I’ve seen LeBron James do some remarkable things in his five year NBA career. Last season, he led an awful Cavaliers team to the NBA Finals and this season, LBJ won his first scoring title and brought the Cavs within a game of the Eastern Conference Finals. If you missed James’ miraculous 45 point effort yesterday, you missed what we’ve known all along. LeBron James has historic ability and arguably the most pathetic supporting cast in the NBA. To aid the Cavs in building a championship team around #23, I offer a few offseason pointers for general manager Danny Ferry.

Look Into Replacing Mike Brown: Ideally, the Cavs could have crashed out in the 1st round, allowing them to enter into discussions with Mike D’Antoni. Brown’s IQ is right up there with the backboard at Quicken Loans Arena. After James’ dominating 1st half, Brown began the first half by calling several consecutive plays for gumpy center Zydrunas Ilgauskas. Imagine James in an up-tempo system with a true point guard. He’s one of the strongest finishers we’ve ever seen, but he’s probably playing at about 75% of his true ability because of Brown’s awful system.

Take out the trash: This is made difficult because of the contracts some of these guys have. Hacks like Ben Wallace (signed through 2010), Zydrunas Ilgauskas (2010) Wally Szcerbiak (2009) have large, inflexible contracts that are nearly impossible to move. A friend of mine made an incredible point during yesterday’s game. The Cavs have over $20 million tied up in defensive “specialists” Wallace and Anderson Varejao…but simply cannot have them on the court at the same time.

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If someone were to ask me to give LeBron James criticism, I’d be hard pressed to create a substantial argument.  Tuesday’s game one debacle, however, revealed that the King is a mere mortal just like you and I.  Going 2 for 18 from the floor is just something that LeBron isn’t familiar with.  And something even more unlikely than LeBron’s game one disaster is a repeat performance of equal or greater disappointment.

Some nights, you just don’t have it.  How many lay-ups rattled in and out of the rim that night?  He’s a better player than that and he’s out to prove it.  Kobe Bryant was awarded the MVP hardware on Wednesday but, if you ask me, the King of Cleveland should have been the one hoisting the hardware.  No player does more for their team than LeBron does for the Cavaliers.  Before you scroll down and start cussing me out in the comment box, hear this.  There must be a distinction between the best player in the league and the most valuable.  Kobe Bryant is hands down the best player in the world.  Does he do a myriad of things that make the Lakers appear to be unstoppable?  Absolutely.  I contest LeBron does more.

Delonte West; an unproven commodity who has played for three teams in two years and isn’t a reliable scoring option but is capable of running the point despite looking like a 12 year old who stumbled into Quicken Loans Arena hoping to see Mickey Mouse on Ice.  Wally Szczerbiak; a wily veteran who makes a living on the three point line…but just barely.  Ben Wallace; a once cherished beast in the paint whose age has caught up with him while the days of 21 rebounds, 8 blocked shots, and 1 point are long gone.  Zydrunas Ilgauskas; soft Russian who spends way too much time taking shots from the elbow and not enough time swinging his communist elbows around in the paint.  This is what LeBron James has.  There aren’t any All-Stars on this roster.  There aren’t even any players on this roster who require the opposing team to game plan against.  Then theres the King, a guy who goes for 30, 9, and 8 a night and, if he doesn’t, the Cavs don’t win.  It’s that simple.  The Cleveland Cavaliers are a 15 win team sans LeBron.  With him, they’re the reigning Eastern Conference Champs and a team capable of either laying an egg and losing by 20 or blowing a team out of the water with a superhuman performance on any given night.  This is the essence of why LeBron James is the most valuable player in the league, more so than the best player in the league in Kobe Bryant.

Remember when Lebron James showed up at Jacobs Field with a Yankees hat on? Apparently, Mr. James is a hardcore Yankees fan. He’s so hardcore, Nike has taken his Zoom V’s and designed them into a Bronx Bomber edition. So now aside from sporting a Yankees hat in Cleveland, Lebron will now be rocking Yankees shoes in Cleveland.

Upon first look, you can’t really tell what the shoe is supposed to represent. However, with a glance at the tongue, the picture becomes crystal clear. Did Lebron become a figure at Monument Park recently? Nike all but guaranteed his place in the new Yankee Stadium with that little tidbit. The pinstripes on the side are in white, with the backdrop a dark navy blue. If Nike was going to go all-out with this sneaker, they should have gone with a white background with blue pinstripes. That would have been a lot more authentic.

Aside from the appearance, the shoe has some little hidden attributes that will surely get the city of Cleveland talking. Inside the tongue a description reads, “Le-Bron Jam-es, Clap, Clap, Clap, Clap, Clap”. Are you kidding me? What a staple to this shoe! That alone should make you want to buy this if you are a fan of basketball shoes. With this design, James has suddenly become a living legend among the bleacher creatures! Also, I can’t forget the “New York, New York” insignia also on the flip side of the tongue.

LeBron was looking to honor the Yanks with this shoe and he’s certainly done it. This sneaker identifies the MLB team he holds closest to his heart. Is it cool what Lebron is doing? Hell yeah it is. Lebron is in Cleveland to play basketball, not baseball. Let the guy cheer for the Reds if he wants to; just has long as he pours his heart into playing for the Cavs. The only thing left for Lebron to do is start wearing these on the court. Imagine if he wore them at the upcoming All Star game in New Orleans!

There’s no denying the fact that Lebron James carried a mediocre Cavaliers team all the way to the NBA Finals last year. When the offseason came and went without any sort of acquisition, the message was clear: This is Lebron’s team and with him, the sky is the limit. But the last week has proved that without King James, the Cavs are a mess. A complete, total mess.

With James on the mend because of a sprained finger, the Cavs have had to make do without their star for the last three games. The result? Three straight losses with a scoring average of about 75 points. Is there another team in the league that reliant on a single player? Hell, I’d take my chances with the Lakers minus Kobe Bryant over the Lebron’less Cavs.

Cavaliers coach Mike Brown, who rarely jumps on his team publicly, expressed disgust with its performance.

“I want to see them fight,” Brown said. “I didn’t see any tough or any grit as a team out there.”

Without Lebron, this team is hopeless. And to add to the Cavs’ misery, free-agent bust Larry Hughes is also out for the next few weeks. Is it ironic that LeBron’s MVP hopes are growing more because of injury than his stellar on-court play? Without his gaudy numbers, the Cavs are proving each and every night that they’re one of the worst teams in the NBA without #23 on the court.

With last night’s triumphant 98-82 win over the Detroit Pistons, the Cavaliers asserted themselves as the best team in the East and LeBron James asserted himself as a superstar who has taken his game to the next level. Earlier in this series, LeBron caught a lot of flak from the media about not being the guy who took the pivotal shot or someone who wasn’t taking the game into his own hands. Over these last two games, however, we’ve seen just how dominant LeBron can be.

Last night, LeBron was being double teamed by Detroit Pistons essentially from the start. Every time he touched the ball, it seemed like he would get tag teamed by two defenders like he stole something. In my opinion this is where the true superstar emerged. We saw his super human effort in game five that resulted in him scoring 29 of the last 30 Cavalier points and stealing game five in Detroit. Detroit’s answer to that was to swarm LeBron and not let him get good looks, and that’s exactly what they did. Read the rest of this entry »

On June 26, 2003, the Cleveland Cavaliers drafted the hometown kid that they felt would become their savior. Less than four years later, the Cavs are moving on to the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history. LeBron James’ childhood dream became reality last night with a 98-82 victory over the Pistons. King James and Co. will play for the NBA Championship. What a difference four years makes.

“This is like a dream,” James said, shaking his head. “This is probably the best feeling that I’ve ever had in my life.”

Following James’ historic performance in game five, it was pretty obvious that the Pistons would do anything to avoid a similar performance. The Pistons’ sole intention of stopping LeBron became their downfall. Sure, LBJ shot just 3-11. But he got the entire team involved, nobody more than rookie Daniel Gibson, who went 5-5 from downtown and scored 31 points. On this night, the Cavs weren’t a one man show. The only thing scarier than LeBron is LeBron and a sidekick, which is what Gibson has become.

So relax, NBA fans. The dreaded Spurs-Pistons series we all saw coming turned out to be a hoax. On Thursday night, the player that was hyped as the next You-Know-Who will make his first appearance in the NBA Finals. The city of Cleveland hasn’t won a professional sports championship in 43 years. Thanks to the heroics of LeBron James and Co., they might be able to end their decades of tragedy.