LeBron James has his crew together for another run at the title, but apart from the King doing King-like things, this run might look a little different.
The Cavaliers, who have been to the past three NBA Finals and won the championship in 2016, debuted their team with a photo on Twitter, off Richard Jefferson’s Snapchat, on Thursday morning.
Right in the middle is James, surrounded by some old friends like Jefferson and Kevin Love and some new, like former (briefly) Knick Derrick Rose, not fresh off a haircut, and ex-Celtics superstar Isaiah Thomas, the shrimp right in front of James.
Also in the mix, though unlikely to make the final squad, is Kendrick Perkins, who last played for the Cavaliers in the 2014-15 season and was out of the NBA entirely last year.
The 6-foot-10 big man is 32 years old, hasn’t played in a year and is coming to a team with 15 players already on guaranteed contracts and no money to work with, but in a league where the mandate is simple – beat the Warriors – the more the merrier.
Perkins also famously got into an altercation with Jae Crowder during the 2015 playoffs, when the two took swings at each other after a vicious pick by Perkins. Crowder, like everybody else in the league apparently, also now plays for the Cavs.
Notably absent, of course, is Kyrie Irving, who got out of town in the deal that brought Thomas to Cleveland with the goal of no longer playing second fiddle to James — at least, not on the same team. Also notably absent is Carmelo Anthony, still not budging from his one-team wish list: the Rockets.
As of Thursday afternoon, the Cavaliers had filled 19 of their 20 spots for training camp invites, meaning there’s still room for one more to try to hitch a ride on James’ train to a fourth straight Eastern Conference title – ninth straight if you count his four years with the Heat and one before that with the Cavs.
Either way, James will have his hands full this year in getting all his new and old help to jell into a team that conceivably could win the East — let alone a series against the still-stacked defending champions. But that’s what the King will have to do if he wants to take back his crown.