Cavs getting LeBron James would guarantee NBA Finals trip, help the team’s mental toughness. 7/3/25

Cavs getting LeBron James would guarantee NBA Finals trip, help the team’s mental toughness. 7/3/25

LeBron rumors are back. He was wearing a welcome home hat playing Portage Lakes Country Club.
He does come home every summer because I know he gets spotted at very very nice restaurant in Tmont. There’s a home here.
Every summer he does come back. Uh I did think it was interesting the hat selection. I mean that was clearly to get this kind of conversation. You know what he’s doing too? He’s taking that picture. What he put it on Instagram or whatever and just like us especially when back in the days we might have been drinking a little bit. You start tweeting and you show your phones. Look what I just Look at Look at Look at Look, it’s gaining steam. It’s gaining legs. It’s gaining legs. And your buddy’s like, “Take that one down. Take that one down.” Okay, it’s gone. It’s gone. Did I delete it? No, it’s not deleted. Got to take it down. Well, you know for a fact they got to about the fifth hole
and he’s showing people.
Yep.
Oh, Bleacher Report. Oh, ESPN. Oh, Cleveland.com. Oh, they’re talking about on the Morning Show on 923 The Fan. Oh,
he’s he’s 40 years old. He knows he’s at the end of his career. He knows that there’s been people telling him he’s old. He’s probably heard that maybe I don’t think Rob Pelinkus said it, but who knows what some guys around the league are saying, the guys in front offices and things like that. And so, does it make him feel better that we’re talking about it today? Yeah. Yes. He’s one of the biggest celebrities in sports, which means he’s one of the biggest celebrities in the world. And when you’re telling, well, you know what, all these teams still want me. I’m 40 years old and all these teams are lining up. And of course, I’m not going to go to many of these teams because he said it himself. Remember, did he or did he not talk about Kevin Durant himself and how, you know what, maybe it takes a little bit of a hit at the legacy when you’ve been with so many teams. So, that’s why it’s like, nah, it’s not Dallas, it’s not uh it’s not Detroit, it’s not uh the Clippers. If he does that, you know, we we have to talk legacy because he’s been the guy who’s owned, it seems, every team he’s played on. This there would only be one place that makes any real real sense. Let’s be serious about this. It’s here. So, we’re here. Our our history is with him. We have to discuss it. And my issue or my question is, give me a good reason why you don’t want give me a real good solid reason. Tell convince me much better. Convince me that this team as currently made up. Tell me why you know that they’re going to get to the NBA finals. I can’t guarantee a championship you bring back LeBron. I will guarantee an appearance in the NBA finals. The West is tough. The West is tough.
If they’re healthy, I don’t see any other team in the East that would beat that team, especially with Evan continuing to get better. uh Donovan Mitchell, LeBron, and people don’t understand the effect the effect that like a LeBron James can have on Evan Mobley. Somebody earlier called and said LeBron’s gonna get in the way of Evoli. I’m like, wait a second. If we want to talk about getting in the way of Evan Mobley, I mean, wasn’t that wasn’t that Darius last year in the playoffs, taking more shots on an injured toe than Evan Mobley? Who’s really blocking Evan Mobley
and his development? Probably the fact that you have two guards that like to get a bunch of shots up. You know, if you watch Yeah. LeBron is still getting some shots up
more out of necessity with the Lakers last year than anything else, but he was not holding the ball like old LeBron and dictating the entire offense. You know, that’s not really the case. I’ll hear anybody out. 21647492. If you don’t want LeBron, give me the good reason why you wouldn’t why we do not need LeBron. Give me the reason. because it’s been 3 years now that they’ve embarrassed themselves in the postseason and in turn embarrassed you because it’s not like they’re they’re being outclassed. They’re being outfought. And for a fan base, that’s a terrible embarrassment. They had a great regular season, all this hoham stuff. That’s great. But you guys know damn well when a team gets outfought, you get embarrassed. It’s the same reason why people are not even upset about it. And this I’m going to give away what I was about to sell at 9:43. I didn’t wake up to a single cuss out tweet about the Guardians today. Didn’t wake You know why? Because you don’t care about them right now. You know why? Because they told you back when Jose got hit and nobody did anything about it last week and they’ve lost every single game since. When a team doesn’t fight, when a team backs down, it’s the worst thing for a fan. Because there’s guys I’m talking to right now, they are crazy enough that you know, you and I say like none of you guys would actually fought Steph Curry. Steph Curry is still 6’4. He still can can leg press a Buick. He is a much bigger person than you think he is. He’s just playing in Atlanta Giants now. No, there’s guys I’m talking to who absolutely would get in a bar fight. They have, you know, they’d have to probably have about a fifth of a fireball first, but they would absolutely fight Steph Curry if it meant to defend their city. They would absolutely fight so and so if it felt like they meant to defend their city. So, it’s an embarrassing thing when players won’t push people around to to get something that you want so badly because you know if you had anything you could do about it, you can’t play basketball as well as them. You can’t play baseball as well as them. You’ve been in a fight. You’ve been in a fight. You’ve had your ass knocked out for far less. So, that’s an embarrassing thing. So, if I’m not going to be able to convince myself and trust those guys that they can do it, well, I might as well go somewhere else with
Well, not to mention, might as well get somebody else for We had everybody from Kenny Atinson to Kobe Alman to Donovan Mitchell to Max Truce all questioning the team’s forget forget the physical. They’re questioning the team’s mental fortitude. Yes.
Right. Look, we haven’t done that with LeBron since the JJ Berea, the Cav the Mavaliers. Like we haven’t done that since then.
Yes.
Um that guy has been through every war. He’s not going to be phased by like the Indiana Pacers from last year. They’ve all been This is not happening.
The guys on this team are being challenged by their own people. You are challenging them. But you know it. Go look yourself in the mirror and tell me that you believe that these guys can answer the bell how they are because I I hope that they can. I I am encouraging everybody talk as much trash as you can about this current group because it seemed that Donovan Mitchell gave you the green light to do it. Gave us the green light to do it in the media. So if Donovan Mitchell wants you to do it, he’s sending a message to his team. He’s calling them soft. You know what changes that? LeBron. LeBron would change that. Not that LeBron’s some giant colossal hard ass, but he’s the best player of the generation. And he still has at least one more good year left in him. And if I only have a two-year window out of this, which is what I firmly believe I do, and I’ve said it so many times, and you’ve never fought me on that, so I have to believe it’s the truth that a lot of basketball people would see, what’s the harm in that? I go for the gusto, and things don’t work, I bust it out. All right. Well, I I got a separate apron I could work with now, so maybe it’s not as long as a build as I what I think it’s going to be. 21647492. Mike and Stow, you’re first up on the fan. Hello, Mike.
I’m not. Good morning, guys. How you doing?
Hi.
Welcome back. Welcome back, Anthony.
Thank you.
So, wait a minute. It’s Thursday. He was off all last. He didn’t want to listen the first few days. Fine.
I have been I’ve been listening, but I haven’t got on the last few days. I always listen. Always listen.
Thank you. So, um, I’m going to play the other side just because I know you need somebody, too. Um, I’m reluctant, too. I I I would love another day off like we had back in 2016. Don’t get me wrong. That was awesome. Um, but it really seems like we would have to mortgage so much of our future to get a chance. And in I don’t look, I get it. The East, we’d be the cream. We would we’re probably already there now, especially with Indiana losing two big pieces and Boston looking to, you know, get back under the tax, be cheap, but we still got to beat the West. And I don’t know that, you know, LeBron losing what we’re going to have to lose to get him. What What do we have right What are we losing right now? We’re losing a second round playoff exit. Well, I I know that I don’t trust me, I’m not happy about what I really feel like this year’s exit was partially on the players, partially on the coach. Nobody’s talked about Atinson’s blame and why we had left early. I I honestly don’t. We There’s more done.
But the pro Let me tell you one thing though, Mike, let me jump in for just a moment. I found myself being bothered with the same things I was bothered with JB Bigger Staff, except for the constant complaining to the refs. He did not do that. Kenny does not do that. But there was a lot of the same stuff that we sat there and go, “This is why JB’s losing this team that Kenny had to do the same stuff that he did.” And so if I got two different coaches doing the same thing and making the quote unquote same mistakes, either they’re both terrible,
which who knows? Either they’re both terrible or it’s still the guys that we have on the floor. So I think it’s more the guys we have on the floor.
I totally agree with you, Canon. I mean, those are two terrible coaches. Victor staff probably isn’t enough to get over the he’s probably not a championship coach, but um he’s a really good coach. You know, he’s a players coach, so they’re not terrible. Either one of those guys aren’t terrible, but I do think it is partially on the players, but I just look, we’d have to give up like Garland. We already talked about Garland, Jarrett, and Strus at least. And then, you know, I don’t care about Strus. I mean, I like guys greedy, but you know, if we’re getting LeBron, I’m well, so be it. But I just it would be really I mean it’d be fun, but I just guys we would be gutted. We would be gutted. And if we had any type of a barbar injury,
I just don’t see how we you know and I like I said back to that beating the West. Is that enough to beat the West? I don’t think so. How do we make more, you know, that’s what it’s about. I’ll let you guys
what I think we’re talking ourselves into here, Mike. And you’re kind of you’re not dancing around it. I But I I want to take you to a different place. And thank you very much for the call. I want to take you to the place I I thought you were going with it. You know, we say they built this. They’ve built this. They’ve been So, remember, they trade away three first round picks for Donovan Mitchell. If they built this, this is still Colin Ston and Isaac Aoro on this team. They they went and they took a shortcut. You can take another shortcut if it’s possible. I know that money has to matter and I know Greg Schwarz wrote a great thing and I know he was on the station the other day and he’s like, “Hey man, you got to give up a lot to be able to go out and get LeBron. You got to make some things work.” Yeah. But then you’re talking about mortgaging the future. Well, what future do I have when I got two more years, two more seasons left?
And and the reason I bring up two years, like, you know, we don’t know what Davin Mitchell’s going to do. He has a team option that following year, so they’re going to have to talk extension. Do you know what he’s eligible for in 2027? 76 Donovan Mitchell, $76 million. Um Evan Mobley that year will be making 54. And if you still have Darius Scarland on the team, he’s going to be north of 50 million. That right there puts them over the salary cap, just those three players. So, they can’t go forward with those three as the core. That’s why I laugh um when people talk about a five-year window. They don’t have a 5-year window. They have a two-year window with Donovan Mitchell as your best player. Now, you want to tell me that the core going forward and the window will revolve around Evan Mobley. All right. You know how I feel about Evan. I think he is going to be even better and continue to be getting better. Can he be the best player in a championship team? We don’t know that right now, but you know, eventually the team, the keys are going to be handed to him. But what you can have is the the current core beyond maybe this year or the following year. Evan, Darius, and Donovan. Only people understand that. I think they see them as all young guys that can play for the next 10 years together. Not not under the current format.
We’ve been we’ve been preaching youth and this is partly because the Cavaliers have done this themselves. That’s been part of their messaging for a while, which it it it’s completely understandable when you go from having LeBron and having Kyrie and having Kevin Love to, well, you just have Kevin Love, but you really got to build this thing. So, you have to continue to preach youth. But you’re right. These guys are a little bit further on than we think. And I could say, well, we have all this great big future. No, you really don’t. You really don’t. You have two more years with Donovan Mitchell and I think if you continue to go to this level where you get bounced out in the second round, he’s going to go insane and then he’s just going to turn around and go, “Maybe it is the Cavaliers fault. Maybe I need to be with somebody else here. Well, you can do that now if it’s possible. He’s got to want to come here. He’s got to be open to coming here. Moves like DeAndre Aton makes it a little bit easier to bring him here. I’ll tell you that right now. Cuz are you serious about doing it? Cuz hey, I can accuse Kobe Alman of a lot of things. I can accuse him though of also being serious about trying to win a championship. We ain’t goofing around over here. He’s definitely definitely you can be critical of some of the moves he’s made being the wrong moves, but damn he’s he’s gone for the gusto whether we like it or not. 21647492. They talked about this last night with Anthony Alant and Nick Padone on our night show on overtime here on the fan. Hit it. Padone’s a nice young man and I will admit I think he’s got a bright future. I’ve been annoyed like crazy by him over the last couple of years about this LeBron thing. This is me talking about Nick right now. Right. He’s also right. He is correct. I’m not blowing up everything. With this current team, I have hope. With a team with LeBron, if you can make the money work, you have expectation. Folks, there is a tremendous difference between hope and expectation. You will expect to go to the finals. I think right now the best you can do is hope. Right. Right now. Well, what are the what are the Orlando Magic doing? Oh my god. What are the Hawks doing? Could the Hawks get in our way? If you have LeBron again, you don’t care about any of that. You guys went out there and you did it. You guys made this huge move to bring this guy in. Go out and do it. That’s called expectation. Holding them to a higher standard instead of hoping. It is another shortcut and it will be short. It’s a year or maybe a second, but that’s where we’re at right now. I think regardless of whether or not LeBron is here,

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