00:00I'm still thinking about an uncomfortable question you asked me yesterday.
00:04And I think that there's more fallout to this.
00:07So we had a great big knockdown drag out.
00:10Actually, not even between you and me.
00:11Our boss started going crazy because he doesn't understand my point of view
00:16where I'm going, yeah, I still care.
00:19I care, and I'm annoyed it's taking so long.
00:22How is this not possible?
00:23If you go out there, you'll find a bunch of Cavs fans on the street
00:27who still care.
00:28They want him to come back, and they're annoyed it's taking three weeks.
00:31They're annoyed.
00:32They want to know.
00:33Let's go.
00:33Come on.
00:33We want to know.
00:34Are you with us or are you not with us?
00:36Do you want to end the story the right way, or do you want to go do whatever?
00:40How's that impossible?
00:41Well, I also want to make sure, and I imagine, that if, like,
00:46let's say he had decided weeks ago, but he's putting pressure on the team
00:53that he's going to to be able to maneuver.
00:57Is it possible that that's the case?
00:59Like, he was never going to make a rash decision that would put him in some
01:02terrible spot.
01:03No.
01:04Right?
01:04No.
01:05I mean, what if you find out that?
01:08This isn't the question, by the way, that Anthony asked me.
01:10There's still more follow-up.
01:11Go ahead.
01:12Go ahead.
01:12But what if it's leading towards, hey, kind of directing, kind of,
01:18because we know how the NBA is.
01:19You know, the players, the stars in this league, they are a big part of, you know,
01:25the machinations and team building and figuring out a coach and a staff.
01:30And while people might not like that, it's also been successful for LeBron James
01:35in the past.
01:35Yes, it is.
01:36I mean, it led to two championships in Miami and led to a championship here
01:40and led to a championship in L.A.
01:42I mean, Anthony Davis in L.A.
01:45That was a big part of LeBron.
01:48Like, for all the stuff that LeBron would get about who were some of the players
01:52that get brought up over time that he wanted to play with and he gets made fun of.
01:56But in terms of the star building, like, that's a big part of his legacy, too.
02:01Yeah, and it's, again, the longer it takes for him to make his decision.
02:06Like, we might get to a point here where, you know, next week, again,
02:09camp's starting up and we might get to a point where it's like, hey, man,
02:11we kind of got to put the greatest player who ever lived on the back burner
02:14some way, somehow.
02:15Like, we got Gardos, who just scored 13 runs last night.
02:18We got camp starting up.
02:19Like, we got all this stuff from SEC media days that we kind of want to get into,
02:23but we can't because we're still waiting for LeBron.
02:26Greg Sankey's shooting his mouth off.
02:28And so is Will Stein, which I actually think is going to be brought up
02:30in about last night.
02:31We got coaches shooting their mouth off over there.
02:33Like, there's a lot of fun stuff to get to.
02:35And eventually it takes its turn.
02:36It's like, well, we're just kind of focused.
02:37If he were 28 years old, I don't know what I'd be doing if he still took three
02:41weeks to do this at 28 years old, but he's 41.
02:45And at 41, I think a lot of fan bases are going to get,
02:47Owen's nodding his head because a lot of fan bases are going to get the law
02:50diminishing returns going, hey, I got Eagle season coming up.
02:54I got Niner season coming up.
02:56Like, I can't just be sitting here beholden to you for the rest of eternity.
03:00Well, I don't think you have to be.
03:02I would hope not.
03:03I feel like I'm more than capable, and you're more than capable of enjoying
03:07a lot of different things at once.
03:08I do think there's someone to the roster construction, though, still, right?
03:11Like, they've got to do something with the roster if it's not LeBron.
03:15They have to at least – they don't have James Harden on the roster
03:18technically right now either.
03:20And that would have been a trade for Harden for less than half a season.
03:25And I think the difference is, like Lima, you're right.
03:27Yes, we're capable of caring about more than one thing at one time.
03:29But we're the only place that really loves them.
03:32I don't think they – I think they like them in Miami.
03:35I think they like them a lot.
03:36They don't love them.
03:37They don't love them in Golden State or San Francisco or Oakland
03:40or wherever the hell they're playing now.
03:42They don't love them in Philadelphia.
03:43They don't love them in Minnesota.
03:44They certainly don't love them in Indiana.
03:46They love them here.
03:48And it's made us – because more time has gone on,
03:51it's made us ask more questions that I really don't even want to entertain.
03:55And one of those questions are, one, does he even really want to come back
03:59or does he feel like he's forced to, which is an ugly question to ask,
04:03which I have seen.
04:04And some people go, well, who wants to really go back to Cleveland?
04:07I know a lot of people are thirsting to go back to Cleveland.
04:09Who are from here?
04:11It's not like you're – if you're not from here –
04:13like I've seen the commentary from other hosts around the country.
04:17Sorry, guys.
04:18If you're not from here, you don't get it.
04:20There's a lot of places that I would not want to live.
04:22And I'm sure if you're from there and I told you why I didn't want to live there,
04:26you'd be upset.
04:27I'm not interested in living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
04:30I'm not interested in living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
04:32And I'm sure people from both them cities would tell me to bleep off.
04:35You don't get it.
04:36It's the same thing with Cleveland.
04:37So why are we taking shots there?
04:39Well, he certainly doesn't want to go to Philly where that failed program director
04:42is going to hold him accountable.
04:44Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
04:46Careful.
04:47You don't want Spike on your bad side.
04:53I'm going to put the safety back on there.
04:55I just think LeBron saw that, and it's like, well, I've got to cross them off the list.
05:00I don't want to be held accountable every day by the radio host.
05:03See, I don't want to clarify that I didn't say it because I want to stand with you
05:06and support you as your friend, but I also am like,
05:10oh, my phones might light up here in a second.
05:12He sounded ridiculous.
05:16It was, I will meet you halfway.
05:18I will not say the other things that you just said,
05:21but it was a little much, a little much, a little much.
05:27All right, can we move on now?
05:28Oh, yeah.
05:30Boy, you are spicy today.
05:32Caught me on that one.
05:33There's another thing, and this is the fallout.
05:35If he doesn't choose here, you said this, and it's just, it's stuck in my,
05:40it's like a tick on the back of my neck, and I can't get it off of there.
05:44You know, how will people feel about Evan Mobley?
05:47Why didn't we make the trade for Giannis?
05:48Why didn't we make the trade?
05:49Why didn't we make the Jalen Brown trade?
05:51Like, I don't want him to not pick here, and then all of a sudden we just going,
05:56wow, we held on to this, huh?
05:57Couldn't trade for Jalen Brown because of this.
06:00Couldn't trade for Giannis because of this.
06:02Like, because if he doesn't pick here, and he has one of those eight-point nights,
06:08Evan is good for every now and then, the clunkers, you know the next day if they lose.
06:13Wow, couldn't have got any, Giannis?
06:15We had to hold on to eight points a night, huh?
06:17Had to do that.
06:18If Donovan goes through a spell where he struggles a little bit, wow,
06:21we just couldn't get Jalen Brown.
06:23Had to hold on to this guy.
06:24What?
06:24Because we traded for him?
06:25Okay, great.
06:26These are the things that are said by angry people that are upset that we didn't get the
06:30greatest basketball player who ever lived.
06:31The longer that goes on, the more attachment that we have to the emotions that come with it,
06:37and I fear that it's going to play into these guys.
06:39It's not, I will not blame, I do not believe I blame Donovan Mitchell or James Harden or
06:43Evan Mobley or Jared Allen for that matter.
06:45It's a good basketball team.
06:46I think if LeBron don't want to come back, it has nothing to do with these guys here.
06:50I really don't.
06:51This is a damn good team.
06:52This is a damn good basketball team.
06:54They won a hell of a lot of games over the last couple of years.
06:57It hasn't ended where we wanted it to.
06:59It was a massive disappointment.
07:01That being pointed out, don't tell me there ain't talent on that team,
07:04because to be disappointed, you have to have some damn talent on your team.
07:07And I think that these guys will end up paying the fiddler this coming year
07:10if you don't get LeBron.
07:11See, that's part of why I'm a little agitated here.
07:13We're going on three weeks, and now it becomes a referendum on the type of players that you have.
07:19These are damn good basketball players over here.
07:20These were a group of guys that I felt could go toe-to-toe against Philadelphia.
07:25This group of guys I did think could keep it good against the Knicks.
07:29Now, I've got to admit, from the beginning of the playoffs to the end of the playoffs,
07:32by the time we got to them, I certainly felt differently about the New York Knicks
07:35over that period of time.
07:36I'll admit that.
07:38But this is a team that I thought could go toe-to-toe with the Knicks
07:40at the outset of the playoffs.
07:41You know, I just, I look at it as I wonder how he feels about Evan Mobley.
07:46I wonder how he feels about Donovan Mitchell.
07:49And I'll tell you, James Harden.
07:51I mean, look, as much as I can make the argument on how great of a move James Harden was
07:56and freed up salary and he was an upgrade over Darius
07:59and helped get them to the Easter Conference Finals,
08:02they hadn't been there without LeBron taking that step forward.
08:07I don't know.
08:08I've seen mixed messaging on how LeBron feels about James Harden.
08:13So, we'll see.
08:15We'll see.
08:15Maybe you saw James when he was interviewed by ESPN Brazil or whatever it was
08:20where he's like, yeah, that's the plan.
08:21All of us playing together is the plan.
08:23We'll find out if that's the case.
08:25Well, it might be his plan.
08:26I don't know if it's LeBron's plan.
08:27I don't think none of us really do.
08:29Any of us really do.
08:30I mean, we all know somebody.
08:31I mean, guys, it's been such a long time.
08:33We all know somebody who knows somebody who knows him
08:36and we've all had different people telling us different things
08:38and most of it's been positive.
08:40Like, Limey, you were at a charity golf outing yesterday.
08:42It was connected to the basket, connected to the Cavs,
08:45and how many of those people were saying that we're getting them back?
08:48Many, many, many of them.
08:49I'll say you don't have to.
08:51Many of them felt that they were getting them back.
08:52So, there's a confidence to it, just like there's a confidence in some of the cities.
08:55But the longer it goes, dealing with normal folks,
08:59some of them are thinking, man, he's going to do what he did in 2010
09:01and he's going to burn us, he's going to do what he did in 2018, just leave us.
09:05Like, they're feeling that way.
09:07Well, he wasn't even here in the first place.
09:09So, it is a little bit different, and he's 41 years old,
09:12which makes it a lot different, but it's still the same thoughts that happen.
09:15If he doesn't pick us, I think we treat this team naturally.
09:19And it's unfair.
09:20We treat this team that we have worse.
09:22If he doesn't pick us, I think we treat everything around the Cavs worse.
09:26And I think a lot of people are really mad at him that he's drugging out this long.
Comments