00:00The time when he came back to Cleveland, you know, it's become kind of this funny story in the NBA
00:06that the Cavs were working on other stuff and Rich Paul had to call the Cavs and said,
00:11what are you doing? What are you doing with your cap space? Like what? You realize like you have
00:15a shot here. And then LeBron informed them or Rich Paul informed them. So this was like news
00:21to the Cavs. Like they could have had some hope, but this was kind of news. And you wonder if
00:25that's what it is this time around as well. But it's tough because, you know, LeBron has
00:30talked so much about its happiness. It's not about money this time around, but clearly he
00:34doesn't want to just go anywhere. He doesn't want to just go to a bad team and do the Michael
00:39Jordan Washington Wizards thing. He wants to go to a team that he has a chance to really
00:43compete with. What's a good team? I mean, they're all good teams that we're talking about here.
00:47I mean, Golden State can be a good team. Philadelphia can be a good team. Miami can be a good
00:53team.
00:53Cleveland, I would say already is a good team. But so he has a part in helping this. Like it's
00:57not
00:58just, Hey, I'm coming. It's also, how can we retool on the fly to give ourselves a chance to get
01:06past if it's in the Easter conference, which seems like, you know, there's it's to me, it seems like
01:12it's either the key to the Cavs. I don't know if you feel that way. If you think Golden State
01:16is truly in it, but if they're in the East and they're chasing, you know, the Knicks of the team
01:22that just won Boston is taking a massive step backwards. Phil Philly has taken a step forwards
01:28with the Jalen Brown situation, but really, really, I don't, I don't know if you feel this way
01:35since we've gotten further away from the NBA finals. I don't think it's as crazy as everybody
01:41else does that he could go to the Cavs and he could, they could legitimately win the championship.
01:46Why wouldn't it be? If it was crazy, then he wouldn't bother. I don't think it's crazy.
01:49It's not crazy. If it were crazy, he wouldn't bother. We wouldn't be in the mix. And he
01:53probably would have said that already. Cause I would, well, no, he probably wouldn't have
01:58said that already. Cause again, he likes being the focal point of attention. He has all the
02:04attention. That's, that's part of the reason I'm like, man, you can't be dragging this out
02:09and then not pick Cleveland. Like there is a historical thing there. And if you do that,
02:14you're going to have a lot of people mad at you. Now he may not care. Cause he might know,
02:17he might just think, well, you know what? In 10 years, you guys aren't going to care anyway.
02:21And you're going to still retire my Jersey. And you're just going to still build a statue
02:25of me in Cleveland and in Akron. And he may be right about that. But I think for the right
02:29now,
02:29a lot of people are going to be really upset if he were to, I think, play with our emotions
02:33in so many ways and then not choose Cleveland. Cause again, it's either him or it's either him
02:40or nothing. I don't think a lot of Cavs fans are excited about this team without LeBron
02:43James on it. Like, I think there has been this NBA thought and I'd be guilty of it. Like, well,
02:49if you don't have a perfect roster quote, perfect roster, right? The Celtics two years ago,
02:53we thought had the perfect roster. They did not win the championship. Nobody does. Okay. The,
02:59in the Western conference, Oklahoma city last year, perfect roster. They didn't get out of the
03:04Western conference finals and the Knicks played perfect basketball for a stretch when they were
03:09down to one to Atlanta from there forward. They had a perfect, you know, culmination of everything
03:17working together, but Josh Hart is not some perfect player. He's a guy I'd like to have,
03:22but there are flaws in his game. Carl Anthony towns. They're clear flaws. Jalen Brunson is not a great
03:29defensive player yet. All that came together and you could debate it. You could pour water on it every
03:36step of the way and they won the championship. So I I'm just not listening to people anymore.
03:41Eliminate basketball teams before we be, before we, I think it's crazy to the center circle.
03:46Nobody's perfect anymore. Nobody's perfect anymore. There fit matters more than it. I think that it
03:51has. And since we became adults, to be honest with you, I mean, this is just wild. Oh, what we're
03:56seeing right now in the NBA. And I don't think there's any quote, perfect roster for him. Any team
04:02that he joins is going to have question marks here. And of the teams that are left, like, okay,
04:06if you go to Golden State, there's a bunch of old guys there. I'm going to get back to the
04:09Kenny
04:09thing here in a second, but you go to Golden State, there's a bunch of old guys there. You know,
04:12is Bam Adebayo is a fine player. Not a lot of people are excited about him other than basketball
04:16coaches. You obviously have Giannis there. Is Giannis going to be durable enough? Is LeBron going to be
04:21durable enough? Is that going to be a weird situation down there in Miami? Philadelphia,
04:26Philadelphia obviously has their questions with Joel Embiid we talked about. And obviously Cleveland,
04:31you know, it's not a perfect situation. If he comes here, you'd have to give up Jared Allen.
04:34Jared Allen does a lot of dirty work for you. Now, Jared, I don't think I would say Jared Allen
04:39is the missing link to having a real competitive basketball team to win a championship when you
04:44just went out and got LeBron James, but damn it. Like there is no situation where it's just like,
04:49this is the perfect team and just punch their ticket to the finals. And that's it. I think we've
04:52learned that over the last eight years. So what can make it the best possible? Well, you have a
04:56determined person in Donovan Mitchell. I think that you can do a lot of great things with Evan
05:00Mobley being around LeBron James. I think LeBron will be determined there. And obviously James
05:04Harden has a monkey to get off his back there when it comes to the postseason. So all these guys
05:08have a lot of, of reasons to push forward with LeBron James. If LeBron doesn't pick them though,
05:15I think that even when you have just Jared Allen, Evan Mobley, James Harden, and Donovan Mitchell,
05:20that's a really good basketball team that I just don't think that Cavs fans are really excited about.
05:23Yeah. And look, I, I keep thinking about unfair. Yeah. Well, I keep thinking back of just
05:29like the stuff I'm hearing, why would James play with Harden? That wouldn't work out. That doesn't
05:35work. I'm like LeBron James, the short roll with James Harden, one of the great passers,
05:41the game. I think LeBron can find a way to get two points on a night, two points a night
05:44from me and
05:44Owen. Like, like LeBron getting the ball off the screen and roll right there at the elbow with guys
05:51converging on them. They can't make that work. Like I think people, they just can't get over
05:58things they haven't seen before. And just like you hadn't seen the Knicks get to the championship
06:03and win it all. So people didn't think they had a shot and we could do this over and over
06:08and over
06:09again with a lot of the champions over the last 10 years in the NBA. I feel the same way
06:13you do.
06:13Kenny Atkinson spoke during summer league over the weekend. Here's what Kenny said. Cause finally
06:18somebody with the Cavs acknowledge that the Cavaliers are in on LeBron James.
06:23Listen, this is an exciting time for us. We're, we're in the mix for the greatest player of all
06:28time. You know, my personal opinion. So, um, it's exciting, right? Like, man, we're, I think you're
06:34nervous, but you know, we understand how it is. He's obviously has earned that right to take his time.
06:40Obviously family plays a big part of it, but I know the state of Ohio, man, that there's,
06:45there's like, there's something special there. Do you feel Kenny Atkinson was the wrong messenger?
06:50I do not. I want to know from the fans, 216-474-0092, because I'm happy that somebody from
06:56the organization said something publicly about getting LeBron James here. Cause you'd heard
07:04from Philadelphia, Bob Myers, you heard from everybody. You had not heard anything from
07:09Cleveland. Richard Jefferson has said some things and Channing Frye on their podcast has said some
07:14things, but earned that. I'm not sure there's been anybody of a former Cav or certainly a current
07:20Cav who has said anything about LeBron, whether it be in the front office or obviously on the
07:24roster or anything like that. Nobody has really said very much anything when it came to Cleveland.
07:28And then Kenny's the one who says it. And because people are upset with, and rightfully so with what
07:33Kenny had said about analytics and the Jared Allen thing, when it came to Dan Gilbert, some people
07:41are kind of looking the other way when it comes to Kenny and thinking that Kenny's sticking his foot in
07:44his mouth so many times. So was Kenny the wrong messenger for you? Cause you said there were
07:48people saying they were nervous because it was Kenny saying something. Yeah. They don't want to hear
07:51from him at all. They don't feel good about him. They feel like he made the Cavs a laughingstock in
08:00some of the stuff he said, which, you know, it's so funny. Like when you actually break down what he
08:04was saying in the context of it, but people don't care about any of that. People, people just know he's
08:08getting made fun of. And so they don't like the fact that their coach who they brought back
08:13is giving reason to make fun of the Cavs before they even tip off at the start of the year.
08:18So
08:19they just don't want to hear from him right, right now. If they don't get him, I mean, I haven't
08:23even
08:23thought about, and Joe, thank you for the call. Cause I haven't even really thought about some of the
08:26ways that things work. If they don't get them, I think that we have to focus on the visceral,
08:33emotional reaction of Cavs fans. If he doesn't choose Cleveland first, and then we get into,
08:37okay, what do you do with the mechanics of things? Because if you don't get LeBron James,
08:41I, I, I think that James Harden just comes back and everything's fine. Or excuse me,
08:45James Harden comes back and you are who you are until the trade deadline. Yeah. And then you figure
08:51out what you have after that. Yeah. I'm not married to James Harden at all. Like, let's see what works
08:56and what doesn't, you know, with James, they've got some things that they'd have to overcome. Like James
09:02is terrific in the regular season. He's durable, which matters. Um, he's, he's a really smart
09:08player. He is aging. You did see him hit a wall last year. They also played in more minutes than
09:12anybody else on the team. So, uh, ideally you wouldn't want to rely on him the way that they
09:17did last year, because that doesn't necessarily set you up for success. Mechanically. I think a lot
09:23of people just have their, their hopes and dreams on LeBron. If he weren't to choose here,
09:28I just think we have to go into the season as we are and, and see what moves can be
09:33made
09:34after the beginning of the season, because I, we, you can't be freaking out. I think that
09:39Dan Gilbert historically has a tendency to freak out. I think that's changed here over the last
09:43five, six years. I just eat. He seems to be a lot more patient with things. I know what he
09:49tweeted
09:50after the season. I think he felt the way a lot of Cavs fans felt. I thought it was the
09:53right thing
09:54to put out there for the fans, but I think he's become a lot more patient and I think he's
09:58become a lot more rational in his decision-making here over the last few seasons. So for them,
10:03my goal would be, all right, let's let us react to it. It ain't going to be fun. It's not
10:08going to
10:08be good for the Cavs. It's not going to be a good reaction for LeBron. It's not going to be
10:11a good
10:12reaction for everybody. It's going to be ugly if he doesn't choose here. But after that, hey,
10:18let's calm down. We still got a good basketball team. It's still one of the more formidable teams in
10:23the NBA. Let's get the season going. We'll see how they mix together. Because before we thought
10:29LeBron was coming back, or before we thought that there was a real big chance to bring LeBron back,
10:34it was, all right, let's see what we do this offseason to gel before we go into next year,
10:38because you usually need a whole season to ramp up. You only got half. And really,
10:43after the All-Star break, they don't do a lot of practicing because there was a lot of travel going
10:48on. They weren't able to really get in practice very often. And then you're playing all these
10:51games during the postseason. There was still a lot of get-to-know-you. Their team got to the
10:55Eastern Conference Finals with like 25 games to work with in a regular season in which they had
11:00nonstop injuries. So I think that's completely forgotten because of the bad taste that next
11:06series where it looked like they all just gave up. I get that fans were so turned off by that,
11:12that they're like, oh, please, please don't remind us of any part of this. But I do think
11:18you freshen it up with LeBron. You make a Jared Allen trade, potentially, you know, you do some
11:24things around the margins. I think it'll be a different story going into camp. I think people
11:28will be genuinely excited. If you bring in LeBron, if you don't bring him in, then I don't know what
11:33we're going to get into that's not going to be met by jeers and cynicism and sarcasm. I don't know
11:39what they're going to be able to do. It's just going to be basically speak softly and try to
11:44carry a big stick because I don't know if there's an amount of games as Donovan Mitchell had put it
11:49a couple years ago. You can go 82-0 and I don't think anybody's going to care. And that was
11:55what
11:55Donovan said after they lost to Indiana and that's still the truth because I think that if they don't
12:00get LeBron, they could go 82-0 and ain't no one going to give a damn because they just don't
12:05have a
12:05lot of faith in them in the postseason. Unless they make a move to bring him in, I don't know
12:09if it's fair, but unless they make a move to bring him in, I think you're going to see that
12:13malaise
12:13with a lot of fans.
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