Whats Next for The Cleveland Cavaliers?

It's over. It's finally over the biggest fish in the pond has made his decision. LeBron James will not be re-signing with the Cavs and will take his talents to Hollywood to play with the Los Angeles Lakers. The Cavs organization and Cavs fans will now have to endure another stint without LeBron James. The Cavs had to know that this was coming though right? The Cavs are now tasked with the burden of rebuilding without their best player in franchise history and to some the best player to ever play the sport of basketball.

There are so many obstacles for the Cavs to over come. For starters they are capped out and can only make moves via trades and the tax payers mid level exception. Do they try and trade Kevin Love to dump some salary or keep him as the new building block? The Cavs did take a promising young player with the 8th pick in Collin Sexton out of Alabama. To me he was the second best point guard in this draft behind only Luka Doncic. Will Sexton and Love along with Rodney Hood and Jeff Green be enough to be competitive? We shall see. 

The Cavs being capped out could be beneficial for them. With LeBon now in the western conference it would not be ridiculous to say that the Cavs could contend for the 8th seed in the wide and I do mean WIDE open eastern conference. The Cavs could also take the tanking route and try to get the best draft pick possible to build for the future. The 2019 draft class is stacked with potential and if the Cavs can get a top pick that will definitely set them up for the future. With Sexton getting a taste of the NBA level he will be ready to take it up a notch with whatever top pick joins him in 2019 should the Cavs choose to have tanking season.

Another obstacle is the coaching in Cleveland. Coach Lue has often been labeled as not that great of a coach ,but just having the best player in the Association. Let's give Lue his credit, he did lead the Cavs to comeback from a 3-1 deficit to win the NBA Finals in 2016. Not only did he win, but he defeated the greatest regular season team in the history of the NBA in beating the Golden State Warriors. Lue is now pegged with the task to coach a mix of older and younger players. Lets see if Lue can step up,or if the Cavs decide to go a different direction coaching wise.  

Cavs owner Dan Gilbert was reported saying that he "Couldn't wait to get his team back." Gilbert will now have to live in reality where he has to put together a collection of players to bring the Cleveland Cavaliers back to glory. He now does not have to defer to LeBron James for trades and signings that should be made to keep the Cavs in the championship hunt. Let's see if Gilbert can live up to his word and turn the Cavs into the team he wants them to be. It will be very interesting to see the next steps for the Cavs as they look to overcome the loss of LeBron James once again.

-Evan Brooks (ebrooks_14)