It's already started - the Cavs might need LeBron 3.0 after being swept by Knicks | Jeff Schudel

Gilbert allowed president of basketball operations Koby Altman to assemble a team with the highest payroll in NBA history for the 2025-26 season. Ultimately, Gilbert did not get what he paid for. Any good feeling generated by the Cavaliers beating the Raptors in seven games and the Pistons in seven games to reach the Eastern Conference finals for the first time in eight years is gone. Altman might try to spin it that way in his season wrap-up news conference, but he would only be kidding himself.

The Knicks -- the visiting Knicks, though a sight-impaired person inside Rocket Arena on May 25 might be skeptical of that, given how much louder the Knicks fans were -- completed a series sweep by humiliating the Cavs, 130-93, in Game 4. The Knicks are on an 11-game winning streak and in the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999. The Cavaliers were outscored by 11 points in Game 1, 16 in Game 2, 13 in Game 3 and 37 in Game 4. The Cavs lamented missing shots throughout the series.

But being swept was about more than bad bounces on the rim. You know the old saying that if a football team has two quarterbacks it doesn't have one? It is the same with the Cavaliers. They have Donovan Mitchell and James Harden, but they don't have one team leader.

LeBron James, 41, will be a free agent this summer. About an hour after the Cavs' season ended, Mitchell was asked whether he'd like to see James with the Cavs next year. It would be the third stint with the team that selected him with the first pick in the 2003 draft. James led the Cavs to the NBA title in 2016.

There would be no question who the team leader would be if he does sign with Cleveland. "We just ended the game," Mitchell said. "That is not for me. I'm not trying to get a headline.

I'm not going to answer that. That's a Koby Altman question. Because I know no matter what I say, it's going to be a thing. All I know is I'll ride with the guys we have in that locker room every single day." The Cavaliers played three-and-a-half good quarters in Game 1 of the series.

They collapsed in historic fashion by blowing a 22-point fourth-quarter lead on their way to losing the series opener, 115-104, in overtime, and then wilted like fragile flowers in a scorching sun in the next three games. Knicks coach Mike Brown outcoached Kenny Atkinson throughout the series -- something no one in the Cavs' organization thought could happen. Whether Atkinson did enough to earn a third season is just one decision Gilbert has to make. While he's at it, Gilbert has to decide whether Altman deserves another season.

Atkinson is a smart man, a shrewd man. That observation has nothing to do with his questionable coaching decisions -- like not calling a timeout when the Knicks were shredding the Cavs' 22-point lead in Game 1, for example. I say Atkinson is smart and shrewd because of what he said in his May 24 post-practice news conference. "Analytically, we've won two of the three," he said.

"If you believe in the process. Us shooting way below expected. Them shooting way over." That is coach speak for "Don't blame me." "They (the Knicks) are on a heater," "Atkinson said. "I don't want to detract from we've done, what we've done this preseason.

"What didn't help was losing those two Game 6s (to the Raptors and Pistons). I think the frequency of the games, never had two days rest, played a part in it. I'm not going to say that's the reason we lost, but we would have had a better chance." The Cavaliers looked sluggish and tired -- a result of playing 14 high-intensity playoff games to get to the conference finals. They also looked stale at times.

"We didn't give ourselves a chance because we didn't handle business," Mitchell said. "Now we know. You can't play with your food. We had an opportunity to close both series and give ourselves some rest and we didn't." The Cavs are kidding themselves if they believe the only reason they were swept is because the Knicks were more rested.