In case you didn’t hear, the worst kept secret in sports was revealed on Sunday when LeBron James officially informed the Cleveland Cavaliers that he was opting out of his contract.
Everybody knew this was going to be the case and it’s expected that King James will re-sign with the Cavs so he can get more money. Simple, right? Well, for the most part, unless something odd happens.
According to ESPN, LeBron James will not re-sign with the Cavs until they bring back everybody. Who exactly ‘everybody’ entails is unknown, though, the assumption here is that the players LeBron James would be refering to are guys like Tristan Thompson, Kevin Love and perhaps J.R. Smith?
The belief is James wants to observe how management goes about retaining and accumulating assets to keep the organization in win-now mode and improve the roster.
The chance of James bolting the city of Cleveland for a second time is slim, but his approach will allow him to assess the Cavaliers’ moves before re-signing. It also applies pressure on the organization to do whatever is necessary to strengthen the team.
So, essentially, LeBron James either wants everybody brought back or he wants to see how the Cavs build their roster before re-signing. That’s an understandable sentiment on the part of the NBA superstar, but his absurdly massive contract is going to make that difficult – assuming they have to step out into free agency at any point.
