Disclaimer: I'm not trying to have a Lebron bashing thread here, this was front page news on ESPN and it is unusual to have a player put quite this much pressure on a front office to make moves throughout the media. Interested to hear people's thoughts on that angle of that as well as what kind of moves they could realistically make.
After last night's loss Lebron said
"We're not better than last year," he said. "From a personnel standpoint."
Meanwhile, James listed other free agents who could have been had -- Raymond Felton, who signed with the Los Angeles Clippers, and Michael Beasley, who was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks -- as players who could have helped the Cavs make it through the regular season.
"It's great to have bodies," James said. "Obviously, in the playoffs, you go down to what, eight max? And if somebody gets in foul trouble, you go to nine. You're not playing back-to-backs. You have two days in between. You're able to lock in."
"It's like when you don't have bodies. It's tough," James said. "The f---ing grind of the regular season. We're a top-heavy team. We have a top-heavy team. We top-heavy as s---. It's me, [Kyrie Irving], [Kevin Love]. It's top-heavy."
"I'm not singling out anybody," James said. "I'm not. Yeah, we won [the championship], but f---, you know what, let's see if we can do something."
He said he has already voiced his thoughts about the roster to general manager David Griffin face-to-face, and realizing how it could look to call for a point guard with Felder and DeAndre Liggins on the roster, James said it would not be fair to expect either of those young players to fill such a significant role on a title-contending team.
"We need a f---ing playmaker," James said. "I'm not saying you can just go find one, like you can go outside and see trees. I didn't say that."
"I don't know what we got to offer," James said. "I just know me, personally? I don't got no time to waste. I'll be 33 in the winter, and I ain't got time to waste. That's what I'm talking about.
"Listen, when I feel like physically and mentally, me personally, can't compete for a championship no more or I feel like I can't do it, then I won't have this problem. But until that happens, and it don't seem like no time soon ..."
James trailed off.
My take is that I am not entirely sure what Lebron wants the owners to do. The team has the highest salary in the league at 127 million (by comparison the Celtics team salary is 93 million). The team has also hamstrung itself at least a little bit by holding roster spots for people that seemed to have been friends with or players Lebron liked. Of the guys that have hurt their ability to have more bodies (as James mentioned) I don't think it is completely random that Mo Williams, Chris Anderson and James Jones were all former teammates of Lebron.
While I believe they are over the cap regardless it does seem like Lebron may have had influence on the team giving pretty big salaries to Jr Smith (16 million) and Tristan Thompson (14.5 million) that may have hurt their ability to retain someone like Delladova.
So this leaves perhaps 3 questions to me.
1) Short of veterans buyouts, what kind of trades can the Cavs really make?
2) Does Lebron owe some of his issues with the roster to himself having had such big influence on the roster over the last few seasons
3) If you were a teammate of Lebron and a young player like Mccrae, Felder, Liggens or just a rotation player like shumpert or Frye would this call for bodies bother you at all?
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/18542324/lebron-james-sounds-cleveland-cavaliers-loss