Peyton Manning, Punditry, and Sugar Ray: While We’re Waiting…
March 10, 2016Late-night Love in Sactown: Cavs-Kings, Behind the Box Score
March 10, 2016Even before veteran swingman Joe Johnson was waived by the Brooklyn Nets on February 25, the Cleveland Cavaliers had expressed interest in the acquiring him. They were spurned, however, as Johnson chose to sign with the Miami Heat. The main reason is that he wanted to be a starter, presumably giving him a chance to boost the value of his next contract, rather than come off the bench.
Before Wednesday, many believed that Johnson would have come off the bench for the Cavaliers, with J.R. Smith and James remaining the starting wings. But, according to cleveland.com’s Chris Haynes, James said Wednesday that he was willing to switch to power forward in order to make room for Johnson in the Cavs’ starting lineup. He reportedly told both Cavs management and Johnson of his willingness to do so.
“All I care about is winning. That’s all that matters to me. A piece like Joe, you know what it does to your team and if he was concerned about playing time or concerned about starting, then I’ll sacrifice. I’ll sacrifice to get a guy like that to help us try to win a championship.”
…
“Man listen, I’ll do anything to win. I’ll kidnap my momma to win,” James said to cleveland.com with a deadpan expression on his face.
(Had LeBron watched the landmark 2001 comedy Saving Silverman, he would understand that the whole idea behind kidnapping someone is to keep your identity unknown.)
This is the latest in a string of odd comments from James — it wasn’t a tweet, at least. While he has logged some time at power forward over the years, he has never longed to be a full-time four. Now it comes up, some two weeks after Joe Johnson signed with Miami? It’s a weird look is all. To be fair, LeBron doesn’t control what he’s asked. (As far as we know, anyway.)
A more charitable view is that James’ comments suggest he is willing to man the big forward spot more often, which allows head coach Tyronn Lue greater lineup flexibility. They could run out a shooting-heavy unit — say, Kyrie Irving, Matthew Dellavedova, J.R. Smith, James, and Kevin Love — or a quicker, defensive-minded bunch like Delly, J.R., Iman Shumpert, LeBron, and Tristan Thompson. If they want to stay big, James can slide back to the three alongside some combination of Love, Thompson, Timofey Mozgov, and Channing Frye. Lue has produced some head-scratching lineups, but at least he has options.
In recent games, Lue has used James at power forward more often. He started at that position in Friday night’s win over the Washington Wizards, when Kevin Love got the night off. The move reaped rewards then, as the Cavs jumped out to a big first-half lead and bashed the Wiz by 25 points.
3 Comments
Assuming he actually made that offer, I’m surprised he didn’t come here. I guess JJ isn’t a title seeking vet yet, willing to make sacrifices to be part of something special. He still thinks he can lead a team himself? Enjoy losing on the first round of the playoffs, 7x all-star JJ.
Having watched Joe Johnson while he was here in Atlanta I can say that there aren’t enough basketballs on the court for Irving, Lebron, Love and Johnson to share. Any time they would get the ball it would turn into a clear out the lane and ISO.
“All I care about is winning. That’s all that matters to me. I’ll sacrifice”
*immediately ducks head and proceeds to drive to basket 700 times in a row*