The Cleveland Cavaliers played their first game with their four new players acquired via trade, and both LeBron James and J.R. Smith couldn’t contain their excitement about it.
The Cavaliers trounced the Boston Celtics on Sunday and each of their four new players — particularly Jordan Clarkson — impressed. After the game, James and Smith reportedly had an interesting exchange and were very complimentary toward the entire team and what it would look like moving forward, per Dave McMenamin of ESPN in an appearance on Outside the Lines.
“I spoke to JR Smith after the game. JR, LeBron, Tristan Thompson, Kevin Love — the only four guys remaining on the Cavs from the championship team of 2016. And JR said they had a conversation on the plane. And he said, ‘Man, look at all these different faces we have now.’ And LeBron said, ‘Yeah, but we got a squad now.’ And he actually said, ‘We have a (expletive) squad now.’”
Watch the appearance below.
Obviously, the team had issues so bad that they needed to trade away six of their role players, some of whom were expected to make big contributions on that team. But when things went bad, the organization traded its old squad for a new one.
And James seems to love that new squad. One would hope that he does because he has a lot of power in the organization. So if he is unhappy playing with certain players, then it can be expected that those players would be gone soon.
Time will tell if this squad works out for James and the Cavaliers. But for the moment, so far so good.