LeBron James, GM of the Cleveland Cavaliers, is Off to a Rocky Start

Six months into his stint as GM of the Cleveland Cavaliers*, how is LeBron James doing?

Let’s take a look!

MOVE: Orchestrated a 3-team trade to land All-Star Kevin Love! The stat guys hailed it as a brilliant, necessary move, giving up disappointing former #1 NBA pick Anthony Bennett and 2014 No. 1 pick Andrew Wiggins. The Cavs were thought to have a new Big 3 – a reboot, if you will, of Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. Except neither Kyrie Irving nor Love had made the playoffs before.

EARLY RETURNS: Misfire. Some people predicted this: Wiggins was the wing LeBron needed to lessen his defensive effort given three straight trips to the Finals. Love is averaging 17.5 ppg and 9.9 rpg, a far cry from his 26-12 last year. Defensively he just can’t stop people. And he’s shooting 43/35/83, which is down from last year’s 45/37/82, when he had a weaker supporting cast and defenses knew he was the guy to stop. Also, he’s a free agent after this year, so LeBron has to deal with the Love-to-LA rumors until July.

EARLY RETURNS: Varejao tore his Achilles and is out for the season. That’s some shitty luck. That leaves Cleveland without much inside. Who will LeBron find to be his Birdman in Ohio?

MOVE: Ships Dion Waiters and spare parts out of town in a 3-team deal that got the Cavs wing Iman Shumpert and volatile shooting guard JR Smith.

EARLY RETURNS: The deal is less than 24 hours old, but it shows just how desperate Cleveland was for defensive help on the wing. In order to get Shumpert, they had to absorb the malignant tumor that is JR Smith. Waiters was a problem who wanted the ball and wanted shots. Smith’s shooting, like his personality, runs hot and cold. I’m not sure how LeBron thinks he’s going to control him. Best case scenario: The trade is a wake-up call to Smith. The team with the worst record in the NBA didn’t want you or your potential to get buckets. Maybe the Cavs get Good JR Smith – knows his role, chills on social media, is a good teammate – and not Bad JR Smith: Twitter trainwreck, buffoon on the court and off it. Positive for Smith: You’ll be in the playoffs! Negative for Smith: The last two times you’ve been there, you couldn’t throw it in the ocean.

Depending on whom you read, LeBron was largely influential in orchestrating the Big 3’s move to Miami. Once there, though, Pat Riley was the man pulling the strings. At what point does Cleveland’s actual GM, David Griffin, start to worry about his job? If Cleveland manages to continue this shoddy play in the postseason, and lose before reaching the Eastern Conference finals, you can be sure that after David Blatt is canned, GM David Griffin’s job will be in serious jeopardy.

I’m not ready to call this a ‘lost season’ for LeBron, but it’s starting to feel a little bit like maybe he’s going to head into his 31st year on the planet with only two titles. The dream of catching Jordan’s six – or Kobe’s five – is starting to feel unreachable.

* LeBron’s smart. He’s not going to get David Blatt fired this early. Why get a band-aid now when you can pick anyone – John Calipari – in the offseason? And extending Varejao instead of Thompson now is a mild surprise, but LeBron had played with Varejao before and gone to the Finals with him. Thompson will get his.