for next year probably played a part in his wanting out first too.

No, I conceded that he's a bitch at times. My attitude is: so what? He wins. On top of that, he's his own economy. Yes I've repeated the Cavs record of success because nothing else matters. There's no long term plan when you sign LBJ at 30 years old. The plan is win now and that's what they've set themselves up to do.

My understanding of the repeated one year deals was that he's trying to wrest leverage away from the owners. It's smart from a labor point of view. The minute he's locked into a multi year deal then he loses the leverage to get in the way of planned moves that could cripple the team's chances at winning. Now, that doesn't mean his own moves wouldn't cripple the team's chances, but I support an employee trying to flatten the power relations between himself and the employer to preserve his best interests, which is winning in this case.

LBJ was right about the unfairness of a salary cap. We all know after this thread how much LBJ has reinvigorated the Cleveland economy, which has also helped Gilbert's own portfolio. The valuation of the team has also skyrocketed. LBJ is smart to take that into consideration - he doesn't need to bow down to Gilbert. Gilbert needs to bow down to him.

This is where you go crazy and lose everyone. It's ridiculous to suggest Kyrie was as good or better than LeBron in 2016. It's the same absurd argument that people make when they say Pippen was the MVP of the second three peat. There's no shame in acknowledging what everybody knows.

I feel like this conversation has veered all over the place and has now gone in a lot of tangential directions. You initially seemed to be defending Lebron's position with respect to next year and protesting against the DBOTW using only basketball issues in Cleveland, but again and again this conversation keeps coming back to James' economic impact or his position of power relative to NBA owners. As a result it feels like you've changed the angle of your defense several times here.

Lebron's relationship with the Cavs does not just affect himself and Gilbert. There are other teammates who will be impacted by his decision and his ongoing threats to leave; no one wants to be Mo Williams 2.0. It's swell if he has these noble intentions but again it's important to recognize that his quest doesn't occur in a vacuum.

I also think that while a salary cap certainly benefits owners, the terms of the NBA collective bargaining agreement are not especially unfair to guys past the absolute upper echelon of the league. Indeed the fact that so much wealth gets redistributed downward to role players can be seen as a victory for labor and exactly the kind of thing unions tend to strive for. Lebron of course previously took full advantage of the max contract situation because it meant that he and the rest of the Big 3 didn't have to sacrifice as much to play together as they would have if there wasn't a ceiling on how much teams could offer. I detest rhetoric about players having to take paycuts to save billionaire owners money if they truly want to win, but unfairness to Lebron probably means something different from what it does to the rest of the league.

1. The star-trading frenzy on draft night, the draft itself, and free agency because Gilbert fired David Griffin (instead of paying him) and the VP of basketball ops right before things heated up. Specifically, Griffin was reportedly very close to getting a deal done for Jimmy Butler up until he was fired.

2. Whomever was left in charge in the days after Griffin's ouster (again, because Gilbert didn't want to pay him), they were too incompetent to follow the blueprint for a Jimmy Butler trade left by Griffin as he was shoved out the door.