LOS ANGELES — Thirty thoughts from All-Star weekend …
1. The handful of executives I spoke to this weekend agreed: The Cavs did well to flip their roster with limited resources. They entered the trade deadline with essentially two appealing assets: their own first-round pick and Jae Crowder, who despite his struggles in Cleveland still held value because of his contract and the belief that he simply wasn’t a good fit here. (One more time: The Cavs were never strongly considering flipping the Brooklyn Nets pick.)
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2. In fact, one executive I spoke to, who has a history with Crowder, insisted he knew all along Crowder wouldn’t fit in Cleveland. Crowder is a system player who thrived under Brad Stevens with the Boston Celtics. The Cavs’ offensive system is LeBron James.
3. Tyronn Lue runs a matchup-based system around LeBron that some players, like Crowder, struggle to grasp because they’re never sure where their shots are coming from or what their assignment will be night to night. As I wrote previously this season, Crowder never adjusted to his role here and was likely thrilled with the trade to Utah.
4. The deals GM Koby Altman executed at the deadline seem to position the Cavs as the favorites again in the East, at least according to the folks I asked here. Boston just isn’t ready yet, and the loss of Gordon Hayward obviously doesn’t help, although there is a belief the Celtics could enter next season as the East favorites.
5. Regardless of what James decides to do in free agency this summer, the Cavs’ reign atop the East could be winding down. (Hey, nothing lasts forever, and it’s been a good run.) The Celtics somehow still possess a war chest of draft picks and could conceivably own three picks in the first round in 2019, including the potential for a top-five pick from Sacramento. (It’s too complicated to explain, but basically it’s predicated on what happens with the Lakers’ pick this summer.)
6. While teams are already preparing for a free-agent class in ’19 that potentially includes Klay Thompson, Kawhi Leonard and Jimmy Butler, one executive astutely pointed out that the Celtics just might have the right picks at the right time to swing a trade for a superstar still under contract in ’19, but who makes clear to his current team he won’t sign an extension.
7. Someone like Anthony Davis. It’s all conjecture and speculation at this point, but that’s what All-Star weekend is all about. And A.D. on a team that includes Kyrie Irving and the slew of talent Boston is assembling could realistically be enough to topple the Cavs’ empire within the next year or two — even if James stays.
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8. For at least one more year, however, the Cavs remain on top. Regardless of how they’re seeded, the belief this weekend is that Toronto is the only viable threat that could prevent a fourth consecutive trip to the Finals — but everyone I spoke to picked the Cavs. Now, whether they have enough to topple the Warriors or Rockets is an entirely different conversation — they probably don’t.
9. In fact, I’m not sure how much, if at all, they improved the talent on the floor with all of these trades. But from what I’ve been told (I haven’t experienced it yet because I’ve been away), the toxic culture in the locker room has vanished. The mood in the locker room needed to be cleansed, even if it didn’t result in a significant talent upgrade. More important, James’ apparent on-court protest during the month of January has also vanished. James wanted changes to the roster, and he got them.
10. I heard from a number of you during my brief hiatus about the article I posted right before the trade deadline and, in hindsight, how it was reported. I stand by everything I wrote. The gap between James and the Cavs was indeed widening. The Cavs did ignore his requests last summer. The belief among players and others in the organization was indeed that Dan Gilbert was controlling Altman and the roster.
11. Now, Altman certainly proved that last part to be incorrect, and for that he receives full credit. It was a heck of a deadline day. His flurry of deals showed that he is indeed in charge. In fact, one person told me Gilbert was sometimes difficult to reach leading up to the deadline because he was preoccupied with far more important, real life issues — the health of his son, Nick, who had successful brain surgery a few days ago.
12. The fact James won his third All-Star MVP award was curious to me, particularly since this award came exactly 10 years after his last All-Star MVP. James fell two assists shy of becoming the first player in history to post multiple triple-doubles in an All-Star game, but more important, he broke Michael Jordan’s record for the widest gap between All-Star MVPs. Jordan previously went eight years between his victories in 1988 and 1996.
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13. Why does this matter? Because I’ve written for years how if James wins another regular season MVP award, he will surpass Jordan for the widest gap between MVP seasons. Jordan once went four years between MVP trophies. James, however, hasn’t won it since 2013.
14. There was a time before the Cavs’ January collapse when James seemed driven to win his fifth MVP this season. On more than one occasion, he talked about his numbers and how they aligned with a potential MVP campaign. At this point, however, it would take a remarkable finish to the season to get him back into the conversation. But as James proved again Sunday, he is capable of fantastic finishes even at his advanced age.
15. “I’m jealous of Ty that he has someone like that,” Team LeBron coach Dwane Casey said. “He’s a joy to coach. He’s a coach’s coach. He reiterates exactly what should be said, the right things. No BS.”
16. The league achieved its desired effect of making the All-Star game more competitive. Now whether it was the increased prize money or the schoolyard selection of teams that increased the competitive nature is debatable. I personally think James declaring after last year’s game, and other players agreeing, that they had to take the game more seriously had as much to do with it as anything. The increased purse certainly helps, too. The winners received $100,000 for the victory, the losers received $25,000.
17. “I think everybody in this room would be doing the same things we were doing,” Irving said, referring to the money split.
18. The 148 points Team LeBron scored to win the game are the fewest points for the winning team since 2013. Even though it was only five years ago, that was a different era of basketball that predated this obsession of pace and space. The fact the game Sunday ended with James and Kevin Durant locking up Steph Curry in the corner and preventing him from getting off a clean look made the drama even better.
19. “I think the format was great,” James said. “The great thing about our commissioner, he’s absolutely OK with trying something new, to change the format, and it definitely worked out for everybody. It worked out not only for the players, not only for the league, but for our fans, for everybody. It was a great weekend, and we capped it off the right way.”
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20. Casey agreed with James and said he loved the new format. Although this was Casey’s first time as a head coach, he has been part of three All-Star coaching staffs and believes this one easily included the most coaching in terms of drawing up plays and running specific schemes.
21. “It’s something that we talked about yesterday in practice about how we wanted to change the narrative of the approach and the description of the All-Star game,” Casey said. “It was mandated by the league and also by the players. The players association wanted it to be better. I didn’t expect tonight to be as competitive as it was.”
22. The night reunited old teammates such as James and Irving and Durant and Russell Westbrook. All four played on the same team. Irving and James even ran an old action from their days as Cavs teammates when Westbrook dumped it off to Irving, who found James driving to the lane for the lead late in the game.
23. “Before Russ even passed to me,” Irving said, “LeBron was going to circle to the rim. … We’ve done it plenty of times before.”
24. James continued to say all the right things about pairing up with Irving again for one more night. James never wanted the Cavs to trade Irving in the first place, but the team felt it had no choice after he made clear he wasn’t interested in playing alongside James any longer.
25. “It was phenomenal,” James said of Irving. “Anytime you’re able to get back and play with one of your old teammates, and as great as he is, we all know that. The flashiness, the ball handling, the ability to shoot, it was just great to get back on the floor with him.”
26. That’s all well and good, but I’m not buying this as a real and genuine moment. Not for one minute.
It’s safe to say Kyrie and LeBron have made up… pic.twitter.com/7aHSX0Cw9M
— Dime on UPROXX (@DimeUPROXX) February 19, 2018
27. Two weeks ago, the idea of James entering and exiting All-Star weekend — in Los Angeles — without being asked about the possibility of joining the Lakers next summer seemed ludicrous. He even skipped pregame availability earlier this season when the Lakers were in town just to avoid the topic.
28. Yet incredulously, James escaped L.A. without the topic of his free agency surfacing even once. Thank Laura Ingraham for that, along with all those zits the Cavs popped at the trade deadline. If James is looking for a reason to stay in Cleveland, the work Altman did at the deadline to get younger, hungrier and more athletic certainly should look appealing.
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29. On a personal note: The outpouring of emails, tweets, and comments at the bottom of stories from all of you has been appreciated and uplifting. As I wrote about recently, my dad died suddenly last week. No one ever really determined the cause. The heart doctors blamed the brain and the neuro doctors blamed the heart.
30. Regardless, it was an incredibly difficult nine days. I heard from so many of you who either called your own dads or squeezed your kids a little tighter after reading about my ordeal. It’s strange, but it still doesn’t feel real. Regardless, his funeral was Friday morning, and by Friday evening, I was on a flight to Los Angeles for All-Star weekend. Thank you all for the responses. It’s good to be back. I’ll fire up a mailbag in the next couple of days, then I’ll talk to you Thursday after the Cavs kick off the second half of the season at home against the Wizards.
Photo: LeBron James (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
