The Cleveland Cavs are still trying to recover after recently missing out on signing LeBron James in free agency. The hometown kid instead took his talents to the Philadelphia 76ers, where he joins a new-look squad that also recently added Jaylen Brown in a trade with the Boston Celtics.
Recently, ESPN analyst and former NBA player Kendrick Perkins made a harsh declaration about the Cavs moving forward in the wake of the James miss.
“This is worse than Brad Stevens losing Giannis to the Miami Heat and Pat Riley. … I think the Cavs, they probably won’t sniff another championship for the next ten years,” said Perkins, per NBA on ESPN on X, formerly Twitter.
It’s hard to feel less inspired about an Eastern Conference Finals run than the Cavs do about their playoff push from a year ago, when they won the first two series in seven games and then were obliterated by the New York Knicks. While the Cavs have gone out and signed Mario Hezonja in free agency after the James whiff and are still being linked to free agent wing Jonathan Kuminga, it’s hard to feel overly enthusiastic about where Cleveland is now when compared to a year ago.
The Cavs still have a considerable amount of talent in their locker room, but James Harden is already starting to decline, Evan Mobley hasn’t taken the leap that many projected for him, and Donovan Mitchell probably isn’t going to get much better than he is right now. We’ll never know what things would have looked like had James returned to Cleveland, but the Cavs have to be wondering what could have been.