The talking heads mention Lebron to the Cavs as a "return home". I think he ends up there because they will have the best group in the NBA.

Here is all they have to do.

Sign Lebron

Trade the 1 to the Sixers for the 3 and 10. Draft Embiid and Stauskas.

Your Roster would then be:

PG - Irving
SG - Stauskas
SF - Lebron
PF - Varejo, Thompson and Bennett
C - Hawes and Embiid

That is the best team in the East. Stauskas being fed by Irving and Lebron... Hawes is a pretty good center and if injuries don't stop him, Embiid is the class of a great draft. Stauskas would be left uncovered every time down. Bennett will be fine if given the right job although he will never be a number one option.

LeBron isn't going home, he is going to a better team.

If LeBron goes to Cleveland, it is because he wants to party with JFF

I agree. If the thought is that Lebron wants to play around some younger talent, then the Cavs are the best destination. Bring Ray Allen along with another vet big and that is pretty solid.

Casual observation is that the Heat are DONE! D-Wade is a shadow of his former self and the Spurs made them look 2nd rate (which is pretty much how the entire East looked compared tot he West this year). I heard some funny stuff about how the Heat want to move up in the draft for a point guard, but have virtually no ammo to do it with. Hey, I'll give them credit, they went out and did what it took to make a big splash a few years ago and won two titles, but the Heat's run is now over.

Point being, LeBron has not reason to return in terms of what will be on the court. What I can't say is how much does he like living in Miami compared to Cleveland? How much does his family like Miami compared to Cleveland? Me personally, I wouldn't leave the sun & water!!!

Would be interesting to see how he would be received...

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Would be interesting to see how he would be received...

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They would get on their knees for him.

I honestly wonder if Dan Snyder torched that bridge with his ridiculous Comic Sans rant after James left.

Draft Wiggins
Sign LeBron
Trade Waiters for Omer Asik (with a 3rd team in there)

Would be very surprised if he actually left the heat. Not sure why people are writing off the heat. They won an NBA championship just 1 year ago, have been to the finals in 4 consecutive years, and did it without stellar play from Wade last year. They just ran into a buzz saw this year in SA. Never again will a team shoot as well as they did in the finals. Lebron cares about his legacy, and running out of town after getting embarrassed is a horrible way to show resilience, I'll probably end up being wrong, but I just don't see it happening.

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Not sure why people are writing off the heat

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Because they are about to have a sizeable % of their cap dedicated to a guy that isn't all that great anymore and they can't do much to upgrade the team. Sure, San Antonio was on FIRE, but there were 3 or 4 teams in the West that would have beaten the Heat this year.

If LeBron wants to win in the near future, he either needs to leave the Heat or get the Heat to get rid of Wade.

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If LeBron wants to win in the near future, he either needs to leave the Heat or get the Heat to get rid of Wade.

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Bingo.

Wade is still good but when it comes to 'winnin' time' deep into the playoffs, he is cooked. He reminded me of Shaq in '04 -- you just knew his time to dominate is gone. Bosh may also be on the early big man decline as well.

The Clippers, Cavs, Bulls and Spurs are his best bet to win now. He will not join the Bulls or Spurs for obvious reasons.

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If LeBron wants to win in the near future, he either needs to leave the Heat or get the Heat to get rid of Wade.

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Bingo.

Wade is still good but when it comes to 'winnin' time' deep into the playoffs, he is cooked. He reminded me of Shaq in '04 -- you just knew his time to dominate is gone. Bosh may also be on the early big man decline as well.

The Clippers, Cavs, Bulls and Spurs are his best bet to win now. He will not join the Bulls or Spurs for obvious reasons.

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The Clippers would have to clear a lot of salary and Paul may not age well either. Houston is in a better spot than them IMO because they can get LeBron while keeping Parsons, Harden, Dwight, Beverley, and probably Jones. Fill in with some vets who want a ring. And Houston won the same number of games as Miami last year.

All that being said, he stays in Miami IMO.

Good point. Forgot to include Houston.

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Houston is in a better spot than them IMO because they can get LeBron while keeping Parsons, Harden, Dwight, Beverley, and probably Jones.

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Nope.

Howard+Harden together are 36.17mm. Parsons' cap hold is 1.8mm. Jones makes 1.6mm. Bev is just over 900k.

That is about 40.5mm. Plus you have to put a cap hold for each other position at the minimum. That is another $4mm in cap holds, so you are at 44.5mm in used cap space. That gives you 18.5 mm in cap room that is usable. LeBron's max is $22mm.

But that assumes you can get rid of all those players without taking on a single dime of salary, which I do not think is possible.

I don't think any team in the NBA is excited about the prospect of paying Jeremy Lin $15mm next year to be an average to below average guard.

[This message has been edited by Guitarsoup (edited 6/25/2014 2:10p).]

Lebron's too smart to go back to that dumptster fire of a franchise. Gilbert meddles way too much and as a result, they've blown 3 top 5 picks of their last 4. They might have assets, but the fact remains their management has consistently sucked for the about 15 years now and their only saving grace is that they happened upon the best player in the decade one draft.

Tristan Thompson has averaged 12/9 for the last two seasons. I don't know if that is wasted.

Dion Waiters was at 16ppg this year and is still just 22. The only player picked after him scoring more is Lillard, but Lilliard is a PG and the only position Cleveland had covered in Kyrie Irving.

Bennett has obviously sucked so far.

GS, according to a Zach Lowe article, the Rockets have 17.5m in cap space if they deal Lin and Asik without taking anything back. Clear the other non-guaranteed deals except Beverley and they get very close. LeBron probably isn't getting the full max if he wants to have a team around him. That includes staying in Miami.

Most seem to think Miami, Chicago, and Houston to be the front runners. I still can't imagine him leaving, but if he's not on the same page as Wade and Bosh, who both might be on the decline as well, then maybe it happens. Going to a team with the same record that can stay mostly in tact, if everything I've read is correct, doesn't seem like a bad option. And LeBron will lure role players wherever he goes.

Easy to put up stats on a **** team. General reminder, that Mike James put up 20 a game on a bad Toronto team. Those 2 have been cornerstones on teams that have averaged about 25 wins a year since they joined.

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GS, according to a Zach Lowe article, the Rockets have 17.5m in cap space if they deal Lin and Asik without taking anything back.

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Do the math yourself. It doesn't work.

There is a cap hold of about a half million for every empty roster spot.

Asik/Lin count for a little over 8mm each, so about 16mm off if you take nothing back (but I still contend that no one pays Lin 15mm without giving you something bad back or taking something valuable from you (Jones/Beverly)

So you clear 16mm, by getting rid of them, then have to add 1mm back for the empty roster cap holds. So you clear 15mm for a team that is right at the cap.

Clearing other players doesn't do as much for you because everyone else makes close to the min.

Will LeBron take a discount? Probably. Will he take a 7mm discount to go with a team that has gotten out of the first round once in almost 20 years? Probably not.

And if the Rockets were about to get LeBron, all another team has to do is get an offer sheet in the hands of Chandler Parsons and his cap hold goes up to what the new contract cap hold would be. So if he is getting 8-10mm/year as expected, that is an additional 6-8mm in cap space lost by Houston.


But again, all this is contingent on a team voluntarily taking Jeremy Lin on without another valuable asset, paying him $15mm and giving the Rockets nothing in return, which I contend is not possible.

Harden, Howard, Jones, Beverley and Parsons account for about $40 mil. The salary cap is expected to be about $63.2 mil.

Howard: 21.4
Harden 14.7
Parsons (cap hold) 1.8 [until he signs an offer sheet]
Jones 1.6
Beverly .9
#25 pick 1mm
Eight empty spots: about 4mm
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$45.4

25th pick won't count if they draft a Euro stash.

If the Bulls sign Melo they'd have to be the favorites in the East. That's the one thing they're missing right now is a true scorer. DRose won't have to carry the team anymore which will allow him to be easier on his body and I hear he's really worked on his outside shooting the past two years.

My prediction: Lebron back to heat and he's going to take even less money. Nobody can pay him what he deserves anyway

2 questions....

1. would Lebron returning to Cleveland (despite Gilbert's foolishness) make you like Lebron more?

2. What exactly would happen if Lebron had a Decision 2, and said...."im returning home......to south beach"

I'm fairly indifferent to where he goes EXCEPT that he already made Miami trade up for Napier and made Bosh and Wade opt out of their contracts. Bosh is going to win on the deal if he chooses to, but Wade will lose 20 million unless he gets a sweetheart deal. I'm not sure if Granger and McRoberts can still back out of their deals, but they might have been able to make more money elsewhere. Ray Allen is going with Lebron.

They could be stuck trying to build a team around Wade with Shabazz Napier as their clear cut second best player. Miami has exactly one player already signed next year: Norris Cole. Their only team option is Justin Hamilton. Bleak.

[This message has been edited by Ulrich (edited 7/9/2014 10:16p).]

Is something wrong with the NBA when free agency is more exciting than the regular season?

Supposedly there were trucks picking up his exotic cars yesterday.

Listening to Colin Cowherd yesterday and today...

Some woman called in his show yesterday and said LeBron is going to Cleveland b/c his wife is pregnant and pregnant women want to have their babies at home near family. Colin sort of joked about it and said that made as much sense as most of the crap on blogs.

She called back just a few mins ago and said she talked to someone close to LeBron and that recently he and his wife shared with Riley that she was pregnant with a girl, then Riley goes and tells people that news at a press conference and LeBron and wife were pissed about it.

Per reports out of Cleveland, Lebron's people have asked the police to beef up security around his home after 3pm this afternoon. They say good news is coming today. Who knows if it is true or not.

...and the same was done at his home in Miami. Possibly for different reasons.

It's really sad when an athlete has to request extra police presence b/c of potentially chainging teams.

Especially since he can probably afford extra security.