LeBron James and More Cavaliers Players Comment on Team Meeting

LeBron James is focused on setting a championship tone for the Cleveland Cavaliers as the 2015-16 campaign kicks off. The four-time NBA Most Valuable Player made that clear in a team meeting during the preseason.

Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group reported several members of the Cavs had an uneasy feeling about the team's mindset leading up to the new season. They decided to call a meeting to rectify the issues causing those feelings on Oct. 17 before facing the Toronto Raptors in an exhibition contest the next day.

Cleveland was 0-5 at the time en route to a 1-6 mark in preseason play. While those results don't carry much weight, there was some concern that not everybody was locked in. James was among those who spoke up and explained that's part of his job as a leader.

"Yeah, you can see it," James said. "You can also tell if guys are messing around a little too much. Me as a leader, I'm able to gauge that and see where our minds are at."

Haynes also passed along comments from center Sasha Kaun about the message being sent to everybody in the locker room that day.

"[We were] just making sure everybody is doing the right thing and having the right goals in their heads," Kaun said.

Expectations are sky high for the Cavaliers this season. They are the early championship favorites, according to Odds Shark, and anything less than an appearance in the NBA Finals would be a disappointment given the overall weakness of the Eastern Conference.

They will be tested early, however, with both Kyrie Irving and Iman Shumpert currently sidelined due to injury issues. That's why James and Co. wanted to make sure they were all on the same page before there was potential for things to spiral out of control.

"All I care about is raising banners," James told the Northeast Ohio Media Group. "Nothing else. That's what I'm here for."

It's going to take some time to see if the message truly resonated. Cleveland opened the season with a 97-95 loss to the Chicago Bulls, a tough road test at the outset, on Tuesday night. James scored 25 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in the defeat.

The Cavs have enough depth and, once Irving returns, will feature the necessary high-end talent to win a championship in June. Setting the right tone now will help ensure there's no letdowns later in the season and into the playoffs.