LeBron, Cavs May Be Overshadowed by the Warriors but Need Them to Fuel Repeat
Believe it or not, the best thing for the Cleveland Cavaliers would be for the Golden State Warriors, as soon as possible, to live up to all their glorious preseason acclaim.
The quicker the Kevin Durant indoctrination happens, the bigger and juicier the carrot that gets dangled in front of LeBron James and his defending NBA championship team as it hikes through the long regular season.
Cavaliers head coach Tyronn Lue knows full well that complacency can set in unless his team finds additional motivation for the repeat process. And Durant's move out West is just what Lue needs for the Cavs to keep growing and prove people wrong yet again.
"With us, with Kevin Durant going to Golden State and all the talk about that," Lue told Bleacher Report, "that fuels our fire. We'll see how it plays out."
The Warriors' start, however, has been far from illustrious.
They opened with a 129-100 home loss to the San Antonio Spurs. The Warriors appeared so disorganized and fearful of making mistakes that the final score might as well have been 73-9.
Since then, Golden State has slogged to close victories in New Orleans (122-114) and Phoenix (106-100) against talent-poor teams. The Warriors play in Portland on Tuesday night, and then the first Durant vs. Russell Westbrook showdown comes Thursday at Oracle Arena.
The Cavaliers, meanwhile, are 3-0, which is good enough. Their banner went up, and their intensity naturally went down after they dispatched the New York Knicks on ring night. But the Cavaliers survived Friday in Toronto during one of those the-other-guys-want-it-more games, winning by three over the Raptors they eliminated during the Eastern Conference Finals in May.
The Cavs also slogged their own way Saturday against an outclassed Orlando Magic team that scored 37 fourth-quarter points as Cleveland opted to take the final 12 minutes off on defense.
Indeed, opponents are going to be more fired up than Cleveland time after time this season. Such is the nature of the champions' wearing a bull's-eye.
But if the Cavaliers see the Warriors living up to the greatness so many have predicted, it's going to provide significant help for Lue to convince his team to use the regular season for growth as opposed to sitting under gray skies, waiting for the calendar pages to turn toward spring.
Lue remembers how the Los Angeles Lakers, early in his playing career, had to find motivation for their (successful) repeat bid in 2000-01. The task isn't easy. It's just so tempting to rest, no matter how superior the laurels of James now or Shaquille O'Neal back then.
"Cleveland hadn't won a championship in 52 years," Lue said. "The Lakers hadn't won in a while [12 years]. To finally get that first championship, it was a sigh of relief. You saw all those banners up from Magic [Johnson], Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar] and [James] Worthy, and you could never get there. Then you finally get there...and you get a chance to exhale. And really think about and reflect on it."
But those Lakers, both driven and distracted by Kobe Bryant's individual ambition—which Lue likens to Kyrie Irving's now—found a way to feel slighted as new champions. They figured out a mindset to tap back into the hunger.
They had to "get greedy," Lue said. For those Lakers, it was a struggle to find real concern from the outside, worries about Bryant pushing the team to bend to his resolve and O'Neal pushing for status quo.
Feeling largely unthreatened by the rest of the league, the Lakers settled for a 56-26 record before blowing through the postseason with a best-ever 15-1 mark. Lue hounded Allen Iverson in the NBA Finals before he left that summer to collect free-agent riches from the Washington Wizards.
Yet Lue distinctly recalls how the Lakers veterans framed the 2001 situation as the world slighting them—in their case, the world said they were too fat, old and satisfied to repeat.
"It gave us motivation," Lue said. "Ron Harper, Brian Shaw, Rick Fox, Robert Horry. Guys were getting older. 'They can't do it; they don't have enough youth.' You hear that, it just makes you want to work harder and do it even more."
And that's where Durant's epic move to the Warriors, according to Lue, can work in the Cavaliers' favor.
It's easy to say Cleveland's legendary comeback against the Warriors mere months ago happened against Harrison Barnes and not Kevin Durant. Golden State's team is the golden one—in the eyes of both educated analysts and casual fans. Already distinguished, if not anointed.
But so long as the Warriors are nowhere close to expectations (see the line in B/R's Superteam: A Warriors Musical when Durant's character sings: "I swear I just came here to grow...by winning each game by 40 or so"), they will not push the Cavaliers to be their best selves.
Durant (31.3 points, 10.3 rebounds, 4.7 assists, 2.7 steals, 1.7 blocks per game through three games) has put up numbers, of course. He always does, and he definitely will while playing at the Warriors' pace.
But he has been hesitant and appeared confused about doing many other things to help his new team.
The Warriors slipped past the lowly Suns on Sunday despite Durant botching what he was supposed to do in Golden State's once-seamless switching defense, giving up a basket and getting a directive from Draymond Green in anticipating the switches.
Green, meanwhile, has sometimes looked lost on offense with his defender totally ignoring him or daring him to shoot more than ever. The Warriors' spacing in Phoenix was often flat-out gross by their lofty standards, with Stephen Curry struggling to find late-game rhythm or room to operate. That the Warriors besides Curry and Durant shot 1-of-17 on three-pointers (and 32 percent overall) Sunday stands as a testament to how the two MVPs aren't making their teammates better yet.
Those inside the Warriors' circle expected they could start slow with so many new faces. So, jump to conclusions at your own risk.
But bear in mind that it took quite a while last season for James to sell the Cavaliers on how far they were behind the Warriors' progress.
Several NBA sources said James is fiercely competitive about him and his team being slighted in favor of Golden State, both before Durant's arrival and now. If the Warriors struggle, however, James won't be able to use outside competition to sell his teammates on the idea they must improve.
The Cavaliers will get home tests Tuesday against the Houston Rockets (with everyone in Cleveland—Cavs included—more interested that night in Game 6 of the World Series next door) and Thursday against Boston (a prove-something opportunity for the Celtics on TNT). Cleveland is so much more talented than either team that it's hard to expect it to lose, but hiccups will inevitably happen for a defending champ.
Those hiccups will be one way for Lue to get the Cavs to refocus.
The Warriors, once they become mighty, will be another.
Kevin Ding is an NBA senior writer for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @KevinDing.
