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Originally Posted by Thespiralgoeson
I don't necessarily disagree with anything you're saying, but I'm just not sure Lebron sees it that way. You can argue whether or not they're one piece away from a title, but their dominance of the regular season would certainly suggest that they are (at least in Lebron's mind.) I'm not necessarily saying that Cleveland is his best shot at a title, but I could see the Cavs wooing him into staying much more easily than I could see another team convincing him otherwise.
As far as players being used incorrectly, that's an easy fix. Brown is obviously gone and then it's just a matter of finding a coach that Lebron likes(doesn't really matter if he's the best coach or not, just as long as Lebron thinks he is.)
Even if they can't trade for an ideal supporting star, I really think just a decent trade would be enough to convince him to stay.
You also have to take the big picture of the conference into consideration. You mentioned that they can't beat a fellow elite team. The thing is, who are the other elite teams in the East? Boston and Orlando, and that's it. How much longer is Boston going to be in the title picture? They're pretty damn old. Orlando is a very good team, but they hardly seem like an impassable roadblock to the title (the way, say, the Lakers are in the West.)
The bottom line is that it doesn't matter what any of us think about Cleveland's championship aspirations. The only thing that matters is what Lebron thinks. There's no obvious, clear-cut path to the championship, so Lebron is taking a pretty big risk anywhere he goes.
I hope you're right though. I hope his view of the Cavs' situation is as pessimistic as yours. Because if it is, then it pretty much comes down to Chicago and Dallas, and as I've said all throughout, I like Dallas' chances.
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Dominance in the regular season is a totally different beast once you get into the playoffs, we all know that. You face teams that don't get to scout you as intensely as they'd like, there are injuries, B2Bs/4 games in 5 nights, yadda yadda yadda. Cleveland is clearly an above average team, at the very worst. They just had the mindset that they had to dominate the regular season and it'd be the same game in the playoffs when that clearly wasn't the situation.
Brown IS a problem, but he's not necessarily the biggest problem. You can easily make an argument that he is the problem or that the personnel is the fatal flaw. I still believe Jamison can get you 18 a night if he gets to work in the low post with his game...but once you get past him it gets very questionable what you're going to get on any given night. Based on that, I don't think they're just a supporting player away, he'll need a borderline all-star to go with James and I'm not sure how you're necessarily going to get that added on in Cleveland.
As for the elite teams in the East, yeah Boston is getting older but they've probably got Pierce and KG for at least another year or two and Rondo is going to keep emerging as the star, Perkins is a quality center as well, Tony Allen etc. etc. I still think they've got some time left and Orlando clearly was in the way of Cleveland last year and their piece that they got in attempt to stop Howard is definitely going to be out of the picture. With that, you could possibly say they're in the same spot as they were in last year: either the 2nd or 3rd best team in the East and that's more than likely going to get you beat in the semis or conference finals. Atlanta isn't an elite team and they're likely to slip but depending on what Miami does you could watch out for them to move up another level. I also think if Milwaukee can find a way to maintain health, they could push up a level and be near the bottom end of the elite in the East and give Cleveland a run for their money. It's slowly starting to get tougher in the East, that's my point.
I wouldn't necessarily say my assessment of Cleveland is pessimistic, it's pretty damn realistic lol. I know our situation is relatively shaky as well but ours has much more wiggle room for improvement in spite of the fact we are in the tougher conference.