Nothing Will Ever Be the Same for Cavaliers, Warriors After Game 7 of NBA Finals
Almost nothing about the 2016 NBA Finals has been predictable. And after Sunday's Game 7, regardless of who wins, the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors will be left to cope with the profound effects of this unexpectedly epic back-and-forth series.
It's fitting, given all that's happened, isn't it? The Cavaliers looked finished after Game 4. No team in the NBA Finals has ever come back from a 3-1 hole to hoist hardware. Even when they grabbed Game 5 at Oracle Arena, it was tough, borderline impossible, to imagine them turning the tables on the best regular-season squad in league history.
That win, it went, had more to do with Draymond Green's suspension, which is yet another oddball footnote on this series' laundry list of atypical asterisks. But the Cavaliers took Game 6, 115-101, basically ending the Warriors' night in the first quarter with a 31-11 onslaught.
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When looking at that score, along with the differentials from Games 1 through 5, the idea of Game 7 makes no sense. Every contest has been decided by at least 11 points. Blowout has followed blowout.
Cleveland and Golden State, in fact, are now tied for the ninth-best point differential during wins in NBA Finals history. To have that happen in the same series, of a title round, with one game still to play, is absurd. And yet, these two teams remain evenly matched in their drubbings, as Fox Sports' Gabe Goodwin and ESPN.com's J.A. Adande underscored:
This, in addition to everything else: Andrew Bogut's series-ending injury; Andre Iguodala's ill-timed back problems; LeBron James somehow improving upon last year's Finals performance, making his case as the unchallenged MVP, win or lose; Stephen Curry's ejection at the end of Game 6.
And there's Warriors coach Steve Kerr's reaction to that same ejection, per Yahoo Sports' Dan Wetzel:
No, these NBA Finals are not normal. Far from it. This matchup between the Cavaliers and Warriors is of the sort that sticks with you long after it's over—the kind that will have a lasting impact on each of its participants.
Unavoidable Change in Cleveland?
Defeating the Warriors in Game 7 will not inoculate the Cavaliers against an offseason shake-up. To be more specific, a title does not ensure Kevin Love's return.
As champions, yes, the Cavaliers will be vindicated. They can retain or trade Love without getting lampooned for their decision. And why bother breaking up a reigning hardware-holder? The risk, in that case, would appear greater than the reward.
But securing a title doesn't make Love any less of an awkward fit in Cleveland. He failed to eclipse 12 minutes of action during the Game 6 win, and the Cavaliers are minus-eight with him on the floor in the Finals, compared to plus-eight when he sits.
Is this an issue that will linger even in victory? Or, as Fear The Sword's Justin Rowan argued, are the Warriors just a particularly bad matchup for Love?
The answer might not matter. Because, win or lose, Love still plays power forward, the position for which James is best suited.
Sure, the four-time MVP has the physical chops to get by at small forward. Positional designations are on the verge of meaningless anyway. But James' efficiency on jumpers, despite his sweet shooting in Games 5 and 6, has plummeted since returning to Cleveland. His success rate outside three feet of the hoop during the regular season was as low as it's been since 2004-05, his sophomore campaign.
Pairing James with Love forces one of them to live on the perimeter, making for a less-than-ideal situation no matter how you spin it. Just look at Cleveland's numbers in the Finals when James is at the 4, as calculated using NBA.com's lineup data:
| LeBron not at PF | -20 |
| LeBron at PF | +20 |
| LeBron at PF with Love on the Bench | +40 |
The Cavaliers, a statistical wash against the Warriors, are a plus-40 when James plays power forward with Love riding pine. That's not something they can ignore.
LeBron's Future
Granted, Love's future, and all of Cleveland's, rests on the assumption that James' marriage to the Cavaliers is forever, when it may not be. As The Vertical's Adrian Wojnarowski wrote:
"One more victory, one more magnificent night at Oracle Arena, and James will get to run off with his buddies again somewhere warm. Miami. Los Angeles. Wherever. There's a restlessness about James that craves the next big move, the next power play. Franchises are on watch again, believing nothing's forever in Northeast Ohio. Sooner or later, there's a belief that James comes into play again, a line of thinking that his inner circle has done nothing to dissuade. As for James himself, well, he has gone so far as to publicly describe an end-of-career scenario that doesn't include Cleveland.
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James openly pined for the chance to team up with Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul and Dwyane Wade back in March while speaking with Bleacher Report's Howard Beck. In May, ESPN's Stephen A. Smith (via NBC Sports' Dan Feldman) started "hearing" James might consider bolting for Los Angeles or Miami if Cleveland ever captures a championship.
So this idea of James leaving, though difficult to comprehend, isn't new. It's not even particularly far-fetched. He left the Miami Heat after four straight trips to the Finals because he wanted to rescue the city of Cleveland. His moral compass could eventually steer him into the arms of Anthony, Paul or Wade—or all three.
Maybe it won't be this summer—or even the next. Perhaps it won't happen at all. But by beating the Warriors, especially when he wasn't supposed to, James fulfills his fundamental promise to the Cavaliers—an end to their franchise-long title drought.
And if nothing else, that gives him the option, however unlikely, to leave Cleveland once again, this time free from any official obligation.
Fragility in Oakland?
What follows for Golden State after Game 7 is a mystery. It is not the type of uncertainty borne from the ending to one night, to be sure. That would be unfair, not to mention inexplicably hyperbolic, to say of a reigning champ and 73-win powerhouse.
The Warriors' sudden frailty is the culmination of an unexpectedly trying—and potentially telling—postseason run. Their mortality was tested in the Western Conference Finals, when they were forced to climb out of a 3-1 grave. And now it's being put through the ringer again.
Squandering a 3-1 lead of their own, even at this stage of the season, wouldn't necessitate a teardown. But the way each of the last two rounds has unfolded does complicate their offseason, begging the question: Is their title window really as wide-open as we initially thought?
Golden State has the means to manufacture max cap space and is expected to pitch Kevin Durant no matter what, according to ESPN.com's Marc Stein. That isn't supposed to mean anything. The Warriors are in the driver's seat. He should need them more than they need him. And if he doesn't, so be it. They can run this core back to chase their second or third title in three years.
Except keeping this team intact will be pricey—too expensive, it seems, to justify only maintaining the status quo.
Festus Ezeli, a restricted free agent, may command somewhere in the ballpark of $50 million over three years in his next contract, per Sporting News' Sean Deveney. He is averaging under 8.5 minutes per game in the Finals.
Harrison Barnes remains a max-contract candidate after turning down a four-year, $64 million extension in September, per Wojnarowski. That's unsettling given the Warriors are 17.7 points per 100 possessions better against Cleveland without him compared to with him. It's even more unnerving when you factor in his historically bad duds in Games 5 and 6, per SI.com's Ben Golliver:
Though Barnes has no doubt hurt his value in the playoffs, there will be so much money floating around the NBA this summer. Some team will (probably) max him out, if only to present the Warriors with the ultimatum of breaking up the "Death Squad" or grossly overpaying Barnes to be a No. 4 option.
Re-signing him at any cost once seemed like an easy decision for the same reason chasing Durant has never been portrayed as a necessity: depth. The Warriors bench ranks in the top five of offensive and defensive efficiency through the regular season and playoffs, according to HoopsStats.com. And signing Durant would cost them some combination of Barnes, Andrew Bogut, Ezeli, Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston (non-guaranteed), plus the rights to all their other free agents.
But Bogut, Iguodala and Livingston will be free agents in 2017 anyway. That will cost the Warriors, too. And it's just as difficult to reinvest in a trio of over-30 role players amid a rising cap. Bogut's (knee) and Iguodala's (back) injuries merely accentuate the risk of standing pat.
Win or lose, then, have the Warriors, by their own standards, experienced enough hardship to rattle a proven championship unit? Has Barnes struggled enough to price himself out of Oakland?
Golden State's Heel Turn
Even if the Warriors do nothing to this roster after Game 7, they will still feel the outcome. Never mind the injuries. They used to be darlings. Now they're villains.
James, previously the NBA's enfant terrible, has somehow become a sympathetic figure amid the Warriors' celebrations and disdain for officiating. That his Cavaliers could improbably immortalize themselves at the Warriors' expense has turned them into a team that appears undone, per Marcus Thompson of the Bay Area News Group:
Ejections. Suspensions. Fines. Complaints. Shots to the groin. Is this really Golden State?
The Warriors were always destined to fall out of universal favor. Success triggers that transformation. They have a target on their backs due to their bravado, championship clout, regular-season dominance and Curry's two MVP awards, the most recent of which was unanimous.
We get sick of champions awfully quickly and start rooting for the other guy. Just ask Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls or Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant's Los Angeles Lakers about that phenomenon. Ask James how his fifth MVP award is treating him.
Whatever happens in Game 7, the Warriors as we knew them, flawless and blameless, are gone. And they, much like this year's exact version of the Cavaliers, aren't coming back.
Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com, unless otherwise cited. Salary information via Basketball Insiders.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, @danfavale.
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