Re: Cleveland Cavaliers

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Lloyd: Let’s have the uncomfortable Donovan Mitchell conversation
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CLEVELAND, OH - APRIL 26: Donovan Mitchell #45 and Caris LeVert #3 of the Cleveland Cavaliers high fives during the game against the New York Knicks during round 1 Game 5 of the 2023 NBA Playoffs on April 26, 2023 at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland, Ohio. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2023 NBAE (Photo by David Liam Kyle/NBAE via Getty Images)
By Jason Lloyd
Apr 26, 2023


CLEVELAND — Spare me the Junkyard Dog chain. Sell it. Take the money and buy some shooters. Or a big who can come off the bench. Or someone, anyone, with heart and toughness. There are no junkyard dogs to see here.

The Cavs’ playoff life aged faster than dog years and now it’s already over, blown out of the postseason by a good-not-great Knicks team that pushed them around and imposed their will on a young team making its first trip to the postseason that had every weakness exposed in the span of 11 days.

This is an incredibly flawed roster. The Cavs have no bigs who can help off the bench, very little shooting and a style of play that isn’t conducive to today’s game. It’s fine for the regular season, when the schedule turns quickly, the scouting reports consist of a few basic talking points and players don’t try very hard in the 60-65 games they actually show up to play. But all of that changes in the postseason when scouting reports thicken, tendencies are studied and small cracks are blown into gaping deficiencies.

The honeymoon phase is over. I hope you enjoyed the cake. That was last season when the Cavs were given a pass for their second-half collapse that resulted in missing the playoffs. There were injuries and they were young and it all sounded like plausible excuses to make at the time, but those vanished the moment the Cavs shipped all of their tradeable assets to Utah in exchange for Donovan Mitchell.

The clock is ticking now and time is speeding up. The roster needs to be repaired from 5-15 and they have few resources to do it. They’re all in Utah now.

I’m not going to criticize the Mitchell trade. The Cavs felt their contention window was opening and a superstar became available so they pushed all in to get him. But it’s fair to mention they could’ve made the playoffs this year and lost in the first round with Lauri Markkanen while keeping all those draft picks, so what really have they gained to this point?

Mitchell was a massive disappointment in this series, something he owned after Games 4 and 5. He had the quietest 28 points in a closeout game Wednesday partly because he shot 3-for-12 from 3.

“I didn’t do my job,” Mitchell said. “That’s where I’m hurt. You know what I mean? And I deserve the criticism that comes with that.”
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GO DEEPER

Knicks finish off Cavs, advance to East semifinals

So here it is.

Mitchell was bounced from the playoffs in the first round for the second time in as many seasons, and worse, he was outplayed by Jalen Brunson both years. While he’s made the playoffs every season he’s been in the league, he’s only won two series in six years and has never reached a conference final.

Mitchell thought he was getting traded to New York last summer, which made this first-round matchup a little juicier. To his credit, he has never run from the fact he thought he was going home — he said it at his introductory news conference and he reiterated it again Wednesday after the Cavs were eliminated.

“I feel like everybody else has made it this whole storyline,” Mitchell said. “I knew it was going to be a thing. I’m on Instagram. I see it, it’s everywhere. You guys talk about it. We all talk about it. But honestly, it happened. I didn’t go there. I’m here. They beat us. It’s over with. You know what I mean? And I’m happy with what we have and I didn’t do my job.”
Donovan Mitchell (45) defends Knicks guard Jalen Brunson in the third quarter of the Cavs’ 106-95 loss in Game 5. (David Richard / USA Today)

Mitchell didn’t choose Cleveland. He was sent here when he thought he was going to New York. Mitchell has been a model teammate during his time here. Nevertheless, talk has persisted in league circles throughout this season that he will indeed go to New York at his first opportunity. The Cavs knew the score when they made the deal and now they’re in a difficult spot. Mitchell has two years of team control remaining before a player option year.

Given all the assets the Cavs surrendered to acquire him, do you really believe they can let him walk away during the summer of 2025 and get nothing in return? Dan Gilbert told people close to him for years he should’ve traded LeBron James in the summer of 2009 when James had a year left on his contract the first time he was in Cleveland. Gilbert’s explanation was simply that James wouldn’t commit long term and they couldn’t risk losing the asset for nothing. At the time, trading the best player in the game would’ve been a public relations disaster, particularly when he grew up down the street. But Gilbert vowed after James left in 2010 he’d never again let a player hold his organization hostage.

If Gilbert felt that way about James in 2009, how do you think he’ll react when facing a similar situation with Mitchell? If the Cavs can’t get a commitment from him, they could easily be forced into trading him next summer when he has a year of team control remaining.

All of which puts an incredible amount of pressure on next season to win. Big.

How they get there is more complicated. Their situation hasn’t really changed since the trade deadline. They still have no first-round picks to trade and no great resources on the roster that would return much in value. They have a gaping hole at small forward, something they neglected to address after trading away Markkanen to get Mitchell. That haunted them in this series when the Knicks refused to guard Isaac Okoro and forced him out of the starting lineup because of his inability to consistently make shots.

Caris LeVert is a free agent that must be re-signed since he’s one of the few shooters on the roster. Maybe Dean Wade flushes whatever has haunted him since the Cavs moved on from Kevin Love and plays worthy of the $18 million contract the Cavs gave him in September to be a dependable stretch 4. (Love, incidentally, is a rotational piece in Miami and moving on to the second round while the Cavs’ season is over. Talk about terrible optics.)

Maybe Ricky Rubio, a year removed from major knee surgery, returns to the player who propelled the Cavs into the feel-good story of the league last season. But that’s a lot of wishing and hoping on one unproven big and one veteran nearing the end of his career. Even if both come true, it still isn’t enough.

Regardless of what happens with Mitchell, the Cavs have two dynamic pieces in Darius Garland and Evan Mobley under their control for a long time. Jarrett Allen was also in that discussion two weeks ago before the Knicks yet again demonstrated how easy it is to guard a team with two lane-clogging bigs. Unless Mobley’s 3-point shot develops before next season, it’s fair to wonder how successful this team will ever be in the postseason playing Mobley and Allen together, particularly when they’re matched with a non-shooting wing. That’s a big reason why Mitchell and Garland struggled so badly offensively in this series — there weren’t enough shooters to spread the floor and create driving lanes.

The Cavs tried insisting after the Mitchell trade the organization had a long runway ahead of them and there wasn’t an immediate pressure to win right away. That has quickly changed. The plane is speeding up now. Buckle up.
"I've suffered a great many tragedies in my life....most of them never happened". Mark Twain

Re: Cleveland Cavaliers

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Heat’s Kevin Love proves he can still be a low-key hero: ‘I can add value to any team’

NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 30: Kevin Love #42 of the Miami Heat shoots the ball during Game One of the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals of the 2023 NBA Playoffs against the New York Knicks on April 30, 2023 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2023 NBAE (Photo by Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images)
By Mike Vorkunov
5h ago
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NEW YORK — When Kevin Love signed with the Miami Heat in February he knew he was not coming to South Beach for a starring role. At 34, those days and the five All-Star appearances he racked up, are in the rearview mirror.

But as Love readied to eat a freshly cooked omelet in midtown Manhattan with a smoothie machine whirring in the background and Game 2 of the New York Knicks-Heat second-round series coming up at 7:30 p.m. (ET) Tuesday, he was quite happy with where he landed.

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After falling out of the rotation in Cleveland, he has grabbed hold of a starting job in Miami and is six games deep into what he surely hopes can be a long playoff run this spring. He had his choice of other options when he hit free agency in the winter — Love said he considered the Philadelphia 76ers — but there was a reason he targeted the Heat.

“Because of this,” he told The Athletic. “It’s always been about win and win now. You always talk about culture, but until you get here, it’s pretty eye-opening that its level of professionalism is not really rivaled anywhere else. It’s a beautiful thing.”

The Heat took a 1-0 series lead with a gritty 108-101 victory at Madison Square Garden. They’ve already lost Tyler Herro and Victor Oladipo this postseason and still beat the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks in the first round. On Sunday, they came back from a 12-point deficit and played with a severely hobbled Jimmy Butler for the final five minutes of the fourth quarter. Love was a significant reason why they won. Now, the Heat wait on the fate of Butler’s sprained right ankle — he’s questionable for Game 2.

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GO DEEPER

Cold-shooting Knicks fall apart in second half of Game 1 loss to Heat: 'I was horrific'

Love played just 16 minutes but had nine points, five rebounds and four assists. He helped break open the game in the third quarter, contributing three assists — all on long outlet passes — and a 3-pointer to catalyze a 13-5 run that cracked a tie.

The outlet passes are Love’s calling cards — let this be the latest to note that his middle name is Wesley, after Wes Unseld, the Bullets great and master of that art who also was his godfather. They are how Love can make an impact — with smart plays that can help win games on the margins taking the place of the 20-and-10 nights of his prime.

“It’s like those little things I’m going to have to do to change the game,” he said. “Still gonna get my 3s, still able to pass the ball, always gonna rebound, but I think plays like that can be very deflating. We got a few of them in a row (Sunday) plus one where I thought Jimmy might have got fouled, but that is very deflating for a team not being able to get back.”


Love and his outlet passes will continue to have significance in this series. The Knicks dominated the Cavaliers on the boards in their first-round series and were the second-best offensive rebounding team in the NBA during the regular season. They outrebounded the Heat in Game 1 and still had 12 offensive rebounds, but that total was fewer than all but one game against the Cavaliers.

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His ability and willingness to throw those deep shots can serve as a counter to the Knicks’ aggressiveness on their offensive end. It also can give the Heat some quick and relatively easy points and get them away from the Knicks’ half-court defense. That will be even more crucial in Game 2 if Julius Randle returns from the sprained left ankle that kept him out of Game 1 and gives the Knicks another rugged rebounder, potentially pulling Love or Bam Adebayo away from the basket.

“If you send guys to the glass, if we can actually rebound and we can get the ball out, then you lose the offensive rebounding for them and that’s been such a huge luxury for them because they’re great at it,” Love said. “I mean, they have their bigs obviously offensive rebounding in a major way but then you have guys like (Josh) Hart who are going in there and getting maybe 10-plus rebounds and four or five offensive rebounds.

“Any way we can keep them away from the offensive glass and it becomes a possession game, we feel like it’s a luxury for us.”

This has been quite a turn in fortunes for Love. He had a hairline fracture in his right thumb in November and then was a DNP for his final 12 games in Cleveland.

Love wanted to keep playing, so he sought an exit from the franchise he had spent eight-plus seasons with. In Miami, he averaged 7.7 points and 5.7 rebounds in 20 minutes per game during the regular season.

“I think more than anything I just wanted to I want to be a part of it,” he said. “I wanted to be out there. I felt like I could be productive and help win more than just being a great vet and then helping those guys along. Because I still love those guys. I’m still on the group chat with them. But definitely know I have a lot more to give and just wanted to play.

“So the fact that it came to that, again being in the second round, playing in the Garden, getting the big upset, eight over a one seed, I mean it’s the beautiful thing kind of how it worked out.”

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Love thought he and the Cavaliers were on a “collision course” to meet in the playoffs, either in the first round, as the Heat hovered within seeding range of them before falling back into the eighth seed, or in a second-round matchup. Instead, the Knicks eliminated the Cavaliers in five games.

Cleveland looks as if it could have used a player like Love in that first-round series. The Cavs missed his shooting and his rebounding. They were short on players with playoff savvy and needed players who could hit corner 3-pointers. Meanwhile, the Heat upset the Bucks and moved on.

It was an ironic turn for the Cavaliers, but Love is drawing no extra joy from it. He remains close with those in Cleveland.

“First of all, the experience for Cleveland was great,” he said. “But again, the Knicks are a team that for sure, I think matchups, of course, but you certainly got to have rebounding against them because they just punish teams on the glass with Randle and Mitchell (Robinson) and (Isaiah) Hartenstein and Hart and they just crushed teams on the boards.

“And then you have to draw those guys away from the basket. So I think, in today’s NBA, you need some bigs that can shoot it as well. So yeah, there’s — listen, I think I can add value to any team.”

He has shown that already in this second-round series, and there may be more to come.

Re: Cleveland Cavaliers

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In Cleveland’s case, it’s a similar scenario. Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland each had poor series, because, of course, they had poor series. While those two had more ability to run away and launch 3s than, say, Morant, they faced the same problem of facing thickets of help defenders, blitzes and record-scratch kick-outs to non-shooters.

See if this story sounds familiar: Mitchell went from a 22.9 PER on 61.4 True Shooting in the regular season to 15.9 and 51.8 in the playoffs; Garland from 18.8 and 58.7 in the regular season to 13.5 and 56.6. As with the Memphis guards, both saw their paint attempts dry up.

Mitchell has owned up to his playoff failures, but I don’t think his starts with him. Cleveland got absolutely nothing offensively from its two big men, Mobley and Jarrett Allen. Unbelievably, neither averaged double figures for the series. When they weren’t getting punked on the defensive glass, they were clogging things up for the guards on offense. In theory, Allen is the rim-runner while Mobley is the player who keeps defenses honest, but Mobley is a 23.2 percent career 3-point shooter on 192 attempts. He attempted one 3 the entire series and missed it.

Making matters worse was that the Cavs also got little from the small forward position and the bench. Theoretical starter Isaac Okoro was proven unplayable almost immediately, and Cedi Osman was unthreatening on the perimeter (not to mention savaged by Jalen Brunson at the end of Game 1). Inserting Caris LeVert was essentially an offensive move, as he was the only other dependable source of points.

Whatever the starters did, the bench was even uglier. As mentioned, Osman was underwhelming. Ricky Rubio had a particularly disastrous cameo in Game 1 and finished the series scoreless. And desperation insertion Danny Green played exactly like a 35-year-old guy coming off knee surgery might.

Instead, the Cavs repeatedly allowed the Knicks to guard one man with two. The record scratches where Okoro would turn down an open corner 3 were the most glaring example, but the bigs’ inability to space the floor only compounded things.

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The most hilarious episode came in the first quarter of Game 5 when Garland drove to the cup only to find his entire team milling about in the lane already.

He kicked to Allen lounging 10 feet from the hoop on the baseline, who slowly loaded up for an uncomfortable jumper that was swatted to smithereens by Mitchell Robinson. (Side note: We may need to retroactively delete Allen’s 2022 All-Star selection, like when a college team has to vacate wins.)

In retrospect, the decision to bench and then buy out Kevin Love isn’t looking so hot. Love didn’t fit Cleveland’s vision of defensive domination, but he could have answered the need for both floor spacing and rebounding. His theoretical replacement, Dean Wade, was invisible after the All-Star break (41.1 TS%) and spent most of the playoffs in witness protection.

So, circling back to the big picture, there’s a common theme here: scheme versatility. The Cavs and Grizzlies only had one gear offensively, one style that worked. When opponents mixed things up, they had zero capacity to hurt them in different ways.

The good news for both teams is that they have cards left available to deal with the issue. It is much easier to win in the market for a fifth-best player and some bench guys than it is to find an All-Star. That both teams have their core pieces and are still fairly young leaves them in a great position to build on that.

Yes, there are potential hiccups for both — Mitchell’s 2025 free agency for Cleveland and Morant’s off-court issues for Memphis — but let’s assume those get ironed out for a minute.

Unlike some of their free-spending brethren, both teams are in great shape concerning the luxury tax and in a position to upgrade the rosters in the offseason.

Let’s start in Cleveland, which only has three players under contract for more than $10 million and enters the offseason roughly $35 million below next year’s projected tax line. The Cavs should be able to re-sign LeVert, use both its midlevel and biannual exceptions for additional depth, and still comfortably avoid the handcuffs of the new CBA’s tax apron.

Additionally, the expiring or quasi-expiring contracts of Osman and Rubio (Rubio has a partial guarantee in 24-25) are an opportunity, giving the Cavs roughly $13 million in expiring money to put into a deal for more wing upgrades. While Cleveland has limits here because of the future picks it traded to Utah — the Cavs have no future firsts to trade due to the Stepien Rule (speaking of Cleveland) — the team could take on longer money that another team doesn’t want. That’s especially true if said money expires in 2025, which is right when Mobley is due for a rich extension.

John Hollinger

Re: Cleveland Cavaliers

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Sports
//
Golden State Warriors
Warriors-Lakers will be a beautiful series and discourse bloodbath
Tune out all the noise and savor the chance to watch Steph Curry and LeBron James go at it one more time, writes SFGATE columnist Alex Siquig
Alex Siquig
May 2, 2023
This could be the last chapter of the Steph Curry-LeBron James postseason rivalry.
This could be the last chapter of the Steph Curry-LeBron James postseason rivalry.

Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
The Golden State Warriors sucked it up and played a complete game on Sunday, more or less erasing Sacramento’s Magical Beam from existence, largely on the strength of Kevon Looney’s dogged offensive rebounding and Stephen Curry’s disrespectful 50-point onslaught. I wish I could say I had complete confidence in them getting the job done, but I wish I could say a lot of things. They passed this unlikely test, but this is not the same team that used to absolutely wreck fools with three-minute bursts. It took everything they had to keep the idea of the Dynasty alive for at least four more games.

In some ways, you could say the Kings won the series. They distinguished themselves on the national stage after an eternity away from it, pushing the defending champs to the brink of extinction. De’Aaron Fox more than earned his fawning coming-out party. It all added up to the definition of a moral victory. However, in other, much more literal ways, the Warriors walked away with the actual victory, cheating the hangman again and moving to the Western Conference semifinals to face the born-again hard Los Angeles Lakers and their marionettist, LeBron James. You might not know this, but the Warriors have some history with him.

The dialectics of aggravating background noise
This will be a discourse bloodbath. Anything involving Curry and James tends to be soaked in manufactured drama, but a resumption of the rivalry after a five-year hiatus is a legitimate circle-your-dang-calendar event. Whatever these two Akron-born superstars actually think about each other, they both want this one bad. They both want all the smoke, all the blood. You have to be a sicko to get to where they are — the best of the best of the very best — and this is it, the marquee event of the playoffs, a little gift coming to us earlier than usual.

So much has changed since these two Narrative Titans faced each other in the playoffs. They are both, somehow, on the other side of 35 now. They’ve both added some new championship hardware in the interim, though both are asterisked, one because of the Bubble and the other because everything the Warriors have ever accomplished is asterisked. A championship is not at stake here like the previous bouts, as this is the first time LeBron will match up with his old nemesis for a seven-game series in the West. What’s at stake is something far more important: reputation.

That and whether using the definite article for freeways is justified. I don’t want to hear any of this “the 5” or “the 101” nonsense ever again if Golden State pulls this out.

The army you have, not the army you want
But pretending this is just an arm-wrestling match between James and Curry (I wonder who would win that!) does a disservice to their teammates, many of whom are newcomers to the James/Warriors rivalry. Both teams began their seasons on wobbly ground, but the Lakers, quite unlike the Warriors, swung for the fences and remade their roster as the trade deadline loomed. To better maximize Austin Reaves’ burgeoning superstardom, they added valuable rotation players like Jarred Vanderbilt, Rui Hachimura, Malik Beasley, Mo Bamba, and our old frenemy and locker-room snitch D’Angelo Russell, who will surely be attacked relentlessly in this series as the weak link of an otherwise powerful defensive chain. This influx of wings, and the addition by subtraction of the depressing albatross that was Russell Westbrook, reenergized this Lakers squad as they proved against the salty Memphis Grizzlies, literally eating them alive in Game 6.

The Warriors — with a brutally quick turnaround and just a minimum amount of mental detox from their exhausting series against the frantic run-and-gun Kings — are jogging straight into a different trap. It’s not as though Golden State will be playing the ’90s Knicks, or the 2023 Knicks. The Lakers play plenty fast and will gladly run the ball down your gullet on the break, but they also have the benefit of LeBron James, who, even when he isn’t dominating the ball as much as before, can still orchestrate a methodical, merciless half-court defense to punish and crush the undersized Warriors, especially given their space cadet tendencies. There will be no shortage of Laker wings looking to earn their Curry Stopper stripes and teach No. 30 some humility.

The Warriors can trot out their own defensive aces: Gary Payton II, Andrew Wiggins, Draymond Green, to a slightly lesser extent White Donte. Looney and Green need to shift away from Domantas Sabonis mind set and get their minds right for the task of containing a motivated Anthony Davis, who is an entirely different big man, and despite his own ups and downs, can still be the Superstar 1B they expected in LA. Ask the Grizzlies. Oh, you can’t. They’re dead.

The Lakers are much more physical than lightning-quick Kings, and, despite the Kings’ historic offense, much less one-dimensional. (Kings fans: it’s a good dimension to be proud of!) They can wreck the Warriors in several different ways, big or small, fast or slow, disrupt the flow, turn each possession into a muddy war of attrition that favors them. LeBron isn’t going quietly into that elder millennial night. Especially not against these guys. His Moriarty. A team that he only beat once, after an epic, historic collapse.

This is his first series against the Warriors since that collapse without the spindly cheat-code-for-hire Kevin Durant there. The Super Warriors are a thing of the past. James is going up against a much more flawed, weaker team. A weaker team that nonetheless still has its psychotic pride, and the best player in the world — sorry, Giannis.

Steve Kerr's Warriors rotations will be closely scrutinized, as always.
Steve Kerr's Warriors rotations will be closely scrutinized, as always.

Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
Possible X factors, some genuine
Because this is the City of Angels, there are sure to be bevies of conventionally attractive women on the sidelines of Crypto.com Arena (cool name, very cool) and this concentration of “baddies” might be just what Jordan Poole needs to lift himself out of the muck of his mediocre Kings series, not to mention his whiplash season in general. All joking aside, this is a bit of a nightmare bounce back for Poole. The Lakers have a photo of him tacked to their corkboard with a big, obnoxious target on his face.

Austin Reaves: Is he better than Larry Bird? Impossible to say.

Moses Moody/Jonathan Kuminga: In a perfect world, the sophomores should both get minutes, but I’m pretty sure Steve Kerr is still the coach. Moody likely gets some minutes as a reward for putting up with being benched all season for Anthony Lamb with quiet grace — I mean, his solid contributions in Round 1. Kuminga gives the Warriors something they desperately need against Los Angeles: size and strength, rim pressure, a willing cutter who can make things happen under the basket, sometimes even good things. I expect he’ll get just enough run to impress before he steps out of bounds and Kerr tells him he’s not mad, he’s just disappointed.

Rise above
In order to enjoy this series, the key thing is to watch it for what it is: a second-round matchup between sixth- and seventh-seeded legacy teams that underwhelmed in the regular season. It’s not the answer to a “debate” or a moral judgment about the two most famous guys on the court. It’s of vital importance to push out the noise and truly not give a damn about all that legacy concerns, all the talking heads and TV loudmouths jumping to conclusions based on the own agendas. Skip Bayless is still going to call LeBron James a coward unfit to lick Michael Jordan’s Nikes regardless of what happens.

And you know all the grouchy NBA legends of yore (and many current players as well) are going to assure you they would have swept every version of the Golden State Warriors in three games. Someone might even say Curry is merely a great shooter! Block all that junk out. This series is going to be nerve-wracking enough without the weight of the world’s most boring conversation humming along in the background. Maybe this is the last time we’ll see two of the best go at it. We should savor it, even if we crash and burn.


That said…

The Lakers are the better, more cohesive team. The Warriors have Stephen Curry. Warriors in 6.

Re: Cleveland Cavaliers

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"I have some speculation, there's a couple of outlandish stuff that I'm not going to say right now because I'd get in trouble... I wish I could tell you more and I know I shouldn't tease you," - @WindhorstESPN on Cavs FA rumors.

Windhorst went on to say if you go on social media you can probably find what he was talking about.