On a Monday morning, as the Cavs finished a game-day walk-through preparing for the Denver Nuggets, Ty Lue asked LeBron James to come in for a meeting. Lue was unhappy and was going to address it.
The team spent the previous weekend in Florida, first beating the Orlando Magic but then getting crushed by the Miami Heat. In Miami on Saturday night, the entire team had laid an egg. The Heat were playing well despite losing star Chris Bosh for the season and were a potential playoff opponent.
This losing of focus was a bad habit. Losing happens, but losing with an absence of effort is a plague in the NBA. Coaches treat it like a mold: It has to be killed before it spreads. But none of that was what Lue wanted to talk to James about.
At halftime in Miami, James went to the center of the floor and spent several minutes talking to friend Dwyane Wade. They covered their mouths with their warmups so they couldn’t be overheard, but whatever they were saying was funny, because James was laughing. At the time, the Cavs were down 21 points.
Lue is all for fraternization with friends; he was one of the most connected guys in the league. One of the things that awed David Griffin about Lue in his first season was seeing players from opposing teams come up to see him before games. Before, not during. Lue thought James’s actions set a bad example. He wanted it stamped out.
“I just told him we can’t have that, being down like we were and him being the leader,” Lue told Cleveland.com about the meeting. “Just me being a competitor, I didn’t like it. We had a long talk about it. It was good. He understood, he apologized.”
This was a time when it was fair to judge the difference between David Blatt and Lue. Blatt avoided confrontations with James, something James eventually started to take advantage of. Lue was not afraid to seek them out. It had already been happening in film sessions and huddles. Lue had told players, including James, to shut up during timeouts. James still held tremendous influence, and Lue made him a partner in some decisions. But James was not going to go largely unchecked by the coach anymore.
Lue thought his chat did its job. That day James opened his Twitter account and unfollowed the Cavs official account. A few days later he would explain this was the beginning of him focusing in a run-up to the playoffs. He had a routine of blocking out distractions during the postseason. And he was starting early this year, perhaps his discussion with Lue being a factor.
Once again, however, without context the move seemed strange, another coded social media message. He unfollowed other accounts as well, but with more than 25 million followers, nothing he did on the platform went unnoticed.
That he went out and led the team to a win over the Nuggets that night, putting up a triple double that clinched the Central Division title, seemed to be less important to many fans who were perplexed or even alarmed by the move. James became annoyed the focus was on social media and not his play and refused to talk about it.
The next day, Bleacher Report released a long-planned story about James and friend Carmelo Anthony. James had done an interview for the piece six weeks earlier. In it, he talked about how someday he’d love to play on the same team as Anthony and his other close NBA friends, Chris Paul and Wade. This group had begun calling itself “The Brotherhood.” Their families were close and they vacationed together the previous summer, chartering a yacht and sailing out into the Atlantic for a week off the Bahamas.
“It would definitely be cool if it happened, but we don’t know how realistic it could be to have us four,” James said in the interview. “If you got an opportunity to work with three of your best friends, no matter what, it’s not even about sports, it’s about being around guys that you don’t even have to say nothing, you automatically know. We just have that type of history. Can it happen? I don’t know if it can even happen, but it would be cool.”
It was a hypothetical and only a small part of the story. It was also an old interview. But that’s not how the public consumed it. Or James’s teammates. What they saw was this progression: James visits Wade in Miami, James chats Wade up during a blowout loss, James unfollows Cavs, James talks about wanting to play with his close friends a few months before becoming a free agent again.
With all the issues the Cavs were having getting themselves together on the court, this was unneeded turbulence. Griffin was especially upset. He’d stuck his neck out by firing a coach on a first-place team because he was concerned about the togetherness of the team, and James was not helping matters.
Griffin wasn’t delusional. He knew even with these hiccups, James was one of the most valuable players in the history of the league. If the trade-off was occasional issues because of meaningless blips in the news cycle, that’s a deal he was thrilled to make. But Griffin also stressed during the coaching change that accountability in the organization was paramount. He had to back up his words or his credibility was at stake. So after seeing the story, he asked to meet with James.
It wasn’t just Lue and Griffin who were wondering what James was up to. His close friends were puzzled too. James typically saw all angles—awareness and foresight are two of his greatest traits. The same ability that allows him to see passing lanes or predict chances to grab steals carried off the floor. He was highly aware of what his words and actions could do. He’d become an expert at leveraging this gift, whether it was to generate business opportunities, motivate teammates, or sublimely tweak rivals. He didn’t like it, but James knew all this activity had the potential to cause problems.
“He was off his rocker for a little while,” James’s friend and business partner Maverick Carter told Sports Illustrated. “He’s a perfectionist. He likes everything perfect, and he knew this team could be better.”
Whether it was the talk with Lue, the talk with Griffin, or the urging of those in his inner circle, James did respond. There would be no more self-inflicted controversies from him for the rest of the season. “It wasn’t going well, and I had to look in the mirror,” he told SI. “I had to reset, recalibrate and get out of that little funk I was in.”
A few days later the team went to New York City for a three-day stay, where they’d play both the Nets and Knicks. At the first stop, in Brooklyn, they had yet another inexplicable performance. The Nets, one of the worst teams in the league, won by nine. The Cavs were miserable in the fourth quarter, with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love missing all their shots. They were 10 games away from starting the playoffs, healthy, and loaded with talent. The Golden State Warriors, their chief rivals, were a few days away from locking up their 70th win and the Cavs were still having huge breakdowns.
Lue had seen enough. The next day there was no practice, but a film session was scheduled. Film became the least important thing. The team was staying at the Trump SoHo, a high-rise tower with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking lower Manhattan. But no one in the ballroom was looking out them. Lue took control of the room and unleashed a profanity-laced challenge to his players.
He targeted his three stars. He said they had to trust each other, they had to set a standard of knowing what each of them were going to bring every night. Not some nights. Every one. He said they had to police each other. If one guy didn’t do his job, they were responsible for calling them out. Lue especially went after Love and his habit of fading away when teammates weren’t including him. He told Love he was a great player and should demand his teammates, especially James and Irving, respect him and include him.
It was not the type of discussion that would usually happen in late March, but nothing about this season had been typical. Lue had made it clear on his team there was no golden child, everyone was open to being called out just as everyone could be praised. Even if it were the stars. Then he yielded the floor and the players had their say. It became a giant therapy session.
“To change culture, you can’t treat everyone the same way,” Lue said. “Sitting down and getting on the same page of understanding what they need from each other on a nightly basis and understanding that they have to trust each other and also trust the team. We had that talk in front of everyone and everyone kind of gave their opinion and kind of talked about what they expected and what we needed to do better. I think from that day on, we kind of took off and we became a better team.”
It wasn’t just the players; Lue had looked inward. The team’s defense had regressed since he took over. His new assistant, Mike Longabardi, had highly detailed scouting reports and game plans. On paper it was impressive. But on the fly, the team wasn’t executing. They’d been the sixth-best defensive team in the league under Lue. Since Longabardi became the defensive coordinator, they’d dropped to 13th. Lue admitted he’d overreached and made a mistake. He tossed out the complex defensive coverages and went back to a more basic approach, and he would again oversee the defense within the game.
The next day, the Cavs whipped the Knicks at Madison Square Garden. James had another triple double and Love looked refreshed, scoring 28 points with 12 rebounds. It kicked off a hot streak for Love—he’d average 19 points and shoot 46 percent on three-pointers over the last 10 games of the regular season. His confidence, it seemed to the team, spawned from the meeting where Lue had given him a tough-love pep talk. It wasn’t just Love. In the coming weeks, Lue would refer to that gathering being a turning point in the team’s mind-set. Whether it was the words or the calendar—the playoffs were almost there—the Cavs’ days of aimless performances were at an end.
But there was still distraction. It was Irving’s turn. During the season, he’d publicly been dating a popular young R&B singer, Kehlani Parrish. Both of them had huge fan bases among teens and young adults, and their relationship played out on social media and the gossip sites. In March they broke up. Kehlani began dating an ex-boyfriend, Canadian recording artist Jahron Brathwaite, who performed under the name PartyNextDoor. After several days of attention where she was accused of cheating on Irving, Kehlani attempted suicide. The resulting drama of the supposed love triangle forced Irving to address the situation.
It was a stressful time for Irving, who was privately still dealing with the relationship ending. Then it became public. That Kehlani was from Oakland and a Warriors fan—she had recorded a song celebrating the team’s victory over Irving’s Cavs the previous summer—only added fuel to the hecklers who were descending into Irving’s real and digital life.
“I’ve been through a ton of adversity in my life,” Irving said. “There’s nothing anything or anyone can say that I can’t get through. I’ve been through enough already in my short twenty-four years that most people can say for their whole entire lives.”
That may have been what he was telling himself, but his game suffered. After his personal life became a headline generator, he went into a weeklong slump. Compounding matters, he was under the weather.
He rebounded with a clutch overtime three-pointer in Atlanta and the Cavs beat the Hawks in a game that felt like a playoff matchup. It was crucial for them keeping their lead on the Raptors for the top seed in the East. James had 29 points in the win, but Irving’s 20 and his big basket seemed to help improve his mood.
“Everything surrounding our team is just crazy,” Irving said. “To think that we’re still in first place and we’re still the team to beat, honestly.”
Irving created more attention by calling the Cavs the team to beat with the Warriors setting records. At least this reaction was to basketball, though, and that was a relief even if Lue tried to temper enthusiasm a bit. But Irving was correct; the team had weathered a remarkable number of distractions. They still were erratic at times, and that was worrisome looking forward, but in general they showed resiliency.
Something else was happening behind the scenes: They were becoming closer as a team. The catalyst for it was unexpected, new pickup Channing Frye. He was helping on the floor. Four times in his first month with the team he made four or more three-pointers in the exact role Griffin had envisioned. And his sunny disposition and daily joy started rubbing off on his teammates.
“I get excited for everything,” Frye said. “That’s just who I am. I get excited when we get into these nice hotels and I see how many different soaps we have to choose from.”
It’s Frye’s nature, but it also is the result of a life-altering situation he experienced several years earlier, in which a heart ailment not only put his career in peril but also threatened his life. He ended up missing an entire season. After his recovery, his outlook on his career took a turn. Some players say they’re just happy to be in the NBA. Frye truly meant it.
His positively and, frankly, his naiveté, ended up being a bonus. He’d played in all four corners of the league, from New York to Portland to Phoenix to Orlando, but was blown away by the amenities provided for the players in Cleveland. He was especially impressed with the made-to-order breakfast options at the team facility. That he could have a chef whip up a fresh burrito with a whole wheat tortilla, egg whites, goat cheese, and chicken sausage left him in awe. And then there was the French toast.
“When I first saw the spread, I was like, ‘Free burritos before shootaround? Are you [kidding] me? This is the best!’” Frye wrote in an essay for The Players’ Tribune. “Life moves so fast in the NBA, sometimes we players don’t appreciate the little things. Let’s enjoy this wonderful French toast. Made-to-order omelets. Let’s eat these breakfast burritos. Let’s get some wins and let’s make history.”
Frye arrived after the Blatt drama, after the early spats between the stars, after the contract stalemates. He was a fresh face in every regard, and with his close friend and former college teammate Richard Jefferson, he was generating smiles throughout the team.
Frye was unaware, for example, of the cliques. James had his closer friends—J.R. Smith, James Jones, and Tristan Thompson mostly—and other players had regular dinner partners and conversationalists on flights and bus rides. Once Frye got everyone’s cell phone numbers, he started sending group texts to numerous guys looking to set up dinners or have conversations about games that were happening on TV.
“All of a sudden I was just on a text chain with LeBron, Kev, and Champ [Jones’s nickname]. You’re just like, ‘Chan, why did you include us?’” Jefferson said. “He’s like, ‘I don’t know, you guys are the ones I wanted to talk to.’ All of a sudden the four of us are texting through a game.”
“You have this seven-foot professional goofball that walks in and everything changes. Channing doesn’t know anything about the supposed locker room dynamic. Channing doesn’t know anything. He’s an adult kid. And he’s going to send stupid jokes and now we’re all sending stupid jokes to one another and he’s kind of breaking down barriers. And when you inject that energy of a guy that just wants to be friends with everybody, wants to laugh with everybody, you all realize how good it can be.”
The Cavs rested some players as the season wound down, causing them to lose a game or two. Irving had a minor ankle issue. Iman Shumpert missed a game with a sore knee. James took several games off, the team trying to keep him as fresh as possible for the playoff run. But they did enough to stay out ahead of the Raptors.
On the second-to-last night of the season, they clinched home court advantage throughout the Eastern Conference playoffs, winning their 57th game in beating the Hawks again. James was magnificent with 34 points, and Irving’s legs looked strong. He nailed five three-pointers to rack up 35 points. Irving had gotten himself in tremendous physical condition, especially considering he missed so much of the season. He was never out of shape early in his career, but he wasn’t in the sort of condition that he could’ve been. His regimented recovery from the knee surgery and Lue’s mandated conditioning efforts had worked. Irving was ripped and looking strong.
Meanwhile, for all his unusual behavior, James had put together a dominating finish to the season. He was named Eastern Conference Player of the Month for February, March, and April. Stephen Curry was about to win the first-ever unanimous MVP award as the Warriors were about to win their 73rd game. But under the radar, at least as under the radar as James could get, he may have been the league’s best player over the finishing kick.
After Lue’s admonishment about the halftime antics with Wade in Miami, James’s focus was noticeably improved. He averaged 28.4 points, eight rebounds, and 8.5 assists, and shot 51 percent on three-pointers and 63 percent overall for the rest of the season. He had gotten to a point in his career where he slowly built during the year, aiming to ramp up for the playoffs. Maybe he’d have played his best and most focused basketball over the final two months with Blatt as the coach too. Or maybe Lue’s style of challenging him was really making a difference. The Cavs front office believed it was the latter.
Combined with Love’s improved play after his cursing session with Lue, the team was feeling rather good about itself. Not everyone agreed. They’d had so many bad losses and so many times they’d looked like they’d arrived only to fall back. It was hard to believe they’d really turned a corner.
Lue, a realist, knew what he saw. With James playing this well and him feeling his team coming closer together and getting into shape, he could see it. “I hope LeBron can keep it up,” he said. “If he plays like this, man, we’re going to be tough to beat.”