The Cavaliers and Celtics are Eastern Conference rivals and agreed upon a blockbuster trade involving their All-Star point guards. Read more »
Cleveland Cavaliers Analysis
Grading The Deal: Celtics Trade Isaiah Thomas, Jae Crowder, Nets FRP To Cavs For Kyrie Irving
The Cultural Curiosities Attached To Kyrie Irving
Now 25, Kyrie Irving is ostensibly ready to walk away from automatic championship contests every June for the more self-as-business glory of earnestly bowing out, but doing more on the court and for longer, every April or May. Read more »
The Cavaliers Have One Unhappy Star And Three Options
The Cavaliers have few not-so-straightforward solutions available. There's a way out of this Kyrie Irving mess, even if it's only theoretical. Read more »
Carmelo Anthony's Third Act
The way we think now, Carmelo Anthony is a remarkable talent whose best years were squandered primarily on unremarkable teams. But turn that logic over in your head and let it settle into a fresh orientation: is beauty, rare as it is, ever really wasted? Read more »
2017 Summer League Notes On All 30 NBA Teams
Notes and observations on all 30 NBA teams from how they evaluated their offseason moves and what they saw from their Summer League prospects. Read more »
Without David Griffin, What's Next For Cavs Happens On Dan Gilbert's Terms
Losing David Griffin doesn't mean LeBron James is going to leave Cleveland next summer, but step one was getting rid of an executive who made sure the Cavs were as talented as they could possibly be every year. Read more »
Golden State's Decadent Superiority
There are a lot of ways to explain the why and how of the Warriors' dominance, but the most striking thing about them, as they occasionally toiled but mostly calmly outgunned the Cavaliers, was the wearying totality of their talent. Read more »
LeBron's Persistent Desire To Construct Himself For Us
LeBron thinks he should have the strongest word on who LeBron is and what he stands for. Unfortunately, the subject can't control history and the celebrity can't marshall the minds of the contemporary masses. Read more »
LeBron James, Michael Jordan & The Leap From Objective Excellence To Basketball Orthodoxy
Just as a rational person can't deny that LeBron James is the more evolved talent than Michael Jordan, an evidence-collecting observer knows that LeBron hasn't dominated the public imagination in the same way that his coolly bald predecessor did. Read more »
LeBron Makes History As Cavaliers Return To Finals Again
LeBron James will enter The Finals with 5,995 playoff points, eight more than Jordan and nearly 2,000 ahead of the closest active player (Tony Parker). Read more »
LeBron Makes Good On Promise, Cavaliers Hand Celtics Historic Loss In Game 2
What's in store for Games 3 and 4 if the Cavaliers can play better? 140 points? More than 25 made threes? Can LeBron best Michael Jordan's 63, or is he playing too efficiently to take on that type of the scoring load? Read more »
Celtics Run Off Home Floor By Cavs In Game 1
The lack of a rim protector was something the Celtics were able to get away with during the regular season and the early rounds, but was a badly exposed flaw by LeBron and the Cavs. Read more »
Appreciating The NBA For More Than Its Champion-Crowning Exercise
The inevitability of it is only a problem in the run-up to the actual event: Golden State and Cleveland are the two best teams in the league, which is what we want in a Finals, right? And they often draw exquisite basketball out of each other. Read more »
Tactical Quandaries: Cavaliers Vs. Raptors Series Preview
On Dwane Casey's difficult decision on when and how much to play Jonas Valanciunas and whether the Cavaliers should trap DeMar DeRozan instead of continuing their conservative approach on defense. Read more »
The Dion Waiters/JR Smith Power Rankings (Post-Players Tribune Edition)
Dion Waiters' piece made his omission from the playoffs hurt all the more by so eloquently reminding us of the alluring collision of man and myth and menace and Messiah. Dion has decisively won the war he thought he had won long ago. Read more »
Cavs As Doomed-Seeming Favorites Of The East
We have always known the Cavs are sort of screwed up- or, put another way, that they're more excellent than optimized. Predicting their path is folly; they're defined by their inability to hew to any set course for long. Read more »
Tactical Quandaries: Cavaliers Vs. Pacers Series Preview
On the Cleveland's ability to take away the Pacers' transition game and how Indiana will attack Kevin Love in pick-and-rolls. Read more »
Ten-Year Net Rating Rankings (Infographics For All 30 Teams)
Beyond strictly looking at wins and losses, net rating gives a clear picture of team performance. The following infographics show the trajectory of every team in the NBA in terms of how they rank in the category. Read more »
Larry Sanders' Comeback On His Own Terms
Building his life around basketball was hurting Larry Sanders. Like a lot of tall, springy dudes, he was recruited into the sport because of his natural gifts, not because he spent his adolescence dreaming of becoming David Robinson. Read more »
The Maximum Available 2017 Cap Space For All 30 NBA Teams, Version 4.0
With the NBA Trade Deadline behind us and rosters locked in for the most part, it is time for an updated look at what all 30 teams cap space picture looks likes for the summer of 2017. Read more »
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