Don’t bet against LeBron James taking these weird Cavaliers to the NBA Finals

Whether as a direct reaction to the utter dominance of the Warriors or merely as a coincidence that happened to occur after the Dubs nearly swept their way through the entire playoffs, the whole NBA went haywire during the summer of 2017.

The Bulls traded Jimmy Butler to the Timberwolves, announced they were rebuilding and promptly sold a second-round pick to the defending champs because they have no idea what the hell they’re doing. The Pacers traded Paul George to the Thunder for — seriously — Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis, but somehow thought they were still a playoff team and so signed Darren Collison and Bojan Bogdanovic and traded for Cory Joseph because they don’t know what they’re doing, either.

The Clippers traded Chris Paul to the Rockets for Patrick Beverley, Lou Williams, Sam Dekker, Montrezl Harrell and approximately 19 non-guaranteed contracts, gave Blake Griffin a full five-year max despite massive injury concerns, traded Jamal Crawford in a three-way deal that landed them Danilo Gallinari and stripped Doc Rivers of his front office title. The Hawks traded Dwight Howard’s bad contract for an even worse contract and managed to move down in the draft while doing it. They also broke up the 60-win band for good, not even offering a contract to Paul Millsap, who wound up taking Gallinari’s spot in Denver.

Read More: Will the Timberwolves finally be able to win close games?

Phil Jackson drafted a triangle point guard and then got fired, taking the triangle with him to Montana or wherever the good peyote comes from these days. Steve Mills took over, gave Tim Hardaway Jr. $71 million to come back to the Knicks and then hired a GM (Scott Perry); and then Mills and Perry traded Carmelo Anthony to the Thunder in a deal that did not add any long-term money to New York’s cap sheet. (I swear, that last part is true!) Nerlens Noel turned down a buttload of money, wound up taking the qualifying offer and then found out he’s going to spend the year coming off the bench. The Spurs signed Rudy Gay, the second least-Spurs player in the league behind Michael Beasley, who signed with the Knicks because of course he did.

The Lakers traded D’Angelo Russell to the Nets, made LaVar Ball’s fever dreams come true by drafting Lonzo, got fined for tampering with Paul George and all but announced that their entire future plans rest on convincing Paul George and LeBron James to sign there next summer. The Heat paid almost $200 million to lock in the core of a team that started last season 11-30, and finished it 30-11, plus Kelly Olynyk. The Raptors broke up Lowry + The Bench. The Grit N’ Grind Grizzlies lost their grittiest and grindiest players to Sacramento (Zach Randolph) and New Orleans (Tony Allen). The Jazz lost Gordon Hayward, signed every guy you’ve ever called underrated, saw Boris Diaw retire and saw their best player record an Instagram video where he threw shade at Hayward by repeatedly singing, “These hoes ain’t loyal.”

The Celtics traded the No. 1 pick to the Sixers, who drafted a point guard (Markelle Fultz), announced that last year’s No. 1 pick (Ben Simmons) will be their actual point guard, gave $148 million to a player that has made it onto the floor for 786 minutes in three seasons but might be the best player on the planet in two years or less (Joel Embiid, who tried to nickname a group of the team’s core players the FEDS in his lone mistake of the summer) and gave $34 million for one year to J.J. Redick and Amir Johnson. After trading the top overall selection, the Celtics turned over almost their entire roster, and thus will return only four players from last year’s No. 1 seed in the East. On opening night, they’ll start Al Horford, two stars that weren’t on the team last season (Gordon Hayward and Kyrie Irving) and — due to an injury to Marcus Morris — the last two No. 3 picks in the draft (Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum).

Of course, the Celtics only wound up with Irving because they engaged in a trade with the team that smacked them out of last season’s Eastern Conference Finals — the Cavaliers, who might have had the craziest summer of all. The GM that was the architect of the team’s first-ever championship (David Griffin) did not have his contract renewed, and because of the confusion about who was in charge of the roster in the lead-up to the draft, the Cavaliers reportedly missed out on trades for both George and Anthony, who wound up in OKC instead. Apparently some of those trade talks, in some form or another, involved Irving being shipped out, which he found out about and did not like, and so he requested and was eventually granted a trade.

Before trading Irving to the biggest threat to their Eastern Conference supremacy, the Cavaliers signed Jeff Green and Derrick Rose to minimum contracts, gave Kyle Korver a contract that runs two years longer than LeBron James’ and thus two years longer than his usefulness to the team, and brought Cedi Osman across the ocean.

After shipping Irving up to Boston for Isaiah Thomas (who was flat-out better than Irving last year but is also tiny and three years older than Irving and won’t get on the court until January at the earliest and is a free-agent next summer), Jae Crowder, Ante Zizic, one of the famed Nets picks and a future second, the Cavaliers signed Dwyane Wade; gave Kendrick Perkins a camp invite; cut Kendrick Perkins and offered him a coaching spot, depriving us of the chance to see him lay out Irving with a dirty screen in the season-opener; cut Richard Jefferson and Richard Jefferson’s podcast; decided to turn Kevin Love into a center and bring Tristan Thompson off the bench; decided one of the NBA’s best big shooters (Channing Frye) doesn’t belong in the rotation right now; decided it’s a good idea to start Rose and Wade in the backcourt together even though neither one of them can shoot (or defend) anymore; and saw one of their assistant coaches like an Instagram post about how starting Rose and Wade together even though neither one of them can shoot (or defend anymore) instead of just leaving J.R. Smith in the starting lineup is a bad idea.

And all of this happened with the backdrop of James having a player option that everybody in the league thinks he’s using to get out of dodge next summer.

You know what, though? It really doesn’t matter. The Cavaliers will have James as long as he wants to stay in Cleveland, and as long as he’s there, they’re so overwhelmingly East favorites that it’s almost not worth discussing who’s second. Everybody’s just playing for the right to be a jewel in LeBron’s East crown until we see somebody knock him off.

That’s the beauty of having the best player alive: he makes all your roster fit issues and your weird franchise chaos irrelevant because he’s just that good. He turns every player on your team into a perfect fit, even when they’re a terrible fit. Rose was straight up bad last year, Green has been bad forever, Love can’t defend the rim, Thompson is far less useful off the bench and having Frye on your team serves no purpose if he isn’t popping out for open 3s. There are like four guys on this team that make sense with James at this point; one is going to come off the bench (Smith) and nobody knows when another will play (Thomas). And it doesn’t. f—ing. matter.

Would anybody in their right might bet against James taking these guys to the NBA Finals? Will anybody be surprised when the Cavaliers finish something like 12th in defensive efficiency despite Love being their primary rim-protector? Will people be shocked Wade shoots 37 percent from 3? Will it even register on the shock radar when Green adequately defends both forward spots and records a career-high true shooting percentage? Do you feel comfortable with a “yes” on any of those questions? I hated pretty much all those decisions and I’m still betting on each of them turning up “yes.”

Next: Strengths, weaknesses of the Eastern Conference’s middle tier

That’s what James does. Having him on your team mostly means not having to worry about any of the things that seem like they should be problems. It may not last longer than this year, but for now, the Cavaliers have that luxury.