Written by Demetri Inembolidis

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There are three things that are pretty much guaranteed to happen when the Cavs take on the Heat on Tuesday night.  The first is that there is a very good possibility that the Heat will win the game.  Of course, this is not a given until the final buzzer sounds off.  The other two events are that Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson are probably going to show some affection towards LeBron James.  And there’s nothing wrong with that.  

In a perfect world, every Cavalier would stonewall LeBron James and the Heat.  In a perfect world, all of the Cavaliers would bleed wine and gold and take offense to what LeBron James did when he and ESPN aired his free agency decision on live television.  In a perfect world, LeBron James would have committed to the Cavs long-term and they would have been able to build a team the right way as opposed to trading for aging veterans.

We don’t live in a perfect world.  LeBron James went to Miami and I am willing to guess that none of the Cavaliers understand that thirst for a championship that Cleveland fans have.  Expecting the year 1964 to mean anything when the guys on the team hail from Brazil, Israel, Turkey, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Florida, Texas, Illinois, California, Australia, North Carlonia, Jamaica, South Carolina and Canada is asking a lot.  Especially when we live in a world where guys from Akron don’t  even care about that.  Additionally, the only players currently on the Cavs roster who played with LeBron James are Daniel Gibson, Anderson Varejao, Anthony Parker and Antawn Jamison.  Most of the members of the team are completely removed from the situation that Cavs fans know all too well.

The Cavs have some young players that are good.  This is not a sentence that we are accustomed to saying.  Good players on bad teams in small markets are speculated about. It is assumed that they surely have one foot out the door and are counting down the minutes to becoming free agents.  This speculation has not begun in regards to Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson for a multitude of factors.  The biggest one being that free agency is in the distant future.  Hopefully the Cavs from office can make good decisions and build a winner so the current and any future young talent on the Cavs will not feel the need to leave for greener pastures.  For example, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook are with the Oklahoma City Thunder long-term because it makes sense for them to be.  Dwight Howard is probably leaving Orlando because they are not legitimate title contenders and there is very little the Magic front office can do to improve the team enough to change that.  

The point being is that even in this era of the NBA where guys play from all over the world on any given team, where players teamed up in the AAU circuit and where multiple all stars are teaming up on individual teams, it is entirely possible to retain your stars.  Just because LeBron James left for Miami does not mean that Kyrie Irving plans on leaving Cleveland at the first opportunity.  We shouldn’t obsess on every single detail about how he or Tristan Thompson interact with LeBron James on Tuesday night and micro-analyze the situation like John Cusack’s character in High Fidelity.  If LeBron James has encouraging words for Kyrie Irving after the game, we shouldn’t obsessively think about the syntax and word structure of the sentence.  The same can be said about what Kyrie Irving has to say about LeBron James or how he handles his free agency.  

Cavs fans may not like the relationship that LeBron James has with Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson.  It is an entirely understandable position to have.  Another understandable position is to have respect for an NBA veteran who gave you encouraging words when your rookie season in college went down the crapper after getting a nasty injury.  Like all things, there needs to be a good balance.  Hopefully the Cavalier rookies know better than to pull a JJ Hickson, but it is unreasonable for us to take offense to Kyrie Irving being friends with a guy who helped him when he was facing his first major test as a basketball player.  

Cavs fans should be happy that they have a clean slate, some young building blocks and a rookie of the year frontrunner who speaks in the third person and then promptly apologizes for doing so.  The best way to appreciate the present and future is to stop dwelling on the past.  Here’s to new beginnings.