The 2015-16 NBA regular season is upon us, at last, and all eyes are once again on LeBron James and his Cleveland Cavaliers.
The LeBronnaires are favored to win the whole thing, with James being the League’s leading MVP candidate.
LBJ says he welcomes the enormous expectations and title-or-bust pressure facing the Cavs, and warns that despite injuries to key players early on in the campaign—the 30-year-old superstar’s creaky back is healthy enough for him to suit up on Opening Night—Cleveland needs to get off to a strong start.
Per USA Today:
“Once we get healthy, we’ll know exactly what we have,” James said. “For our team, health is going to be No.1 because we have so many great pieces.” […] (Kyrie) Irving, (Kevin) Love, (Anderson) Varejao and (Timofey) Mozgov are returning from injuries that required surgery, and on the team’s first practice of training camp, the Cavs announced (Iman) Shumpert would miss at least the first two months of the regular season with a wrist injury that required surgery.
“It’s not even fair to say what we’ll look like the first game of the season, because it’s not what we’ll look like in January, February or even March,” James said. “Your team changes from month to month, and obviously our team will be different from the start of the season compared to a third of the way into the season.” […] “I have no time to waste,” James said. “My ultimate goal is to win a championship, and it starts now.”
Much was made about James’ offensive inefficiency during the postseason, including harsh self-criticism. James shot 41.7% in the playoffs, including 39.8% in a Finals in which he averaged 35.8 points, 13.3 rebounds and 8.8 assists. The gaudy stats did not impress him. […] “The numbers that I put up in the Finals I pretty much didn’t care for, because I was so inefficient,” James said. “It hurts me. It bothered me a lot.”
