While every franchise may proclaim that a Finals championship is their ultimate goal, roughly one-third of the league still has yet to achieve that feat. For the majority of the Cleveland Cavaliers' lifespan, they were one of those teams.
The return of LeBron James in 2014 set in motion the greatest era of Cavaliers basketball, reaching the next four Finals in a row and winning the first Larry O'Brien trophy for the city in a history 2016 comeback. James cemented a legacy as a true hometown hero, ending a city-wide professional championship drought spanning more than half a century.
Cleveland battled a dynastic Golden State Warriors squad each of the four years, but halfway through the Cavs' core was rocked by a sudden trade request by Kyrie Irving. The All-Star point guard was the second-best member of the team, alongside James and Kevin Love as the Cleveland big three. Following a five-game loss in the 2017 Finals, Irving looked for new beginnings, eventually joining the Boston Celtics in a dramatic turn of events.
The Cavaliers received a lowly return, eventually leading to a full rebuild one year later. James left for the Los Angeles Lakers, and although Love stayed, the Cavaliers were anything but built for championships.
Cleveland's championship coach, Tyronn Lue, also departed shortly after. He joined the Los Angeles Clippers as a new core of Kawhi Leonard, the almost-Cavalier Paul George and company tried to construct a Western Conference powerhouse. In a recent interview with Shannon Sharpe, Lue expressed a lingering pain from Irving's departure and what could have been a dynasty in Ohio.
Tyronn Lue sees a massive missed opportunity for the Cavaliers
Through the full interview spanned topics varied across the full NBA spectrum, many of the most memorable moments were centered around the second LeBron era with the Cavs. Lue assumed the head coaching position in the midst of the 2015-16 season, becoming one of the few coaches to lead a team to a championship right away. Lue inherited an already championship-caliber team, but his tactical mind gave the team the final piece needed to get revenge on the Warriors from a 2015 six-game series defeat.
Lue said that James was "crushed" by Irving's trade to Boston, going silent for 10 minutes in the middle autographing jerseys. Whether James said it at the time or not, the Irving trade was clearly the beginning of the end. The Cavaliers got a dismal return, and the core piece of the trade, Isaiah Thomas, was rehabbing from a serious injury and would not make a debut until months into the season.
At the same time that Irving left, Kevin Durant joined Golden State to form an unstoppable super team. In Lue's eyes, if Irving had stayed, the 2017 Finals would have been in Cleveland's favor. He saw the KD acquistion by the Warriors as the killshot, telling Sharpe that if Durant had not joined Stephen Curry in The Bay, Irving likely would not have left. In turn, Irving's loyalty would have given the Cavs a runway for a second, or even third, title.
What could have been a true historic dynasty instead became one championship in four attempts with a barrage of drama and turmoil at the end. Tyronn Lue likely had a vision for the next few years of a James-Irving-Love core, but that was torn apart before it could ever truly materialize.
Still, the Cleveland Cavaliers accomplished what many teams only wish to do. The Cavs have also rebuilt quickly to become a fiercesome force in the Eastern Conference once again. Unfortunately, the Cavaliers fell short of a dynastic future, but it does not take away from the significance of the 2016 victor