DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum what can the Cavs do IF LeBron leaves

I think that Gilbert really does want to win ... and will spend what it takes .... as long as it makes sense to do so.

I don't think that he'll go $30 million over the cap to have a .500 team .... but if he can get excellent players, even at a premium, I think that he'll do it.

I don't think LeBron staying is about money at all. Of course, it IS, from the "business" end,...but if he wants to stay in Cleveland, he will.

For me, this is about his heart and his mind.

I want to know if I can sit in a fighting hole with this guy. If I can't, then I know where I stand.

Gilbert will spend the money if its smart to do so. It probably won't be very smart to do so if LeBron leaves though.

Even if we replace him with the next best guy, in my opinion Wade, it just won't be the same. LeBron and I share the same hometown, I went to his games in high school, I've been following him since he was in 8th grade and I was in high school. When he came out to the park to play a pickup game people called their friends to come see him and hopefully get a chance to get on the court with him. He's one of us.

It just wouldn't be the same with someone else.

That's why I say, he needs to look at the whole picture.

-jc-

All I have to say is the Indians and the Browns are rebuilding. To have the Cavs start rebuilding the same time would kind of really suck........again.

Welcome to Cleveland.

Letting him leave isn't an option.

It's all up to him right now.

Edit- you said the same thing, I just felt like saying it also.

LeBron is gone. Did you notice he had his uniform off before he got in the hallway?
Say buh bye.
Hate to see it, but that is what it appears to me.

He does that most games after it ends. I just hope he lets all know in a few weeks if he will resign. I hope he's not a jerk about it one way or another.

I would have never even given that thought the light of day until this week. Now I'm not so sure anymore. Something is going on behind the curtains, something we'll probably never know. Dispute between LeBron and the coaches? The front office? Maybe he made his mind up to leave beforehand and just mailed it in? Could be any number of things, but there has to be a reason. A guy just doesn't do a 180 all of a sudden without having a reason.

LeBron to Dallas in a sign and trade for Eric Dampier's non-guaranteed expiring contract, Caron Butler, and Rodrigue Beaubois.

j/k

Kinda impressed with everybodys attitudes this morning, figured we'd see the same old doom n gloom, we always see, either were all getting use to it or were becomeing hardened bye the loses, or maybe both.

I'm not a big b-ball fan but do follow it enough, I do hope N think Labron comes back to Cleveland but there is nothing myself or anybody else can do, everything has been said from a fans point of view now we see if Labron stays or goes. Kobe stayed and things worked out, this team isnt far away from an NBA title, look how many times Detroit got dumped bye Chicago, before they broke thru, if this team is hungry, if Labron really truly wants championships, his best bet is in Cleveland, yes we need a few more players replace a few peices, tweeck a few spots, but over the next two months we will see if Labron wants to be great or just rich

I've said before, I left Heartbreak City long ago. I don't let losses bother me anymore. Not enough years left here for that stressful nonsense.

He either stays, or I come up with a replacement hobby. It's that simple. No doom and gloom.

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I do hope N think Labron comes back to Cleveland but there is nothing myself or anybody else can do

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I agree, all we can do is sit back and wait for the drama king to make his decision. No sense in fretting over it.

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There really isn't a big reason to move.

No team can pay him more than the Cavs and because he's really a worldwide marketing machine recognized even in some third world countries, the endorsement deals aren't going to be significantly better elsewhere.

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"They say the neon lights are bright on broadway..." That may be the biggest reason.

I sure hope LBJ stays. To me, it goes beyond basketball. I don't care for the sport and I don't follow it. However, when you're downtown on a Cavs game night, there is a discernable buzz about the place. There is life in and around town. Spirits are high and you see a lot of smiling faces. In a town where most of the news (sports-wise and beyond) is pretty grim, that's a remarkable thing to witness.

Sure, life will certainly go on if Lebron leaves. However, a source of considerable energy and joy will be lost around here if it happens. I, for one, would hate to see it come to pass.

So c'mon Lebron... keep the faith in yourself and your town. You know that, despite any criticsm you might face in the short term, this town is CRAZY about you and the Cavs. Stay and finish the job you set out to do from the beginning: bring a championshiip to Cleveland.

Not to mention there will be a lot less revenue to local businesses and more job loss.

In the end I can't see him leaving Cleveland. I truly believe he not only wants to win a championship but he wants to win one here. Maybe I'm being naive though.

I just worry that Noah's comments about Cleveland during the Bulls/Cavaliers series migth be indicative of the way NBA players feel about the area. It may even be indicative of the way LeBron feels. Is the area "boring" for an NBA player. Is there nothing to keep hin entertained? Who knows for sure?


Now .... one thing that might help in the future is the casinos coming in. How, you ask? Well, if NBA players want that "big city feel", with lots to do .... casinos ... which should spawn clubs, restaurants, additoonal entertainment options, shopping, and so on in the downtown area might help attract players in the future.Who knows?

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I don't want to hunt down the article I read this morning....Lebron was quoted as saying "you don't think I played this season not knowing what I was going to do"...in reference to him staying or leaving.

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It would be great if you could.

Because he said the opposite multiple times just this past week, saying he hasnt and doesnt think about it.

Not saying I believe him, but that quote doesnt seem to line up with what he has been saying recently.

http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/LeBro...ter-Game-6-loss



Found it.

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"I didn’t play this season wondering what I was going to do in the offseason," he said.

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What he said, and what you said he said are different. The way you phrased it, it reads like his mind was made up before the season.. when I read what he actually said, it reads like he put it out of his mind for the season... (I doubt he did, but I think that is what he's saying).... The guy was asked about it every day, it was a big story all the time, every where he went.. how could he NOT have thought about it a lot?

I agree, I got out of it that he was putting it out of his mind for the season.

I also think that, while he certainly wants to win, he's not driven to win like the all-time greats were. Its as if he's ok with winning games being a byproduct of being a very talented basketball player, when winning a chip should be the first thing on his mind when he gets out of bed every morning and the last thing he thinks about before he goes to sleep. Instead he seems content to buy into his own hype and stoke that fire, putting style over substance.

I was joking during the waning moments of the game that he needed to make sure he got his triple-double so that the buck could be passed to his teammates and coaching staff for the loss. I mean, hey, Lebron got a triple-double, right? How can the Cavs not win if he got a triple double?

great article on the connections between coach cal and lebron.

BOSTON – The clock struck midnight, the locker-room door swung open and LeBron James(notes) marched out a liberated man. Out of the playoffs, off the Garden floor, and barely out the tunnel before he ripped off that No. 23 Cleveland Cavaliers jersey on Thursday. As James marched his way toward the interview room, his stable of agents, middlemen and childhood chums had to walk fast to keep up with him. They never do like letting King James out of their sights.



So far unable to win a title in Cleveland, LeBron James could decide to chase a ring with the Knicks, Bulls, Heat or Nets.

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“Me and my team, we have a game plan that we’re gong to execute,” James said.

Yes, his team. That’s where James’ loyalties lie, where together they’ll chase the one title he’s forever chased: the biggest free agent of his generation.

Together, they’re going to hold the NBA hostage. They’re going to flush out a thousand scenarios, manipulate front-office decisions in Cleveland, New York, Chicago and beyond. Kentucky’s John Calipari is along for the ride, working with agent Leon Rose and middleman William Wesley, and all hell promises to break out now.

The plan they’re talking about includes Calipari coming to Cleveland as James’ hand-picked coach. “He’s got to listen if they come calling,” a source close to Calipari told Yahoo! Sports on Thursday night. He was talking about the Cavaliers and Bulls, and Calipari’s camp is determined to open bidding to multiple teams.

Together, these narcissists will manufacture a drama that will undermine the conference and NBA Finals, the NBA draft and Fourth of July parades in small towns and big cities across America. James and the Cavs lost Game 6 of the conference semifinals to the Boston Celtics, 94-85, but he hardly seemed devastated in the losing locker room. James had a triple-double that was devalued with nine turnovers. He shot 44 percent for the series, turned the ball over 27 times and behaved like a lousy leader.

Truth be told, James did something no champion would’ve ever dared: He quit on his teammates in Game 5 and that made it easy for the rest of them – and James – to quit in the final minutes of Game 6. This has been an indictment of the coaching staff and organization, but James, too. Mostly, James. The Cavs have turned out to be a great regular season team unfit for the playoffs, but James was the most responsible for this collapse in the conference semifinals. There was no culprit even a close second.

Still, James will get it over it fast because he engages in so little self-examination. In his mind, and that of his cast of sycophants, blame belongs on his coach, Mike Brown, for his lousy adjustments and game plans. It belongs to general manager Danny Ferry for the unworthy teammates. James was no MVP in this series, but no one stays in his employ with impure thoughts of accountability.

The next time you hear James, as the franchise star, say, “This was on me,” will be the first. All around James, his yes men never require him to deal in the currency of truth. Aaron Goodwin, his old agent, tried to be honest with him and his high school buddies, and it got him fired five years ago.

James is on the market, a free agent for the ages, and maybe now the kid out of small-town Akron gets to live out his big-city, bright-light dreams. Where next? Oh, James isn’t worried about that now. He wants the guessing to continue through July 1 and beyond. He backed over Brown one more time on Thursday night, and Brown’s as good as gone as the Cavs’ coach. Ferry has been fiercely loyal to Brown, but his mismanagement of matchups and in-game adjustments compounded an earlier playoff exit with a larger payroll and deeper roster.

Brown goes now, and Calipari moves into the forefront of the discussion. James is forever seeking leverage, and hand-picking his own coach with the Cavs could be the most appealing part of staying with them. What James’ crew will do is force an NBA market for Calipari that exists in only two scenarios: The promise of keeping James or the promise of luring James away.

For Rose and Wesley to attach the prime years of James’ career to Calipari would speak more to an economic power play and monopoly than a functional, workable and winning NBA environment. For some college coaches, talk of them going to the NBA hurts their recruiting. It’s just the opposite for Calipari: It isn’t those stiff owners and GMs who want Calipari, but King James himself. Calipari tells the kids it’s all rumor, except for the part about James, the MVP, wanting him. The Bulls deliver the bonus of Derrick Rose(notes) as the star point guard, and Rose does love his old college coach at Memphis.


Yet, the desperation of Cleveland owner Dan Gilbert makes Calipari’s hiring at $5 million-$6 million a genuine possibility, should James simply say the word. Nevertheless, one Eastern Conference executive close to Ferry told Yahoo! Sports this week: “I think Danny would resign before he’d hire Cal.”

Ferry understands that it would be a hollow, joyless existence, and he doesn’t need the job that badly. He has too much money and too much sense to sign on for more years of being held hostage. Nevertheless, his contract is up, too, and maybe he just walks once James makes his decision. There’s a reason Calipari sat courtside with Rose at Tuesday’s Game 5 in Cleveland, and it had everything to do with thrusting himself into the Class of 2010 conversation. As narcissists go, Calipari and James probably belong together. It would be a partnership constructed for all the wrong reasons and doomed to spectacular failure.

When it comes to free agency criteria, James insisted late Thursday, “I want to win. … That’s my only thing … my only concern.”

Winning is nice and all, and James will eventually get himself a title or two. He’s too talented. At the end of his seventh NBA season, James lost one more chance at it Thursday, and it hardly felt like the end of the world for him. He’ll get over it fast because that enormous ego will be nourished with the courtship of his lifetime, his free agency, and perhaps the hardest part will come sometime in July when James has to make a choice, pick a team and play there. Only then, the wooing of LeBron James will be complete and you have to wonder: How will King James ever live without that?

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=aw-lebroncalipari051410

i don't understand the hooplah with calipari. and maybe topdawg can help us out since he probably has seen more of him in recent memory than any of us. but isn't he pretty horrible with in-game adjustments?

i mean the guy had a ho-hum experience with the nba before, and yeah if you stuck him with lebron and a bunch of other good players maybe it would turn out different but if lbj stuck around, unless he demanded it was calipari, he would not be on my short list of guys.

I would really, really hate to lose Ferry. I think that he is an exceptional executive, and has done as well as anyone could have in putting together a quaility team around James.

Calipari said on his Twitter this morning, "I will be coaching at Kentucky next year."

Sounds like it's a lot of talk about nothing.

Especially since Broussard said "LeBron will not push for Calipari to be his coach"

I have a couple calls in to my sources at Kentucky trying to confirm that he is in fact not a canidate for any NBA job, but all public appearances are that he is not a canidate.

I watch NBA ball and enjoy it but don't really follow the salary structure or how it works. Maybe some of you that do can answer something for me. Can the Cavs afford to keep Lebron while also diving into the Chris Bosh sweepstakes? Is this a way for them to get him to stay?

If they were to somehow land Bosh would that maybe sway him to go back to the Cavs?

I guess in my opinion it's either New York or stay in Cleveland. That said NY seems like a bigger turn around then the Cavs. If he really wants to win a championship it seems like his best chance would be to stay in Cleveland.

Getting bosh is a pipedream. we are way over the cap, and have no money to spend on a free agent like bosh.

I think a lot depends on the lottery. if the nets get the #1 pick, I would bet my life savings that Lebron and Coach Cal will bolt to the nets.

The cavs aren't in good as shape as you think. we have no draft picks, no cap space, and guys like Z, Shaq, and Jamison are on the wrong side of 30. this unit had to win now.

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Maybe some of you that do can answer something for me. Can the Cavs afford to keep Lebron while also diving into the Chris Bosh sweepstakes?

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The short, and conditional answer is no.

The condition is that the Cavaliers could do a sign and trade to gain the services of Bosh in exchange for some of our current players plus a re-signing of one of our expired contracts to balance the money.

Danny Ferry has proven t be extremely adept at manipulating the cap ... ad Gilbret has been wiling to spend freely to build a winner ..... so I would expect that this would continue should LeBron stay.

If he goes, I would expect us to play lottery ball for a year or 2 .... get some good young talent .... and then again star adding in the expensive pieces.