LeBron James doesn’t give two flying brown-colored bowel movements that NBA training camps aren’t quite ready to open.
His Cleveland Cavaliers are getting work in now.
Or soon.
According to Northeast Ohio Media Group’s Chris Haynes, LeBron isn’t quite over Cleveland’s loss to the Golden State Warriors in last June’s NBA Finals and has “summoned” his teammates for voluntary workouts.
LeBron is apparently already working out with Kyrie Irving, who is rehabilitating a fractured knee camp, back in Miami, and he’s expecting other Cavaliers players to join them shortly, per ESPN.com’s Brian Windhorst:
When LeBron James played for the Miami Heat, he routinely held pre-training-camp workouts with star players such as Kevin Durant at his home in Ohio. Now that he’s back with the Cleveland Cavaliers, James is taking his September workouts to Miami.
James has been spending time with rehabbing teammate Kyrie Irving recently in South Florida as both prepare for the opening of training camp at the end of the month, sources told ESPN.com. He has reached out to his Cavs teammates, and numerous players are planning to come in for voluntary workouts this week and next, sources said.
. . .
The Cavs workouts are part of a league-wide trend of players organizing group offseason workouts. Recently, Dwyane Wade organized workouts with Heat teammates in Los Angeles. Last week, Damian Lillard posted a photo on Instagram of a group workout with more than 10 of his Portland Trail Blazers teammates.
While James is in Miami, he’ll need to find a new place to stay. Over the summer, he sold the mansion he lived in while he played for the Heat for $13.4 million after buying it in 2010 for $9 million.
The biggest takeaway from all of this: LeBron is probably spending a fortune on some five-star hotel instead of sleeping in his own crib, the one he no longer owns. That, or he’s crashing on Dwyane Wade’s couch. Or in Pat Riley’s broom closet under the staircase. What a shame.
These voluntary workouts are very LeBron-y. He’s all about putting in the extra work and striving for greatness. You just hope he’s smart about it, now that he’s nearing his 31st birthday (December), and especially now that he has more than 43,000 playoff and regular-season minutes on his treads.
Still, getting an early start is never a bad thing. Assuming LeBron runs his voluntary workouts like a despotic fire-breathing dragon that screams incessantly (i.e. like Kobe Bryant would run his voluntary workouts), the level of competition is likely good enough to help players, new and returning, work through their offseason rust.
It’s not ideal that Cleveland’s two other most important players, Irving and Love, will be limited, but on the flip side, it allows LeBron some extra time to build a rapport with his also-ran peeps—the only kind of players whom he had at his disposal as the Cavaliers fell to the Warriors.
My question after all this: Is David Blatt invited?
