Home opener signals new era

Cavs begin life after LeBron James

Questions are there for the asking as the Cavaliers open the home portion of the 2018-19 season Oct. 21, at Quicken Loans Arena.

What kind of season is in store for the team and its fans with former face-of-the-franchise LeBron James having elected to leave as a free agent in July to sign with the Los Angeles Lakers?

With veteran holdovers including Kevin Love, Larry Nance Jr., Tristan Thompson, George Hill and Kyle Korver joined by promising rookie point guard Collin Sexton, are the Cavs still playoff contenders in the NBA’s Eastern Conference?

Or, minus the services of James, are the Cavs playoff pretenders, destined to be also-rans for the foreseeable future?

If that’s the case, how will Cavs fans react to a steady diet of losses after a heady, four-season run with James that produced 211 regular-season victories, four straight playoff runs to the NBA Finals and the 2016 NBA title?

Will there be capacity crowds of 20,562 inside The Q for every home game this

season, as was the case with James on the roster?

Answers to all of the above questions are forthcoming.

For now, expect a positive atmosphere as the Cavs move through the early stages of their 49th season overall and 25th at the downtown arena that opened in November 1994.

Fans attending the home opener will find wine-colored T-shirts bearing the logo “BE THE FIGHT” waiting for them on the back of their seats.

Because of altered traffic patterns necessitated by the ongoing renovation of The Q, fans planning to be there for the home opener are advised to arrive early.

The project, called The Q Transformation, involves substantial renovations of the arena’s exterior and interior. The arena was closed all summer and reopened

Oct. 2 for the Justin Timberlake concert.

Cavs owner Dan Gilbert in September pledged an additional $45 million to cover overruns in the project’s original budget of $140 million.

That budget had costs evenly split between the Cavaliers and Gateway Economic Development Corporation of Greater Cleveland, a public agency representing the City of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County.

Work on the project is scheduled to be finished in 2020.

SCOTT R. GALVIN — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Cavaliers head coach Tyronn Lue applauds his players as they come to the bench for a timeout during the third quarter of a preseason game against the Indiana Pacers on Oct. 8 in Cleveland.