According to a former member of the squad, the 2016/17 Cleveland Cavaliers were a team with several things to fix.
What started as a season full of expectations for them turned out to be the opposite and even though they played for the championship again, some things worried players about the team’s state.
Larry Sanders only played five games with that team, but that was enough for him to notice that something was off.
“The team had many issues. There were a lot of internal issues. We didn’t know if LeBron James and Kyrie Irving were leaving. They had the scuffle between LeBron and Tristan Thompson. There was a lot of stuff going on internally.”
“I remember being in the midst of it and I’m like the seventh or eighth project they have. I don’t think they knew what to do with anybody,” Sanders said in an interview with Forbes.
Coming from winning the 2016 NBA championship in a great way, returning from a 3-1 deficit against the Golden State Warriors in the Finals, the team was expected to defend their title.
Well, that didn’t happen. They reached the Finals again, but Kevin Durant and the Warriors took care of business and beat the Cavs in five games. That offseason, Kyrie was traded to the Boston Celtics, ending his 7-year stint with the Cavaliers.
LeBron took the team to the Finals again, getting swept by the Warriors that had no mercy with him and his team. So what started very well for them ended as a disaster. We can see LeBron and Kyrie in the Finals again if their respective teams win the series they need to win before landing in the biggest one of all.
