00:00A 5% chance.
00:01That's what we have.
00:03A 5% shot.
00:05According to Sam Quinn, the NBA writer for CBS,
00:11he has LeBron coming back to Cleveland as a 5% chance.
00:20The odds are out.
00:2240% for the Lakers.
00:24It is 30% for the Golden State Warriors.
00:27I just don't agree with that.
00:28But 20% retirement.
00:30I mean, I find that you could have a 30% chance,
00:33but God, I can't stand that for a multitude of reasons.
00:3720% retirement.
00:395% Cleveland Cavaliers.
00:42It's rather lengthy why he writes that.
00:443% Clippers.
00:451% Miami.
00:471% San Antonio.
00:48And down the line they go.
00:50And the 5%, I'll try to do it quickly.
00:54In a perfect world, James may want to retire in Cleveland.
00:57And if money is a factor, though, that's going to be difficult.
00:58As of right now, the Cavaliers are $3 million or so above the second apron
01:02with their first round pick accounted for.
01:04Which, hence, probably why the Dennis Schroeder thing is going on right now.
01:09Not just a cost-saving measure.
01:13The question is, from Sam Quinn, is that doable?
01:17He writes, well, maybe.
01:18James Harden's cap figure will probably come down a bit through his player option.
01:21He will likely resign on a longer deal that lowers his cap hit for next year.
01:24But if the Cavaliers are pursuing the mid-level path,
01:27then they have to shed more than $30 million in total.
01:29Even if they lower Harden's salary meaningfully,
01:32that would mean paying someone to take a role player like Max Struess or Dennis Schroeder,
01:38or maybe both, when you factor in filling out the roster.
01:41Given their limited draft capital, that doesn't seem especially responsible.
01:45Well, I don't think they care about responsibility.
01:47I got to push back on Sam Quinn about that.
01:49I'm not trying to make him out to be the biggest bastard in the world.
01:52Far from it.
01:53What I'm pointing out is that I don't think responsibility and the Cavs
01:56have ever hung out together at all.
01:58Well, if you don't think they can win a title anyway next year,
02:02what sense does it mean to be responsible for the next three years?
02:05It doesn't.
02:06That doesn't really make sense anyway.
02:07But they've always been a team to push it to the very end, then we go bust.
02:11And that's the way it goes.
02:12I know it's different now than it used to be,
02:14especially with the new rules that are going to kick in,
02:16which are really convoluted about the draft lottery.
02:19Yeah, there are other teams that have kind of gone that direction too.
02:22Like eventually there is a talent train that happens over time
02:26when you use all your assets.
02:28And by the way, the Knicks would have been there too.
02:31They used up all their assets to go after the very flawed team that they had.
02:35And then ended up going on one of the remarkable runs in NBA playoff history.
02:39So, you know, you do try to, you eventually have to max out.
02:44Like it is impossible.
02:45And I think the Warriors have kind of shown that over time.
02:48I think the Heat to some extent has showed that over time.
02:50Bob Myers was always warning everybody about this.
02:53But the two timeline thing just doesn't work.
02:55It's almost impossible to try to preserve the next generation
03:00while also competing current to try to win it all.
03:04It just doesn't work.
03:04It doesn't.
03:05So you have to pick one of two avenues.
03:07And does anybody want them to just tear it down now?
03:10It doesn't make sense to you because they don't own their picks.
03:12And let me point this out again,
03:13is that you've got to do everything you possibly can to maximize this.
03:17And some people have, like Owen showed me a post yesterday
03:21that he knew was going to get me really good and pissed.
03:23And it was the picture of Kevin Love, Darius Garland, and Collin Sexton about,
03:28well, at least we had fun.
03:30I go, was it fun when Kevin Love was rage quitting in Toronto?
03:33Like that wasn't fun whatsoever.
03:34Put me in the category of never had fun during that run.
03:37That was not fun.
03:38And we were an afterthought and irrelevant.
03:39And the most amount of games I've ever skipped.
03:41Well, no.
03:42During that portion.
03:43You just want to watch.
03:43If you just want to watch basketball and never compete for anything,
03:47there's AAU tournaments all around the area.
03:48You can knock yourself out.
03:49You go right on ahead.
03:50That'll cost the same amount of money.
03:51I got free tickets every night because they were trying to fill up the arena.
03:55It was awesome.
03:55Like if you just want to go see the game, that's perfectly fine.
03:59I want them to compete for something.
04:02I'm willing to say that 95% of Cavs fans actually do want them to compete for something.
04:05And bringing back LeBron would be that conversation.
04:08But if you're telling me it's only a 5% chance,
04:10because Sam Quinn is not being mean-spirited towards Cleveland or anything like that.
04:14What is written here is sensical.
04:17And if I can't get Giannis, which it seems that I don't have an even dog in the fight
04:22to be able to get Giannis, and LeBron won't come back,
04:26I think we've got to be kind of ready, guys, to run it back.
04:31Which you ain't going to like.
04:33I still don't think they're going to run it back.
04:36I think you're going to see a bevy of moves.
04:38That's the Schroeder.
04:39The Schroeder move is a start of it.
04:41And I know in the afternoon they had this big debate about,
04:45well, why are they all of a sudden just cost-cutting?
04:47It's like, well, because the way the cap is set up is you can't do business
04:52if you're above the cap.
04:53It's not about saving money.
04:54Dan Gilbert just spent how much money with the cap and the tax included?
04:59It's one of the all-time expensive rosters in sports.
05:02Yeah, this isn't the Red Sox trying to shed salary or anything.
05:04Literally in sports.
05:04It's one of the all-time most expensive rosters they've just spent.
05:07It's not about saving $10 million on Dennis Schroeder.
05:10It's about being able to preserve some flexibility, all flexibility,
05:15because you can't be over the second apron two years in a row
05:18and then be able to do anything.
05:20It eliminates like eight of your levers that you can pull.
05:23So this is what they're going to do.
05:26They're going to get underneath that second apron.
05:28There's some wiggle room to actually get under the first apron too
05:30to even allow them more flexibility.
05:32But that would only be if you could get some agreement from LeBron.
05:36You're not going to – if you don't have that, then it's not going to happen.
05:39I will say, as a side note, the LeBron stuff, I think it would be very depressing
05:44if in the final year of LeBron's career he's on the West Coast.
05:48I think it would be very depressing because, you know, a big part of the send-off
05:53is so that your fans that you have in every city get a chance to see him.
05:58He would only come back here once.
06:00And he'd only come back here in Cleveland once.
06:02That would be horrible.
06:03And then what if he's injured too?
06:04I mean, I just – I know that somebody like LeBron who thinks about this stuff globally
06:09and is infatuated, obsessed with his legacy.
06:13That's why I'd be shocked.
06:13It's hard for me to believe, like, the Golden State thing makes sense.
06:17And I don't know.
06:17Obviously, I hope he comes back to the Cavs because if you don't think they can win
06:21a title anyway, which so many of you don't believe they can,
06:25then it would assign a real meaning to this year.
06:28Exactly.
06:28I feel the same way you do.
06:29And you could say today, who cares about his last year when he's over the hill?
06:32First of all, I saw him last year.
06:34There were, like, 30 times last year he was definitely not over the hill.
06:37He can absolutely get gassed up.
06:39Like, if you actually did get him back, I'd be talking load management like crazy.
06:44I'd say he picks and chooses when he plays.
06:47If it is a retirement tour, if they do want to make that official,
06:51then, yeah, you're going to have to go on these road trips
06:53and walk out there in street clothes and wave to everybody and things like that.
06:55I don't want you playing in this stuff because I want you to preserve
06:58your 41-year-old body for the postseason.
07:01I also know that Kobe Bryant in his final year, and they were terrible,
07:06and he played 66 games, and he was hobbling most of the year.
07:11All of it was intensely meaningful to his fans around the world.
07:17And you could sit here today and poo-poo,
07:19what do I care about LeBron's last season in Cleveland?
07:22He left us twice.
07:23You don't understand.
07:24You're making a statement that you and your kids and your family
07:28will not agree with once it happens.
07:30It's not just a thing.
07:31Because once it happens, I saw it with Kobe.
07:33I saw it with my own eyes.
07:35The LeBron experience where the Cavs are winning, losing, irrelevant, competitive,
07:40it will be something you will remember for the rest of your life.
07:43If he's here once, you won't be able to get into the building.
07:47If he's here 81 times to at least wave to people,
07:52doesn't have to play at every game, he will at least be in the building.
07:54And you'll at least get a chance to see him in some capacity.
07:58Like, yeah, there's going to be people who are going to only make it to one game.
08:01And if he were here, he might not play in that game,
08:04and you're going to be really upset.
08:05I understand that.
08:06But at least be in the building and wave to people, and you could see him.
08:08It sucks, but that's part of it.
08:10It would suck even worse if you were only here one time,
08:13and the get-in price would be about $3,000 for the upper bowl.
08:16And you just would be locked out.
08:17You would be locked out.
08:18But this is where I differ from a lot of people here.
08:21Like, we played this clip earlier in the show,
08:23and I went after the guy who said it because I thought it was ridiculous,
08:26and I'm glad that Alan Hahn went after him in the clip on Get Up.
08:31This is a man named Vincent Goodwill,
08:33and I think that it does give us a reason why LeBron would make a difference for us.
08:38Go ahead and here's Vincent Goodwill yesterday on ESPN.
08:42He called the Larry O'Brien trophy a participation trophy.
08:46I like to know that greatness is validated.
08:50How do we know that any of the last eight champions are actually validated
08:53because they have not done it again?
08:55Giannis is itching to get out.
08:56Boston is thinking about trading Jalen Brown.
08:59They don't believe in their one championship.
09:01LeBron's one championship in L.A. was not enough.
09:03So why would it be enough for us?
09:05Validate is the Larry O'Brien that I put on that shelf and stays there forever.
09:09That's the validation.
09:10The Laker thing.
09:11Oh, you mean participation trophy then?
09:12I'm sorry, Larry O'Brien is a participation trophy?
09:14If everybody gets one.
09:16It is an actual trophy.
09:18You won the league that year.
09:20The 2020 one I get because it's summer camp.
09:22Like it was in one little bubble and that's why people give them crap about that one.
09:26But no, you win the title.
09:28It's validated.
09:29You're forever a champion.
09:30The difference, of course, is to me, you can have rivalries without dynasty.
09:34So earlier in the show, at the beginning of the show, I went crazy on this clip
09:37because I thought the statement in itself was asinine.
09:40But let me highlight this.
09:41I hope LeBron sometime in some part of his career validates the 2016 championship.
09:46I hope he figures out a way to do it because right now I didn't realize it was relegated
09:49to being an irrelevant championship.
09:51Aside, you can go back on the Rewind app presented by Integrated Restoration
09:55and you can go back and listen to that because all the reasons that we said I still think are
09:58true.
09:59But you go back to last year and go forward to this year.
10:02As of right now, off the top of your head, I bet you can name any person.
10:06If you're on 480 right now, 77, no matter.
10:10You could probably name seven, eight teams off the top of your head that could win a championship.
10:15You probably don't have the Cavs in there.
10:17But I'm willing to say that, in fact, we know it.
10:20No Knicks fans were willing to say that they had a chance at a championship last year.
10:24And so, yeah.
10:24We know Knicks fans.
10:25It's 100% true.
10:26With the margins being so – Jerry Farrar admitted it.
10:30He admitted it going into the postseason this year.
10:32With the margins being so razor thin on all these teams, yes, at 41,
10:37yes, with all the other things and the quote-unquote drama,
10:40which I don't know how much drama there is in a retirement season, but whatever.
10:44He is – he very well could be the difference maker
10:47in you getting swept in the Eastern Conference Finals
10:50and getting another championship.
10:52It is as wide open – we've had eight different champions.
10:55It's as wide open as it's ever been.
10:57And so, even though I hate the statement that was made,
11:00when you get me to, well, eight different championships,
11:02that means that I definitely have a dog in this race.
11:05I definitely can do something here if LeBron –
11:08you've got to jump through several hoops if LeBron comes back.
11:11Now, if LeBron doesn't come back,
11:13I don't know if there's going to be a lot of guys out there
11:15that wets people's whistle on thinking they can win a championship,
11:19but I think LeBron is still a difference maker at 41 years old.
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