Why the Cavaliers aren’t free of LeBron’s influence quite yet

Even though LeBron James is gone, the Cleveland Cavaliers are still going to be feeling his presence off the court for at least a few more seasons

LeBron James may have left the Cavaliers to join the Los Angeles Lakers this summer, but his influence on the team’s future has yet to fade away. For at least the next few seasons, Cleveland will still be defined by his years there due to a number of moves that were made to either satisfy him or make the most of his prime. When you have LeBron on your team, you automatically become a member of the NBA elite regardless of the supporting cast and you must do whatever is possible to maximize his time there. The Heat did this during his tenure in Miami and the Cavaliers did it during his second stint in Cleveland. Also, LeBron knows the leverage he holds as the best player of his generation and feels no guilt about wielding it to force his team’s hand.

Cleveland is in a decent place now, with a bonafide All-Star in Kevin Love, a potentially promising rookie in Collin Sexton, and several other young role players. However, despite being a team that will be forced to fight just for a playoff spot, the Cavaliers are not in a great position financially, already well over the salary cap for the next two seasons following Kevin Love’s extension.

Some of these contracts are there due to LeBron’s influence, and in a sense, while his absence will mark the team’s on court play this year, his former presence will hamper their flexibility off the court. Tristan Thompson, despite intermittently losing his starting spot and being benched for chunks of last season, is still due nearly $40 million over the next two seasons in no small part because of LeBron fighting for Thompson to get paid.

Thompson was represented by Rich Paul and Mark Termini — the same two agents who helped orchestrate LeBron’s return to Cleveland — who advised him in the fall of 2014 to turn down Cleveland’s four-year, $50 million deal. After finishing his fourth season, Thompson was a restricted free agent and the Cavaliers again offered a deal that would soon be rejected — this time it was for five-years and $70 million. Thompson and his agents wanted $90 million and the two camps fell into a stalemate. In October, though, the Cavaliers lost a bit of leverage when LeBron posted an Instagram photo of him with Thompson, captioned “Get it done!!!! Straight up.”

While it could have interpreted as a shot at Thompson to accept whatever the Cavaliers were offering, it was not taken that way, and Cleveland felt pressure to make both LeBron and Thompson happy by immediately retaining him. Finally, the Cavaliers met Thompson halfway, not giving him his desired $90 million, but a fully guaranteed $82 million over five seasons.

Similarly, J.R. Smith, after having the two worst seasons of his career since his rookie year, is owed over $30 million the next two seasons. Smith was also represented by Paul in the 2016 offseason, when they opted out of Smith’s player option, choosing to sign a new deal instead. In the afterglow of the team’s recent championship, and in their quest to repeat, the Cavaliers agreed to sign Smith to a four-year, $57 million deal.

Apart from Smith and Thompson, the Cavaliers are also still paying players they traded for at the trade deadline last February in order to bolster the team as they tried to win another championship. George Hill and Jordan Clarkson both have deals that do not expire until after the 2020 season and will be paid a combined $62.9 million in the next two years. Both players were brought in out of desperation as Jae Crowder and Isaiah Thomas had underperformed and Cleveland was desperate for veteran leadership in the form of Hill and the immediate scoring that Clarkson could hopefully help provide. On a team not yearning to compete immediately, these moves would have made no sense, but for last year’s Cavaliers, they raised the floor if not the ceiling of a team eager for a fourth-straight Finals appearance.

Now, the Cavaliers are pretty stuck until 2020 unless they make a number of deals to shed salary, but even then, due to salary cap restrictions, they would be forced to take on a similar amount of money in these theoretical deals. Perhaps they could try to move some combination of Thompson, Smith, Clarkson, and Hill for expiring contracts and draft picks that would allow them a chance to be players in free agency while also adding young prospects. These players all have their utility and it’s certainly possible that a contender would be interested in them, finding them more useful than the Cavaliers in their current situation.

All of these decisions were understandably short-sighted. They made sense in the context of having LeBron, desperately trying to put the team in the best position to win a title, but now, as a team that is no longer even guaranteed a spot in the Playoffs, those moves will likely hamper them as they try to be anything other than mediocre. Even though LeBron is no longer a member of the Cavaliers, the team will still be defined by what they did while he was for the foreseeable future.