Those who follow the NBA know that you’d be wise to take any Adrian Wojnarowski reportage on anything LeBron-related with a grain of salt. For reasons that remain unclear, Wojnarowski doesn’t miss opportunities to craft stories about LeBron James in ways that are less than flattering.
That said, it’s hard not to be fascinated by the latest Woj-bomb, which reports that the Cavs recently had a team meeting where Kevin Love was called out for supposedly faking illnesses:
The Cleveland Cavaliers held a fiery team meeting in the practice facility locker room prior to Monday’s practice, during which several players challenged the legitimacy of Kevin Love’s illness that led him to leave Saturday’s loss to Oklahoma City early and miss Sunday’s practice, league sources told ESPN.
Several players were pushing for the Cavaliers’ management and coaching staff to hold Love accountable for leaving the arena before the end of Saturday’s game, and then missing Sunday’s practice, league sources told ESPN.
The meeting was loud and intense, only calming down once Love spoke to those gathered in the room and explained himself, league sources said.
This story comes on the heels of a report that Isaiah Thomas is frustrating his teammates because he has the ball so much and can’t guard anyone (and yes, just in case you were wondering, this is the same Isaiah Thomas who has only played in seven of the team’s 45 games and is getting acclimated with a new team while also returning and recovering from a broken hip). Which comes on the heels of a report that several prominent players apparently held an off-the-record press conference last week with a few select reporters where they shared their gripes with the team.
Wojnarowski addresses this discord near the end of his piece on Love and does it in true LeBron-trolling fashion:
Within factions of the locker room, there has been blame for the Cavaliers’ struggles directed at everyone from Love to Isaiah Thomas, to Lue and the front office, led by Altman, and owner Dan Gilbert, league sources said.
Basically, he’s saying that everyone but LeBron has been blamed for the Cavs’ struggles this year, and you don’t need a Rosetta Stone to know what he’s really implying.
Either way, regardless of who or what’s really behind all the issues with the Cavs, this season would seem to be quite vindicating to the world’s most famous flat-earther, who spent much of the summer being painted as some sort of imbecile for asking to get away from Cleveland (to be fair, the Instagram curriculum he follows—and suggests everyone else follow—hasn’t really helped that perception, BUT WE ARE NOT GOING TO TALK ABOUT THAT RIGHT NOW).
Although it might have seemed foolish for a 25-year-old to request to leave the world’s best player and a team that would probably still be a finals shoo-in if he were still there, it doesn’t take much to see why he’d tire of being part of a still shoddily run organization that revolved around one player, especially when everyone except for that one player takes the public blame for their adversity. In the land of the blind, the three-eyed man sees the King.
(That last line was much more clever in my head than it is on the page, but I’m still not deleting it.)