Lebron James: In an Empire State of Mind?

A few of the nerds and I were lucky enough to make it to the Jay-Z concert last night in Cleveland. Obviously it was incredibly sick, but that is not sports related so ask me about it some other time. Of note however was the presence of Lebron James: at choice times during the concert he was up on stage sans microphone and dancing along. He is undoubtedly a horrible horrible dancer and was completely off rythm every moment he was up there. Interestingly Lebron came out for the entire rendition of "Empire State of Mind" Jay-Z's song about New York. Having a keen eye for subtlety the Clevelanders actually started booing and Jay stopped to track to say he wasn't feeling enough love. AWKWARD...but since they brought it up what should we expect of the Cavs and imminent free agent Lebron James? I will go ahead and say that Lebron will keep his leverage and not sign an extension. I will also make the claim that the Cavs will not make the NBA finals, period. If they face the Magic they will lose in six, and a healthy Celtics team will beat them in six too. Without a title in hand its hard to imagine Lebron beeing to happy about being a Cavalier, but since he is such an Ohio man and the Cavaliers can pay him the most $ he would need a really really compelling reason to go anywhere. Why would he take less money to play for the Nicks or New Jersey? There is basically no way that either team would be better than the Cavs. That's why I'm saying, and keep in mind that I'm just saying, that Lebron will take a hard look at joining the Clippers. If the Clipshow does not resign Marcus Camby and Sebastion Telfair does not take is option (or the Clippers buy it out) then they can actually offer King James a decent salary of about 20 million bones a year. Thereby having a lineup of:

PG: Baron Davis
SG: Eric Gordon
SF: Lebron James
PF: Blake Griffin
C: Chris Kaman

with Al Thornton in reserve. I mean, I'm just saying...they've got the scrilla and they've got the players. There is also talk about the Cavs having some financial flexibility themselves with the expiration of Ilglauskas and Shaq's contracts. But keep in mind that the Cavs were actually in the Luxury tax last year and several players are getting raises so if they let both players go they will actually only have about 10 million $ cap space (12 mill max if they take no team options). What can you do with 10 million in the 2010 free agent market? Nothing amazing, if they actually let Shaq and Z go they will really really need a center and they are not getting Amare or Bosh for 10 million, Yao and Dirk would never leave home, maybe they could Camby or Brad Miller? LOL, it would actually seem there best option would be to resign Shaq since they can exceed to cap to do resign their own player. But if the Cavs don't win and have the same team (minus Z) why exactly would Lebron stay?

"Both teams played hard...goodnight and godbless."