The Cleveland Cavaliers were able to escape Indiana with a split in Games 3 and 4 on the road to regain homecourt advantage in their first round series and avoid the prospects of facing their final game of the second LeBron James era in Cleveland. Every playoff loss inches them closer to a summer that will be filled with stress as their franchise cornerstone enters unrestricted free agency with zero promises that he’ll stay. There are varied opinions about what teams have the advantage in recruiting James this summer, but there is a relative consensus that four teams lead the pack in terms of getting genuine interest from The King.
The Cavs, Lakers, Rockets, and Sixers are the four squads expected to have a legitimate shot at landing LeBron this summer, as there are only a few other teams with the cap space to give him the max and none of those have much in the way to offer as far as a roster capable of competing for championships. Depending on how things go over the next few weeks, those questions will persist for the Cavs as well, as this roster appears fairly tapped out and capped out for the foreseeable future, which isn’t ideal.
The Lakers also have questions about their readiness to compete for titles, while the Rockets biggest issue in landing LeBron is the incredible cap gymnastics it would take to fit him in (and even so, it would be for well under the max). The Sixers, however, have the cap space and the apparent foundation to compete in the immediate as they are close to dispatching the Heat in the first round and could very well land in the conference finals after a second round series with Boston or Milwaukee.
There have been grumblings for some time that Philly would make a hard push for James and that he’ll listen, but as Philly sees more success behind their young core the more legitimate they seem as a destination. Marc Stein of the New York Times agrees, and he’s buying in on Philadelphia now being the frontrunners for LeBron’s services because of the money, readiness to compete, and their fortunate position of being in the Eastern Conference.
With the free-agent-to-be Mr. James still two defeats away from the maiden first-round exit of his career, and presumably still capable of dragging the worst team he’s played on for roughly a decade to the N.B.A. finals, I’m nonetheless aligning myself with the camp that says LeBron is gone this summer.
I will continue to trumpet the belief that James would be making a huge mistake to leave the Eastern Conference that he has dominated for years by joining the Houston Rockets or Los Angeles Lakers and potentially complicating his annual path to the championship round. But the Cavaliers suddenly look so rickety again that I now fully understand why whispers about the Philadelphia 76ers and their growing behind-the-scenes confidence that they can woo LeBron to Philly this summer are getting louder.
That comes from Stein’s latest newsletter, where he posits the Cavs are proving this roster isn’t a group capable of being a true competitor and James is slowly coming to that realization in Cleveland. If that’s the case, James has long said winning is second only to his family’s happiness in determining his next destination and he could very well see the Cavs as No. 3 or 4 on the list of teams able to compete right now.
Houston tops that list, but Philadelphia is not as far behind as most would have anticipated and if they can make the conference finals (or beyond), it would certainly send quite the message to James. Ben Simmons figures to push James hard to join him in Philadelphia as the two Klutch Sports players appear to have grown quite close, and you can guarantee Joel Embiid will try his best to convince James to come to the Sixers. This summer will be quite interesting as any time LeBron is on the market it offers the chance for a dramatic power shift in the NBA. If he chooses Philly it makes the Sixers the heavy favorites to dominate the East for years to come.
