3. “We’re not better than last year, from a personnel standpoint … we’re a top-heavy team,” James said, adding a few minutes later, “I just hope that we’re not satisfied as an organization. I just hope we not satisfied. How hard it was to do that s---. I just hope we’re not satisfied.”
4. Satisfied, in this instance, means satisfied breaking the city’s 52-year drought and winning one championship. That’s not enough. James wants more.
5. “I don’t got no time to waste,” he said. “I’ll be 33 in the winter and I ain’t got time to waste. That’s what I’m talking about. … When I feel like physically and mentally, me personally, can’t compete for a championship no more or I feel like I can’t do it, then I won’t have this problem. But until that happens, and it don’t seem like no time soon…” He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to.
[...]
8. When the team elected not to match Matthew Dellavedova’s four-year, $38 million offer from the Milwaukee Bucks, it created a gaping wound at backup point guard. The Cavs bet on Mo Williams as the backup, but his sudden retirement the day before training camp opened was a crushing blow. Williams debated all summer whether or not to retire, but the Cavs believed he finally settled on playing one more year. When he changed his mind yet again, it left them scrambling with no viable alternatives.
9. “We got f----- with that,” James said.
10. Tyronn Lue has been piecing together his rotation ever since, trying to bring along second-round pick Kay Felder slowly at times. But James made clear Monday he doesn’t believe Felder or DeAndre Liggins, both untested to this point, can be counted on in the postseason.
11. “No disrespect to DeAndre and to Kay, you think we can rely on them to help us win a playoff game right now?” James asked. “And it’s no disrespect to them. But it’s like, it’s not fair to them.”
