Written by Dave McMenamin at ESPN.com
The message embroidered on the front of LeBron James’ baseball cap he wore after the Cleveland Cavaliers’ 104-101 comeback victoryover the New York Knicks on Monday night summed up the game — and his talk — perfectly.
“All good,” the cap read in uppercase letters, followed by another line of text underneath: “Never better.”
Sure, the Cavs have been better before — they’re currently 7-7 on the season, with the win over the Knicks giving them their first winning streak since they started the season 2-0. And James, while still dominating the sport, probably peaked as an individual player several years ago.
But the drama between Cleveland and its Eastern Conference counterpart in New York? That may very well be unrivaled in the two teams’ shared history after all the off-court drama of the past several days.
With Phil Jackson resigning as team president in June, it seemed as if James lost the target of his Knicks-based ire. That is, until New York big man Enes Kanter stepped in to fill the void.
Over the weekend, James said the Knicks should have drafted Dallas Mavericks guard Dennis Smith Jr. with the No. 8 pick in the NBA draft instead of French guard Frank Ntilikina. Kanter took exception to James’ take, coming to his rookie teammate’s defense first on Twitter on Saturday night shortly after James made the comment that Smith “should be a Knick,” and later at practice Sunday when he said James’ words showed “disrespect.”
James, in turn, laughed off Kanter’s rebuttal at shootaround Monday.
“For Enes Kanter, who always got something to say,” James said. “He says … I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”
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