The Cavs and Heat both go into Thursday’s LeBron James reunion game in Miami on rather profound down notes. The Heat lost Tuesday to the lowly Sixers, while the Cavs learned today that Anderson Varejao has a torn Achilles tendon and is expected to miss the rest of the season. Still, Miami would probably trade the position it’s in for Cleveland’s troubles. Here’s more on the after-effects still rippling from James’ decision to leave the Heat:
- What bothers people within the Heat who believe that James knew he would return to Cleveland well before he met with Pat Riley in July was that James’ failure to let Miami’s brass know his choice hurt the team in free agency, as Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald hears. James publicly announced his decision on July 11th, after many prominent free agents had committed to sign or had narrowed their options. Those Heat insiders think James’ chief concern was how his decision-making process would play from a public relations standpoint and question whether James wanted more say in personnel decisions and more accommodations for his friends, Jackson writes.
- The Cavs hired Randy Mims, James’ personal assistant, this season, but they complained to the league when the Heat attempted to hire him shortly after James signed with Miami four years ago, claiming it would circumvent the salary cap, a league source tells Jackson.
- Dwyane Wade has no hard feelings, and he told reporters today that James made the right decision when he returned to Cleveland, adding that he didn’t attempt to prevail upon the four-time MVP to stay in Miami. Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports and Jason Lieser of the Palm Beach Post relay Wade’s thoughts in a pair of tweets.
Everytime you say lowly Sixers, I hope you are doing the same for the trash Pistons and the inept Knicks as well.
Good point Cole. There are a lot of awful NBA teams right now.
I feel so sorry for the Heat. He did the same thing to the Cavs……no free agents were left when James and Bosh decided to turn into the Super Friends. At least they got Deng. I hope the Heat stink as bad as the Cavs did for the last four years. I also hope the Cavs win by 50 points tomorrow and leave the starters in until the final buzzer goes off!
I hope the Heat blowout the the cavs. Cavs are the 5th best team in the east. Toronto, Washington, Atlanta, Chicago are all better than the cavs
Miami has dealt with a multitude of injuries all season. Nothing we could have really done about that. Obviously, there were better pieces out there, but we built a pretty good team. They just havent been on the court.