Cleveland Cavaliers: Wearing Out LeBron James?
By Joshua Howe
Before this season got underway, new head coach David Blatt made it known that the Cleveland Cavaliers would be doing their best to get LeBron James some extra rest this season. A good idea, since having a fresh version of the best player in the world can be a bonus sometimes.
Other than the nostalgia that helped draw him home, LeBron also returned because of the lure of young assets that could help him on the basketball court for years to come.
After his last season in Miami, where he basically acted as the train that the other Heat players rode upon, James realized that he simply cannot carry a team for 82 games anymore and give maximum level effort in the playoffs.
After that incredible month of February last season was finished, when James was annihilating teams left and right, he basically collapsed. He topped it off with that 61-point performance against the Charlotte Bobcats-now-Hornets, and then just keeled over. And despite that, he still managed to, at times single-handedly, power his club to The Finals.
And what happened?
Well, James may be looking past that now, with his focus on this new Cavs crew and turning them into a winning franchise again for the first time since he left four years ago. But fans sure haven’t forgotten, and immediate worries have surfaced about burning out LeBron before the Cavs even get a whiff of the postseason.
Blatt hasn’t exactly been true to his word over the first three games of the season, playing James 43 minutes against the New York Knicks, 41 minutes against the Chicago Bulls and 35 minutes against the Portland Trailblazers.
The rest of James’ numbers have also been uncharacteristically up and down over this early stretch, twice being held to less than 20 points and shooting 33.3 percent from the field in both of those games. He’s already committed 14 turnovers this season so far, including eight in the opener.
The Cavaliers are sitting at a less-than-intimidating 1-2 record right now.
So what’s the deal? Is Blatt essentially wasting James? Will these extra minutes become a pointless burden that weighs on the entire team?
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Not really. Again, it all comes down to the fact that the Cavaliers are in the process of meshing, as I call it. Or, in layman’s terms, figuring things out. Almost all questions can be answered based on this, and no, it does not warrant any freaking out.
I’m looking at you, Cavs Twitter.
What simply can’t be ignored through the first three games is that the Cavs have struggled mightily on defense, but also to a lesser degree on offense. Most people thought the squad would be an immediate beast on that end, dropping buckets on teams like they owned a pail factory, myself included.
But it is taking time for Blatt’s altered version of the Princeton offense to take full effect, and it sure doesn’t help when guys like Dion Waiters decide “This isn’t working” and isolate themselves so they can pull up from 18 feet instead.
These struggles on offense have made the ones on defense even more apparent, as the Cavs haven’t been able to stop anything. There have been tiny flashes, glimpses of what may come to be, but most of the time perimeter players are blowing by defenders, breaking down the team with smart passing and pounding them on the inside.
Just ask Robin Lopez.
To put it bluntly (yet still more softly than how some others might say it), things are a bit of a mess right now. And guess who’s the man to fix it? That’s right. And do you really think that LeBron would be able to do that from the bench?
Watching him closely in these games has shown that James isn’t necessarily struggling as mightily as many claim him to be. Instead, he is just trying to move the Meshing along quicker. He is doing his best to take flat putty and mold it into something grand.
That’s not easy, Michelangelo can tell you that, and like all great artists LeBron will make some mistakes. But these are part of the process, part of figuring things out. Some of these mistakes that look like LeBron’s aren’t even necessarily his.
From those eight turnovers against the Knicks, how many were direct steals? Hardly any. Why? Because most of them were passes that went awry. James spent most of that game trying to get his teammates involved in the offense, and has been doing that over all three games so far.
He doesn’t care about his own numbers, and that’s partly what got him off track. Once he realized that things were going poorly with his teammates and did decide to shoot the ball, he was out of rhythm.
But what can he do? As mentioned earlier, James can’t carry this team alone. He needs all of the cogs to play their part for the machine to hum. There is absolutely zero point in him going out there, scoring 40 every single night and then sitting down while the rest of his team struggles, even if the Cavs win. Those would be wasted minutes.
The reason the heavy minutes he’s had so far aren’t a waste is because he isn’t doing those things. Sure, he had one bounce back game when the Cavs played the Bulls. But that was just a typical great player reaction to a bad game. It’s in his blood.
He’s going to continue to do his best to get his teammates involved, get the offense flowing properly and have something start on the defensive end.
Until then, he’ll keep playing those oh-so-scary minutes. And his stats may stay less imposing because of his goal. Does a great teacher quit helping a student when class ends just because the expected time frame for them to learn has ended?
And as much as James loves to teach, the rest of the Cavs better learn to love to learn just as much. Because if that happens, eventually things will mesh and work out. That’s what LeBron wants, that’s what Blatt wants, that’s what fans want and it should be what the rest of the Cavs want.
If the young members of the team can appreciate and understand what James is attempting to do, while doing their utmost to deliver a positive result, then eventually the Cleveland Cavaliers will turn into the destructive force many mistakenly thought they would already be and LeBron will finally be able to get that coveted rest he so desires.
Until then, The King will keep plugging away and the only wasted time will be that of those who mock him for doing something that even some of the greatest players in history had trouble doing; creating cohesion with a blank slate.