Cavs cause the chaos

With drama at high level, time to take deal, move on

It’s been a little more than three months since I wrote the following: Hate to say I told you so.

Even when they were beating up the Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals, the Cavs struck me as a collection of aging trust fundees who knew the money was running out but were still taking fancy vacations. In this case, the fancy vacation was the NBA Finals, and yes, the Cavs were defending champions, but there was an emptiness there, no?

Or maybe that’s just me, since I can’t get it out of my head that back in 2011, after LeBron James famously announced his decision to leave Cleveland and take his skills to South Beach, Cavs owner Dan Gilbert wrote an open letter announcing that LeBron, “our former hero, who grew up in the very region that he deserted this evening, is no longer a Cleveland Cavalier.”

Gilbert added that the week leading to the announcement was “... a several-day, narcissistic, self-promotional build-up.”

And Cavs fans, Gilbert wrote, “. . . simply don’t deserve this kind of cowardly betrayal.”

We should know by now that professional sports is big, big business, and that lots of angry words fill the air, and that most of those words quickly are forgotten. Remember last week, when Conor McGregor used all that nasty, over-the-top, racially tinged language during the run-up to his fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr.? Yet as soon as it ended — Mayweather won on a 10th-round TKO — the two men were getting so huggy that it was starting to reach what-happens-in-Vegas-stays-in-Vegas level.

Despite Gilbert’s vitriol, LeBron eventually returned to Cleveland, this after leading the Miami Heat to a pair of NBA titles. I don’t doubt that LeBron’s Akron roots and hometown pride played a role in decision, but it also was a decision. And it was a business decision based on the accumulation of power. Once LeBron returned, all the power on the Cavaliers shifted to him.

Following the Cavs’ five-game dismissal in the Finals by the Golden State Warriors a few months back, lots of things started to happen that no doubt were worrisome to Cleveland sports fans. First, general manager David Griffin and the Cavs parted ways, reportedly because Griffin felt he could not co-exist with Gilbert. This was followed by point guard Kyrie Irving’s request to be His Own Man, which means playing for any NBA team not having LeBron James on its roster.

That team turned out to be the Celtics when Danny Ainge agreed to part with the super popular Isaiah Thomas, plus Jae Crowder, Ante Zizic and ownership of the heralded firstround Brooklyn pick in next year’s NBA draft.

Now there are rumblings the Cavaliers might want to get out of the deal.

Now there are rumblings they got a closer look at the medical records and aren’t hip about IT’s hip.

Now there are rumblings the Cavs might want a “sweetener” to complete the deal.

Now there are rumblings the Cavs simply got cold feet.

Perhaps all of that is true. Perhaps some of that is true.

Whatever’s going on, the NBA needs to step in and direct a succinctly worded message to Gilbert and recently installed GM Koby Altman. And the message should read as follows: Get. Your. House. In. Order.

It would be unfair to call the Cavaliers the biggest laughingstock in professional sports. After all, they’re one year removed from winning a championship. Besides, as long as the New York Jets still have air in their lungs, they remain the biggest laughingstock.

But this has not been a pleasant summer for the Cavaliers. Thankfully, Cleveland sports fans can choose to be diverted by Tito Francona’s Indians, who are having another fine season and are on a collision course to meet accountability John Farrell’s Red Sox in the playoffs.

As for speculation the Cavs might ask the Celtics to add something to the package — a player, a draft pick — this is where Ainge needs to tell Altman what Michael Corleone told Senator Pat Geary in “The Godfather Part II”: “My offer is this: nothing.”

This deal is complete.

Let’s get the players to their new teams and see what’s what.