The Prodigal Son and The Ripple Effect

by Austin Peters

This day will never be forgotten.

My two hour out of body experience today began when I was on the toilet (I know this is social suicide but I have to be open and vulnerable to add to the craziness of this day) and received an insane amount of text messages from a total of 13 people. I immediately went to twitter where I spent the next hour refreshing my twitter feed while also having 10 simultaneous conversations and trying not to lose my mind.

After having a couple near meltdowns and spending a couple fifteen minute periods gathering myself, I can finally begin to take it all in. The King has left his South Beach Kingdom to rebuild the one he destroyed four years ago.

LeBron broke the story himself on Sports Illustrated this morning with his incredible letter. Not only did he state his intentions for next season, he listed his reasons for leaving the team he went to four straight finals with; saying that it was time to come home and that with a third child on the way it was a good decision to return to Northeast Ohio (real quick: big shout out to my mom. she called it two days ago. She told me that the wife wanted to go back to Cleveland with the new kid on the way. Nice job, Carrie). A chance to return home and play with an unknown, unproven, young roster was worth more to LeBron than staying with the team that taught him so much about accountability, leadership, and winning.

He only had nice things to say about the Miami Mafia; owner Mickey Arison, Pat Riley, and his best friends, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade. He made the letter as classy as possible. Unlike Dan Gilbert, Mickey Arison expressed his disappointment yet thankfulness for LeBron's four year tenure in Miami.

Speaking of the infamous Dan Gilbert letter, the part of LeBron's masterpiece that I can't get over is the part where he talks about his meeting with Gilbert then ends it with the phrase "Who am I to hold a grudge?" When I read that, I couldn't fight back the tears. The maturity that LeBron has shown over these last four years, starting with "The Decision" fiasco, the promising of rings to the fans, and speaking poorly of them after the 2011 finals, to now preaching messages of family, patience, hope, and forgiveness has been tremendous. It was being reported that the only thing holding up from LeBron fully committing to Cleveland was the letter and to see him write words of forgiveness despite the letter is beyond remarkable. Would you have expected something like this from LeBron four years ago? This isn't just a lesson for us to learn as fans. This will be something that kids growing up watching the game of basketball and being fans of LeBron James will see and learn.

At one point in time, LeBron was criticized for not having won any championships. People murdered him for not winning anything and then chasing rings elsewhere. He got his wish, winning two championships in four years. But Miami had already tasted success. Cleveland hasn't experienced a championship in 50 years and LeBron wants to bring hope and promise to a city that hasn't had much to cheer about since, well, LeBron played there.

He realizes that with a young roster and first year head coach there will be growing pains. Patience will be needed. But it isn't just about the basketball. If he wanted the easy way out, he could've returned to Miami to have another championship contender with the same cast of guys. It's about patience, waiting and working through ups and downs. It's about leadership, teaching younger guys and empowering them to be leaders of their own.  It's about family, remembering his roots and being loyal to the city that raised him.  More importantly, this decision to return to Cleveland is about hope; bringing life to millions of fans who have waited and persevered through lots of pain and trial.

LeBron was right. Returning home wasn't just about basketball.

It's about way more than that.

WHERE DO THEY GO FROM HERE?

Cleveland Cavaliers
As it stands right now, the Cavaliers now have four number one overall picks on their roster in LeBron, Kyrie Irving, and the last two season's number one picks in Anthony Bennett and Andrew Wiggins (#TEAMCANADA). They still have other former top ten picks in Dion Waiters and Tristan Thompson, not to mention LeBron's good buddy Anderson Varejao, who has been with the Cavs with and without the King. The Cavs are reportedly now aggressively pursuing a trade with Minnesota for Kevin Love that would add a third All-Star along with Irving and James. The deal would almost have to include this year and maybe even last year's number one overall picks in Bennett and Wiggins plus additional assets. Cleveland has three first round picks next year which would be great to either use in a deal or hold on to.

Love would solve one of the two problems this roster has: shooting. My good friend McIntyre Webb (@Coach_MWebb) looked up shooting statistics on the Cavaliers current roster. Last year, the three point percentages for guys on Cleveland's team were as follows: Irving 35.8%, Wiggins 34.1% (college), LeBron 40.7%, Waiters 36.8%, Thompson/Varejao 0%. The only knock down shooter on that roster is LeBron, who doesn't shoot many outside jumpers to begin with despite his improving jump shot percentages each year. Irving, Waiters, and Wiggins aren't spot up shooters either as all three shoot better when they create something for themselves off the dribble. We saw in Miami how much success they had surrounding LeBron with spot up, knock down shooters.

It isn't surprising that they are targeting some of LeBron's buddies Mike Miller and Ray Allen. I would be shocked if they didn't end up in Cleveland next season for dirt cheap (it also wouldn't surprise me if Allen retired, however, as it is believed that he is leaning that way). If neither work out, they could look in house. With their second round pick, they drafted Joe Harris from Virginia who was one of the best spot up shooters in the draft who scouts said matched guys like McDermott and Stauskas in workouts. They had also reportedly traded for Stanford's stretch four Dwight Powell (another Canadian by the way!!!) at the draft but as of this afternoon, that deal has not been completed and it looks like Cleveland might be trying to use those assets for another deal. Bennett also has a redeemable season ahead and if he is able to stay in shape this offseason, he has real potential to be a stretch four. Their lineup possibilities are endless; they can go big with LeBron at the three and Wiggins at the two, they could have a shooting lineup that includes one of the above listed shooters and Bennett at the four along with James, and they can also have a killer small ball lineup with Irving, Waiters, Wiggins, James at the four, and any one of Varejao/Powell/Thompson.  If they add Love, that just adds to the unlimited possibilities that innovative new coach David Blatt will have to play around with.

That doesn't solve their other problem, however, and that is rim protection. To beat the Spurs, it was shown last year that the two things needed are shooting and rim protection. The Thunder changed the tide of the Western Conference Finals when Serge Ibaka added his presence at the rim but they came up short because of their lack of reliable perimeter shooting around Westbrook and Durant. The Heat had an endless amount of shooters, but with Chris Andersen's injury they lacked the rim protection needed to stop the Spurs. The team that played the best against San Antonio from a point differential standpoint last season was the Houston Rockets, who had great rim protection in Omer Asik and Dwight Howard plus a plethora of shooters. The Cavs (other than LeBron of course) don't have any of that as it stands today and with Love's defensive deficiencies, he wouldn't any. The Cavs will have to look at some cheap options on the market seeing as it has zero of those rim protectors at the moment. My friend McIntyre also has his own analytical model that values players and rates them according to different metrics. For guys who don't play a lot of minutes that might be cheap, Greg Stiemsma looks like the most valuable guy still left on the market according to his efficiency metric, which takes a look at their win statistics and compares it to their minutes statistics. We took his metric with blocks included and then ran his metric without blocks included and Stiemsma's ratings had a nice jump when blocks were added in. Emeka Okafor is another guy who would provide good rim protection according to McIntyre's Efficiency Rating (MER), but with him sitting out a full season due to injury, it would be hard to see him coming in and giving them what they need. Getting these guys at the LeBron discount (definitely a real thing) would be a worthwhile investment for Cleveland.

Miami Heat
For the first time ever, I have no clue on what a team should do. Without LeBron and presumably Bosh (we will talk about the Ripple Effect in a bit), the only people they have on their roster are Shabazz Napier, Norris Cole, James Ennis, Justin Hamilton, Josh McRoberts, and Danny Granger. One would assume that they would bring back Dwyane Wade and Udonis Haslem, Heat lifers. There is no way that they are on any other big name free agent's list because of how late to the party they would be. They also don't have many draft picks available in the next coming years, so it's not like they can blow it up at all either. With LeBron and Bosh leaving, they are really handicapped as to what they can do. Before, you could've just trusted Pat Riley to do what needed to be done. Now, I'm no so sure they are going to make it out of this offseason alive.

THE RIPPLE EFFECT

I wrote in last year's Free Agency winners and losers column that this summer would be basically a fantasy draft for the league. Are you guys starting to believe me now? I wasn't kidding.

LeBron choosing to leave Miami and go to Cleveland was the scenario that all us basketball junkies dream about because it creates the most pandemonium and roster turnover.  Let's take a look at it piece by piece...

Kevin Love
Minnesota is one of the sneaky winners from LeBron choosing Cleveland. With him choosing to take his talents back home and knowing that the Cavs are going to press hard to bring Love to Ohio, Flip Saunders and the T-Wolves now hold almost all the cards in a potential Kevin Love trade. They can ask for whatever they want. The hold up seems to be over whether or not Cleveland will trade Andrew Wiggins, but if you're Cleveland, you deal him and don't think twice about it if it means bringing in Kevin Love.

Houston Rockets
Chris Bosh would've stayed with the Heat had LeBron decided to stay but not that James is going elsewhere, Bosh is heading to Houston. This has created an incredible amount of shuffling among teams. The Rockets have made the necessary moves to bring him back to his home state of Texas. They are also going to match Chandler Parsons and because they have his Bird Rights, it allows them to match Dallas' offer sheet and go over the cap. I mentioned it on Monday, but Bosh joining the Rockets for Lin, Asik, and a first round pick is just remarkable. If you factor in getting Dwight for nothing, and Harden for 10 cents on the dollar, Daryl Morey is the luckiest GM in the league. With Bosh, their rim protecting, floor spacing McHale Machine will be unstoppable. I mentioned above how they were the best team against the Spurs last season due to these factors and Bosh brings both of those to their team. In my humble opinion, even with the Spurs, the Rockets are the favorites to win the West with Bosh.

Others
Carmelo is the next huge domino to fall. Once he decides (reportedly between a return to New York or Chicago) then it will only get crazier. Guys like Lance Stephenson, Luol Deng, Trevor Ariza, Pau Gasol, and dozens of others will fall to the remnants of teams like Chicago, Phoenix, Dallas, the Lakers, and possibly Miami. People have wondered why guys like Jodie Meeks, Channing Frye, Kyle Lowry, and Marcin Gortat have been overpaid is so that those teams could make sure they locked up the specific guys they wanted before things go crazy after the LeBron decision. Plus, with the amount of cap space floating around on teams and with a rising salary cap and luxury tax, it isn't really a problem for teams to splurge and overpay guys. This will be the interesting subplot going forward now and every offseason.

(Lastly: I want to say this now and plant the seed for you all to remember this in the back of you mind. You think this offseason is crazy? Just wait until 2016. Kevin Durant, Derrick Rose, and many other superstars are going to be free agents. Plus, the NBA's CBA has an opt out in that year and with the amount of power the owners have now, you can bet that we are going to have another lockout. Did I just say that? Yes I did. So don't worry. If this isn't enough for like it definitely has been for me, then just wait. 2016 will be even crazier.)