Big issue 1: No team has quite as big an offseason issue as the Cavaliers, who are facing the same situation they faced eight years ago when LeBron James was a free agent and watched his season end in disappointment — that time it was a bitter conference finals loss in Boston. Within two months, he was announcing his departure from Cleveland, bound for Miami.
Now the Cavs are hoping to avoid the same fate. James, at age 33, is heading into another free-agent summer, looking for his twilight destination, the place where he will likely end his career. It could be Cleveland, but the Cavs had a chance to make a statement on their own behalf in this postseason, and instead got themselves swept from the Finals. It was impressive that the team got that far, and it was mostly owing to James’ greatness that it did.
Cleveland goes into the summer with a roster pocked with questions, and though those questions are not as compelling as James’ free agency, they’ll be a factor in his decision. An attempt at the trade deadline to bring in a group of hungry youngsters ended in a flop, and in the postseason, the Cavs mostly relied on an aging core of veterans that was overmatched by the Warriors. That can't give James much confidence in the immediate future of this franchise, let alone the long-term outlook.
James will, of course, have pursuers. The Lakers have been the team most frequently connected to James, and they have the ability to bring in another top-tier free agent this summer to pair with James. The Rockets could also shuffle their own free agents in such a way to allow for the signing of James. And there will be longshots, too, like the 76ers.
On the flip side, there is the possibility that James' free agency can force the Cavs into making a major move before July 1, including one possibility that has made the rounds on the league's rumor mill: Paul George (who was nearly a Cavalier last summer) could opt into the final year of his contract for next season before the deadline, and be traded to the Cavaliers, similar to the path Chris Paul took to Houston last year.
That's a longshot, too. But if you're in Cleveland and eagerly hoping to keep James in town, you need every sliver of hope you can gather.
Big issue 2: Whether James stays or goes, the Cavs will have some chunky contracts on the books, and they'll have to figure out whether any of them can be moved. Cleveland is deep into luxury-tax territory.
That'll be a challenge. Kevin Love, with two years and $50 million remaining (the second is a player option) has value around the league, but he has not played up to the paycheck he's getting. Neither have George Hill ($19 million next year), Tristan Thompson (two years, $36 million), JR Smith ($14.7 million next year) or Jordan Clarkson (two years, $26 million).
For much of James' second act in Cleveland, the Cavs have desperately added players despite bad contracts in order to bolster their depth. And they’ve re-signed players to overwrought deals because they had limited options in free agency. That's created a backlog that the team must figure out how to alleviate, with or without James.
Free-agent outlook: James is the big free-agent problem for Cleveland, but the team will have an interesting decision on restricted free-agent guard Rodney Hood, who arrived from Utah as the big prize of the Cavs' trade-deadline overhaul, a 13.1-point-per-game scorer in three-plus seasons with the Jazz. But in three months in Cleveland, Hood wore out his welcome and torpedoed his entire outlook on the market.
Ideally, Hood is a floor-stretching shooter who can put the ball on the floor. But he dipped from 38.9 percent from the 3-point line in Utah to 35.2 percent for the Cavaliers in the regular season. He collapsed entirely in the playoffs, making 14.3 percent of his 3s and finding himself affixed firmly to the end of the bench — at least until a Game 3 resurrection in the Finals, when he was pulled out of Tyronn Lue’s doghouse and responded with 15 points.
Hood dealt a critical blow to his own free-agent future when he refused to enter a game against Toronto in a late-game blowout situation. He apologized, and the Finals performance may have pushed that incident to the backburner. But the situation raises another red flag for him.
Perhaps Cleveland could give Hood another look if he is unable to get a decent offer on the free agent market and instead is forced to stick around on a qualifying offer, which would give him one year at a very reasonable $3.4 million, and allow him to be an unrestricted free agent in 2019.
But other than that, he likely does not have a future in Cleveland.
The young folks: Give Koby Altman credit — he has put the Cavaliers into a far better position to withstand a potential James departure than they were in eight years ago.
That's not to say the Cavs are bustling with youth. In an effort to maximize James' time with the team, the Cavs gave away their first-round picks this season and in 2019. That will hinder attempts to rebuild.
But they do have the No. 8 pick in this year's draft (obtained from the Celtics through the Nets in the Kyrie Irving trade), and have the opportunity to pick up a good young player. The top tier of potential stars in this draft peters out as we get closer to the 10th overall pick, but the Cavs should still be within the window of potential franchise building blocks at No. 8.
The other youngsters worth watching are a pair of Europeans, 23-year-old forward Cedi Osman and 21-year-old center Ante Zizic. Osman got more opportunities to play this season (61 games and 12 starts) and shot the ball well when he was on the floor.
Zizic, who also came to Cleveland in the Irving trade, played only 32 games, but was considered one of the more promising young big men coming out of Europe last year. If the Cavs go with youth and rebuilding in the event that James leaves, Zizic figures to get a sizable role.
Wait till next year: For the Cavs, next year starts now. They’re going to have turn over every stone possible to see if there’s a deal to be made for a star-caliber player who would entice James to stay, and they likely would be willing to include the No. 8 pick to make such a deal. That’s how important it is to keep James.
If James does stay, then the Cavs remain the experienced hands in the East. They might not be the favorites to return to the Finals — Boston figures to earn that rank, and Philadelphia could move ahead of Cleveland, too, depending on how the 76ers spend their free-agent money. But James will still carry a streak of eight straight Finals appearances into next year’s playoffs, and it’d be tough to wager against him.
If James goes, the Cavs will have some young talent worth testing. They may choose, also, to move on from Lue as their coach and go with a coach better suited for a rebuilding project. A potential starting five that includes Hill and Hood in the backcourt, with Osman and Love at the forward spots and Tristan Thompson in the middle isn’t terrible. If the draftee works out well enough, it could even be a playoff team.
Those are the outlooks the Cavs have now that they’ve been swept — fight for a spot in the Finals with James, or fight for a spot in the playoffs without him.