Great NBA season. Enjoyed playoffs. Congratulations to Miami & OKC for an exciting Finals. Back to work on next weeks promising Cavs draft.
It’s a polite tweet. It notably doesn’t acknowledge that LeBron and the Heat won the NBA title, but it’s polite nonetheless. I also enjoyed this NBA season. (Though not as much as last year. The lockout hurt the quality of play during the regular season, and the playoffs got off to a rough start due to all the early injuries. Regardless, the Conference and NBA Finals were terrific. A really high level of basketball was on display during those series.) I’m very sad it’s over. I use the summer as an opportunity to recede fully into my other interests, but I’m not sure I like anything more than watching, thinking about, and writing about the best basketball league in the world. I’ll be a happier person when late October arrives, and I can watch the NBA three to five nights a week.
I’m not going to comment extensively on this tweet or the implications of this Miami title. (Trust, I’ve written enough about LBJ, indirectly or otherwise.) If it’s any consolation to you, The Blog readers, I make a very conscious choice, when Bron-related things happen, to write or not write about them. My decision is usually based on whether or not I feel I have something valuable or interesting to add to the conversation; mostly because I’m aware of how strange it is to write about a player who left one’s team two full years ago, regardless of the inextricable ties he has to the Cavalier organization. After mulling things over a bit, I have nothing unique or of substance to say about LeBron’s first title, at least not in the context of a blog about the Cleveland Cavaliers. But I’m also aware this Heat Finals victory is an event that makes some Cavs fans angry/sad/conflicted/etc., and so I feel obligated to provide you guys with a space to talk about it.
Do me a favor, though: keep it civil in the comment section. As much as “[expletive] LeBron” might be cathartic, it’s not terribly intelligent or useful.
Apparently there are shortcuts Dan lol. This finals actually healed me a lot…Lebron has grown and the last two years did humble him to a degree. I was happy to see him win, and Ohio was certainly well represented in the Finals thanks to Norris Cole. That finals brought much needed closure, we should feel VERY fortunate to have the Kyrie era upon us and a team we can really pull for over the next decade. Go Cavs!
over/under 2 years before something comes out about the finals being rigged? just too many no-calls on miami, charges called on thunder, touch fouls on thunder, and not to mention westbrook only getting to the line 3 times in game four. something was going on…. fisher shouldn’t have been called for a flagrant, that much is clear. i fear this could put a black mark on the nba for years to come. fans generally don’t like when series are rigged..
Congratulations Heat!!! Very happy for LeBron being a part of the Championship team and showing the world that he’s the #1 NBA player. Sorry Dan, your hate and stupidity produced the Championship in Miami.
@Erik, the NBA Finals are not rigged. Get a better argument than that. The game goes to the team that scores the most points. How does the NBA rig which shots go into the basket? Your argument is weak and immature.
lol bet when lebron was in cleveland the games weren’t fixed right (lol). well tell your owner to get the desire to win a championship, to get more pieces to the puzzle. well we have him now and we got another championship. what the hell do yall have. get over it cry babies (cleveland mistake by the lake)
Come on Erik, you are better than that. Last night the Thunder only shot 7 less free throws than Miami, and Lebron and Wade play much more aggressively inside than Durant and Westbrook do, plus Perkins is stupid and fouls unnecessarily, and his 5 almost make up the differential. Also you’re complaining about Westbrook only getting to the line 3 times in game four? Did you watch the game, where the move he was doing all game was that 17 foot pull jumper? Look at his shot chart, the vast majority of his shots were no where near the basket. Your only legitimate complaint was the fisher flagrant, which was ridiculous, but fisher has a history of being a slightly dirty player and I think the refs just got caught up in the moment.
Stop complaining about the refs. It’s a weak argument, something done by sore losers and people who aren’t good enough to win by themselves. The thunder are a great team who are almost certainly going to win a championship in the next 5 years, you won’t hear them complaining about anything. They’re going to grit their teeth and do everything they can to win it next year. The heat were better than them this series, they know it and accept it, you should to. “this could put a black mark on the nba for years to come”, come on
Well, I would have preferred for Lebron to never win a championship and for the Heat front office to break up this team in embarassment over their failed accomplishments. My stages of grief were swift and now that I’ve had a chance to sleep on it I’ve arrived at acceptance; I’m a bitter old man.
Lebron played a fantastic series. He dominated this game from the high post and sprinkled in enough Iso / pick and roll / deferring to Wade to keep the defense honest. While he doesn’t have a strong array of post moves, his size, athletic ability, and court vision allow him to wreck havoc on any defense in the league. He finally realized that if he ran the offense through his post game, he is the ultimate mismatch. Too strong for a wing to guard him, too fast for a big to guard him, he was drawing double teams that allowed him to play an inside out game with his three point shooters that afforded them incredible looks.
Congratulations Lebron, DWade, and Bosh and the rest of the Heat organization. Enjoy it while it lasts. I still hate all of you.
Glad to see Lebron get a ring! As a Cavs fan, of course I was disappointed to see him go. But I think Dan Gilbert shoud take note – one great player can get you close, but a sound supporting cast will get you a trophy!! All five of Miami’s starters made very significant contributions throughout the series. And there were some that had written the Heat off after Bosh got hurt, but they perservered!! That is the signature of a Championship Team!
@Erik – I don’t think the finals were rigged. Having said that, it was one of the most poorly officiated series (both ways) I think I’ve ever seen in my entire life. A few nights ago I was arguing with myself about whether or not I’d ever be able to watch another Finals and take it seriously if the officiating stays this bad.
They’re human, they do the best they can, but it would sure help if they didn’t miss obvious fouls and called the game with a little consistency.
As an aside…if the refs are focusing on the defender because 90% of the fouls commited are defensive, how can they tell if the offensive player has gathered for his layup/dunk/shot before a sneaky Battier slides in underneath him. By rule a majority of those charges called in this series were blocking fouls. Playing Battier at the 4 on defense made an enormous difference in this series. All those drawn charges made the Thunder a jump shooting team too nervous to drive the paint.
Dan blew it! His incompetence at establishing a championship caliber roster around the game’s best player forced Lebron’s hand. Look at how Arison empowered Riley to get ‘er done. First rate, all the way. Hey Dan, Lebron is no longer “self-proclaimed,” and the Cavs are just another craptastic franchise. Way to go, boss.
I was for OKC of course but lebron did play great and his teamates were huge help. If he would of played like he did this year in Cleveland he would have won in Cleveland. He grew up and stopped joking aroung and played serious. In Cleveland he was to worried about having fun and not winning. He used his teamates as an excuse for not winning then he picked new ones. The truth is he listened to people and played in the post and took it to the hoop like he should of always did. In Cleveland he played soft and took jumpers all of the time. He obviously has spent time working on his free throws. He has improved, he could of done it in Cleveland but he didnt want to. He won good for him, he was suppose to right? Not 1 not 2 not 3 not 4 not 5 not 6 not 7 something like 8 titles right?
Heat fans have apparently been waiting for this just to come to the Cavs blog? Talk about petty.
That aside, Dan gilbert threw money at everything when lebron was here, it wasn’t him not empowering his GM to make moves, it was that his GM made the wrong moves. It happens.
What finally put Lebron over the hump, in my opinion, were his jump shooters on the wing hitting at an insane rate when in the past they deserted him when he needed them, and this was made possible by him finally realizing he should play like a power forward on offense and dedicating time to his post game, something we always wanted him to do in cleveland, but until he ran out of excuses to not do it (I just need better teammates) he refused. His presence in the paint helped him collect offensive rebounds, and the double teams in the paint led to all those practice-equivalent threes for the heat. Also I noticed not once in this series did he sit there in a non end-of-quarter situation dribbling the ball 35 feet from the hoop, something he always has done up until these playoffs started, that any knowledgeable basketball fan lamented.
It was nice to watch one of the most talented players to ever play the game finally fill out his craft and play to the best of his advantages, but sour to see him “figure it out” with another team. If he would have just committed to doing those two things in cleveland he may have never needed to take his talents anywhere.
The calls also gave him a great advantage. Obviously not in game 5, Miami just dominated that, but the series would have been a whole lot different if KD hits those ft’s he should have gotten. You know if someone tucks their arm in lebrons pit while he’s shooting that gets called 11 times out of 10. Overall, there was definitely bias by the refs for miami, whether purposefully or if thats just the way they happened to make mistakes I don’t know, but OKC had a lot of bad 4th quarter mistakes after game 1 and weren’t helping themselves either.
Congrats Miami, and now lets focus on the team we got here and Kyrie’s bright future. I’m relieved to at least be done with this story line.
not a weak and immature argument. tim leglar (respected nba retired vet), bill simmons (probably more in the know with NBA circles than any other current sportswriter) are 2 people that have brought this up. not just “crybaby” cleveland fans. of course heat fans don’t think it was rigged. all i’m saying is with the 15+ years i’ve been watching basketball and reading about the sport, i can’t recall a finals series being officiating THIS one-sided. open your eyes people.
@ Randy, you’re clearly a loser in life. What’s this “we” shit? I didn’t see some douchebag loser named Randy on the roster. Go eat someone’s face off in Miami.
Some of the blame for the Cavs failing to build a contender has to fall on James shoulders. It seems painfully obvious that he had no interest in helping bring quality free agents to Cleveland. Wade knew exactly who he wanted to play with and went out and got them. It doesn’t seem that Lebron ever put that effort in on Cleveland’s behalf.
The only thing that really gets me is that, if LeBron had played this hard against Boston two years ago, the Cavs wouldn’t have lost. Instead, he quit on the team and then used his weak teammates as an excuse to leave.
Other than that, I’m basically over LeBron. Looking forward to Thursday’s draft!
@Erik: You are clearly forgetting the Heat’s previous ring…
@Richard @James Wade @Erik — LeBron played phenominally and had some of the greatest playoff performances ever documented in terms of scoring, passing and all-around basketball I.Q. He got his teammates involved and took over himself when it was necessary to lock it down.
That being said, there are TOO many bogus calls for the series not to be rigged. The refs are human so they are bound to miss a few calls but the discrepancies in some of the Celtics games as well as the Thunder are indisputible. In G2 of the Celtics series, LeBron takes 24 free throws while THE ENTIRE CELTICS TEAM takes 29. Don’t forget about the MINDLESS technicals Crawford and the gang were tossing out that no one can explain. Try to justify ONE of them. I dare you. And Westbrook scored a good 95% if not more of his points when he was driving the lane and he goes to the line THREE times? If you know anything about basketball, you know that’s fishy.
I am not doubting the Heat’s talent in the slightest. They had a great chance of winning it even without it being rigged. But the truth is, Stern twisted these playoffs – Celtics could have been in the finals if not for some of those crucial calls unless you want to argue that smacking Rondo in the face is suddenly legal. Basketball is an entertainment business so there is definitely going to be some twisting to get ratings and views. You think Spurs vs. Celtics would have gotten as many views?
In conclusion, LeBron’s first ring is tarnished by the absurd and active involvement of the league to control the outcome.
Sorry for the essay guys, I’m still a little bitter haha
Lol @ the Heat fans here.
It sucks that LeBron didn’t win a championship with the Cavs. Oh well, life goes on. I’m sure we all have more important things in our lives. I look forward to seeing what the future brings for both the Cavs and the NBA!
I am surprisingly happy for Lebron. He matured a lot this year and deserved to win a championship after the way he played. However, I’m kind of getting annoyed by all the Magic Johnson type experts out there saying he’s one of the greats. He’s not even close to done with his career yet! Don’t start calling someone one of the alltime greats at least until they are near retirement, geeze!
Also, I found myself not liking the rest of the heat besides Lebron (and Bosh) this year. Just in the playoffs even, the Heat weren’t even fun to watch besides when Lebron would do superhuman things. Chalmers was like one of the little guys who would tick off everyone who was bigger than him. Shane Battier and Mike Miller were old men who would basically beat up players on the floor like Miller tackling people when he went for rebounds or Battier who would throw himself under players to get a charge called. And boy, does D’Wade sure know how to whine….and lets not forget the flopping!!!
Watching Lebron after the game, I just thought “Wow, what an empty win.” He won a ring for himself and it seems that’s all he cared about. But after the celebration he must have had the thought that this would’ve meant so much more in Cleveland. If he would’ve won that ring here, it wouldn’t have been just him winning a title, it would’ve been the whole city and state winning. He would’ve brought a championship to a fanbase that wants and deserves one sooo bad.
At least I hope he realizes that even though he shut up the critics and got the ring he so desired, it’s an empty win. Those fans won’t treasure it anymore than the championship they won in 2006. Every year, he’ll be expected to win or the fans turn on him. One championship in Cleveland would’ve made him a Cleveland legend forever. Nationally, people would say “good for him, good for Cleveland” instead of “well, the super team won like they were supposed to.”
Yes, he got his ring but it came at a high price. No matter how many more he wins, they won’t mean what one ring would’ve meant to this city.
I didn’t want UK to win the tournament because it meant the new era of NCAA basketball was going to be dominated by AAU superstud 1 and done players that were just using UK as a launchpad to the NBA lottery. I didn’t want the Heat to win for a million reasons but the most important reason was that in our simplistic reductive world of media analysis, a ring for LeBron meant that he made the RIGHT decision in July 2010. And he didn’t. First thing Rick Reilly tweeted last night was #smartmove in reference to the decision.
Mostly it hurts because it felt personal the way the world tore down LeBron and the Cavs for all those years. Cavs fans found solidarity in defending the games best player and a damn good organization. We ate up every soundbite that signaled LeBron was with us, and did our best to explain away the yankee hats and Worldwide Wes stories. We felt and helped carry LeBron’s burden for 7 years, then he stepped on our necks, and now he rejoices, along with the rest of the sports universe, and we are still here wondering why OUR guy is out celebrating while we are still waiting for next year.
Ed -
I’m sorry, but what sound supporting cast?
Lets remember for a minute, Mario Chalmers and Shane Battier basically went OFF in consecutive games, which was completely unprecedented. I’m middle of the road about this whole championship – I don’t have to be happy about it, but I can accept it – but to pretend for a minute that this was because of anything other than Lebron playing OUT OF HIS EFFING MIND, Bosh and Wade doing JUUUUSSSTTTT enough, and a bunch of role players catching fire at the right time is just naive and poor understanding of basketball.
Likewise I actually completely agree with Tom on a sentiment he’s been shouting for a while – there’s no way the 2009 Cavs lose to this OKC team – NONE. OKC actually doesn’t match up that well against a lot of teams. As long as you can contain Durant (Lebron anyone?) you’d be OK. You’re telling me Delonte wouldn’t have done a half decent job on Harden? Let Westbrook score – he obviously isn’t a killer yet.
I don’t want to hear how the finals were rigged. That’s a ridiculous notion. The more physical, aggressive team almost always gets the calls in the NBA, and that’s what happened here. Miami wanted it more. You can talk all you want about game 2, but OKC played themselves into a hole, and as people have mentioned, any time you’re depending on one call to tie a ball game, you’ve put yourself in a bad position.
Let’s talk about the real reason OKC lost: Harden and Ibaka Disappeared, and OKC’s rebounding was awful. I’m convinced now that I’d much rather have an Anderson Varajao that can rebound the ball 12 times than a Serge Ibaka who might get four blocks in a game, but only 5 boards. Ibaka was pushed around on the boards, and so was Durant. Westbrook and Fisher were the only two who played with any toughness and physicality in the last two games. Miami won because the rebounded the ball and got more easy basket. LeBron finally realized he’s unstoppable on cuts to the post. He became the player we all knew he could be. I’m not even bitter.
OKC also had a hard time getting easy buckets in the half court. They should re-evaluate and look to find a guy who can score in the post. 2011 Zach Randolph would’ve been awesome on this team.
As for Shane Battier playing out of his mind, that’s why you put a guy like Battier on a team, give him a role, and let him do it. Because he’ll work hard enough to figure it out and excel. That’s why you put veterans on a championship team. OKC didn’t have enough veterans on the floor the entire series.
Now that this is over, and Kent’s out of the Baseball world series, I’ll be banning ESPN till the draft. I don’t need to hear for the next week how “very humbled” LeRoid is. Can’t wait for the next Justin Masterson start.
Frankly, I’m really glad it’s over. No more wondering/waiting. Let’s move on.
Watching LeBron play this series: (1) He’s basically unstoppable; (2) If he stays healthy and continues to play at this level, he can win as many NBA titles as he chooses.
Counter evidence to the claim that LBJ has matured. Video from last night of him rapping with a t-shirt of himself on. Very classy, humble and mature.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hqZ3u9L6hso#!
I’m sitting this morning listening to Steven A (yes, a glorified douche who for some reason or another gets a LOT of airtime on ESPN shows). Anyhow, he’s praising Lebron for not taking any shortcuts and he keeps emphasizing this point. He says Lebron didn’t take the easy way to a championship and he did all the right things. And I’m sitting there thinking what is he talking about. Didn’t Lebron take all the shortcuts on the way to a ring? What other shortcuts are there that this blowhard commentator be referring to that Lebron didn’t take? Outside of steroids and illegal substances, is there any other single shortcut he could’ve taken but didnt? Whatever.
Also, this is the thing that gets me and I don’t see how it didn’t become more of a national story 2 years ago. Collusion. I don’t see how it couldn’t be collusion that these 3 guys got together in a random stroke of luck. For one, none of them signed max year deals for those last contracts with their former teams. When has a player not decided to do that when given the oppurtunity from management? In fact, more often then not, they want to sign longer deals if possible. These guys were absolutely happy with shorter deals and pushed for it.
Two, it was reported Lebron met with Pat Riley multiple times during the season before his FA. They made up some lame excuse I can’t recall now for why they were meeting. Never heard reports Lebron met with front office personnel from other teams. Never have heard reports other big name stars in any sport meet with FO staff of other teams. Why wasn’t this pursued in terms of tampering? Because a couple meetings weren’t behind closed doors or on the phone?
Three, it just so happened the Heat worked their salary cap so they had enough room to sign THREE max free agents in this one particular offseason? Is this why these players did not sign max deals on their previous contracts? Because they knew the Heat would be making room in 2010? Everyone knew the Knicks were doing it to sign 2 max FA’s. The Heat came out of nowhere and all of a sudden had room for 3?!?! The Heat were fairly bad the 2 years before (not lottery bad but first round playoff bad) – why wasn’t Wade raising more of a stink to get help? Is it because he knew he’d have the help in 2010? Probably. All the star players raise a fuss when they feel their FO’s are screwing up – Kobe, Melo, even Nash has been, Dwight of course. But Wade stayed hush hush and lived thru it.
There’s a bit more I can say but this has gotten long and the comment monster will probably eat it so I’ll end here. Yes, its a bit of a conspiracy theory and things had to fall in place for Miami but the circumstances and coincidences behind it all are too strong to refute imo. I just think MIA and Riley made sure there was no paper trail for anything that would have implicated them in collusion. Beyond that, it just didn’t get out to staff that this was going to happen so nobody would rat on them. Probably stayed within the 3 players, Riley, Spoelstra and the owner.
I tweeted as much last night, but this was not a good year if you want to feel good about competitiveness in sports for small markets.
NFL: New York Giants
NBA: Miami Heat
NHL: LA Kings
NCAA Basketball: Kentucky
NCAA Football: Alabama
I worry about the long term future of sports, especially basketball if this year serves (as everyone seems to expect it to) as a precursor for how things will be done now. We learned that superteams in basketball can win it all. I’m terrified Kyrie is going to leave when he can unless we do literally everything completely right. There is no leeway in the NBA anymore – It’s perfection, or mediocrity. No in between. I feel horrible as a small market fan in sport tonight, and it’s not because I don’t “like” LeBron James.
Dano, I agree Lebron is definitely the best player on the planet, but Wade’s knees aren’t getting healthier and the thunder could have won the first 4 games with a little luck, certainly if the reffing discrepancy had gone the opposite way. Miami obviously has a decent shot of winning a couple more, but its not like its going to be on cruise control. Especially with the thunder getting one year better and left with that disappointment from these finals to fuel them.
Hoopsdogg, He at least decided to put a ring on his baby mama finally and pointed the finger at himself in the offseason and finally work on his post game and stopped dribbling out the shot clock for no damn reason. That shows some maturity… If you ever thought he was going to stop being an egomaniac, or not rightly celebrate the culmination of so much work, then I don’t know what to tell you.
freak out much carter? LA Kings had never won before, Miami is a hot spot for young people with money, but not a big market, and they were playing a team from OKC that will be going back to the finals quite soon, and Kentucky is in a tiny town with average weather and no beaches, i don’t get your point.
Nothing last night changed the fact that small market teams have to work harder than big market teams to attract talent. That has always been the case, last night didn’t do shit to the equation. If I recall, last year GB, a town of like 200,000, won the SB, but I guess 17 months is somehow an eternity now? Its true for every championship team that your smart decisions far outweigh your stupid ones. Yes, the cavs will have to avoid making mistakes. Thats part of being the best. They aren’t giving out larry o’briens for participation here.
@Carter:
Football has the most parity of any sport in the league, and it has a hard cap. There’s little point in complaining about a big market in football because almost every market does well regardless of size. When you only have eight home games a year, you’re going to fill the stadium up for all of them unless your fans just absolutely suck or your team has been horrendous for years (and even then certain fan bases still show up…see: Cleveland).
Also, Miami is not a big market. In fact, according to 2010 census data, the city of Miami is quite a bit smaller than the city of Cleveland. Miami was ranked as the 44th biggest city in the country. That’s not exactly big market right there. The reason people want to play in Miami is not because of market size but because of market location. The weather is nice year-round, the location features plenty of clubs for millionaires to blow their money, and there is no shortage of attractive women with which they can cheat on their spouses.
As for the LA Kings, they’ve been awful for decades. They may be a big market team, but it’s not like they’re the Lakers. They’re more comparable to the Clippers: the red-headed step-child that people only pay attention to when he’s actually doing something that’s not completely stupid.
While a lot of NBA stars do desire to play in the big markets, has it actually helped many big-market teams get significantly better? The Clippers are in Los Angeles, one of the biggest markets in the country. They have been awful since before I was born (in 1984), and were the butt of many, many jokes until they finally got lucky with drafting Blake Griffin and trading for Chris Paul. And lest we forget that they basically gave us Kyrie Irving. Or how about New York? One of the most desirable markets in the NBA, yet they’ve been terrible for as long as I can remember. They signed one superstar and traded for another and they still suck.
You want to know the big secret to winning NBA titles? Good management. The Spurs are one of the smallest markets in the league and yet they’ve dominated the league for over a decade now. They’ve done it by being the smartest guys in the room. No marquee free agents are clamoring to move to San Antonio, and yet the Spurs rattle off fifty win seasons like it’s nothing. Similarly, the Lakers can attract free agents, but it’s their front-office savvy that has led to their five rings these past fifteen years. They’re just great at swindling dumber teams.
The reason the Cavs failed with LeBron was not just because of LeBron quitting against the Celtics. A lot of it was due to Gilbert’s inexperience owning a team, the sins of the previous owners/management, and Danny Ferry’s general incompetence (which includes giving Larry Hughes big money instead of doing everything possible to net Ray Allen). Thankfully, it appears the ship in Cleveland has been righted, and I have far more faith in Chris Grant and the more experienced Gilbert tandem than I ever did in the LeBron-era management. I guess, much like LeBron, sometimes it takes a major gut-punch to put you on the right path.
I was focusing solely on Basketball, the other teams were just there for effect. I’m not saying it’s over forever, I’m saying that the NBA is a copycat league, and the clock is ticking faster than ever. If you truly don’t believe that the timetable to success has been shortened two or three years, then I don’t know if we could continue talking. Kentucky is a traditional basketball power – that’s what the “markets” equate to in College sports IMO.
I’m just saying, it doesn’t feel good to know that if we miss on one pick, we’re probably screwed again. Players see success, and they try to emulate it. If Tristan still is bad at basketball 3 years down the road, and Kidd-Gilchrist or whoever we draft isn’t lighting the world on fire yet, there’s no reason to expect someone to stay – The margin of error was always small…I knew that. But last night helped shrink it a bit more.
Just making good choices doesn’t ensure a team holding onto its best player anymore. The Cavs were 60 win teams. The Nuggets were FAR superior to the Knicks when Melo left. You have to be perfect.
For those of you who’d like to get a better perspective on this, I highly recommend listening to Brian Windhorst’s interview with WKNR today. It also has draft into to boot.
http://www.espncleveland.com/page.php?page_id=109
I was happy to see LeBron win the title after he played so very well in that series. I feel like we finally have 2 stars of the caliber of Bird & Magic in LeBron and Durant and I look forward to a few years of a great rivalry. Hopefully the Cavs will be building into a contender while that is playing itself out.
It’s very satisfying that LeBron had to get to a humbler, more family oriented place in his life before he could win it all.
Oh wow, thanks Scuzz. That put me in such a better mood. Still love me some Windy.
Lebron is too talented of a player to never win a title. He changed this season. Perhaps it was his own personal failure in last years finals. He was the reason the Heat lost to the Mavericks.
Also to the Gilbert bashers on here all of the sudden: Dan Gilbert is a self made billionaire who went to a state school and Mickey Arison is a trust fund baby who dropped out of college.
Does anyone else feel like the Heat winning is good for the Cavs in the long run? If LBJ doesnt win the title, doesnt Gilbert demand a ton of high dollar free agents, and go for broke now instead of riding it out and looking toward the future, as we now should be doing?
As much as I wanted to see Lebron win a championship in a Cavs uniform, I can’t help but be happy for him and still root for him when he’s not playing the Cavs. Other than his messy exit, he’s been the kind of superstar we all say we want: unselfish, hardworking, and a positive force off the court. I just hope that once he’s done with Miami, he comes back and pairs up with Kyrie and the rest of a talented young squad to bring us a championship too. The league is entering a new Golden Age with all this young talent and we’re in position to assemble a true team. Never had that chance with Lebron because he made us too good to get many other high picks.