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Friday, November 13, 2026Nov 13

James makes Cavs better, now East more wide open

FILE - IN this April 22, 2010, file photo, Cleveland Cavaliers' LeBron James dunks against the Chicago Bulls during the second quarter of Game 3 of a first-round NBA basketball playoff series in Chicago.  James told Sports Illustrated on Friday, July 11, 2014, he is leaving the Miami Heat to go back to the Cleveland Cavaliers. (AP Photo/Charles Cherney, File)
FILE - IN this April 22, 2010, file photo, Cleveland Cavaliers' LeBron James dunks against the Chicago Bulls during the second quarter of Game 3 of a first-round NBA basketball playoff series in Chicago. James told Sports Illustrated on Friday, July 11, 2014, he is leaving the Miami Heat to go back to the Cleveland Cavaliers. (AP Photo/Charles Cherney, File) FILE - IN this April 22, 2010, file photo, Cleveland Cavaliers' LeBron James dunks against the Chicago Bulls during the second quarter of Game 3 of a first-round NBA basketball playoff series in Chicago. James told Sports Illustrated on Friday, July 11, 2014, he is leaving the Miami Heat to go back to the Cleveland Cavaliers. (AP Photo/Charles Cherney, File)

NEW YORK (AP) – A word of caution to anyone anointing the Cleveland Cavaliers as the NBA favorites.

Yes, the Cavaliers are going to be good, no doubt. It’s impossible not to be with the game’s best player. But even LeBron James knows Cleveland has a lot of work to do.

“We’re not ready right now. No way,” he wrote in his first-person essay in Sports Illustrated.

Quite a different tone than when he arrived in Miami four years ago.

Quite a different situation, too.