Losing LeBron James as a teammate is like the ocean, or at least something like that.
UPDATED: 11:28 p.m.
INDEPENDENCE, Ohio -- Losing LeBron James as a teammate is like the ocean, or at least something like that.
The new Cavaliers season started Monday with the annual media day and the featured attraction was Mo Williams, one of the team's remaining stars and easily its most emotional one. He didn't disappoint, putting the team's situation and his personal feelings on the matter right out in the open with a series of mildly amusing but effective metaphors that added some needed levity on an awkward day.
"You're at the beach and you're walking right to that water and you can feel it on your toes and you're a kid and your momma grabs you and says 'nope, you're not going into the ocean today,'" Williams said.
"You're looking back and you're like 'wow, I was almost there.' You don't know when you'll be down by the ocean again."
Williams' point, it seems, is that having a chance at a championship dashed, followed by James' departure in free agency, was a shock to the system. A shock the team is just now shaking off.
Over the last week, Williams' efforts to do so became public thanks to an interview he gave to a Web site and several raw statements on his Twitter account.
Even now that he's a favorite to be named one of the team's captains and will be counted on as an on-floor leader, Williams doesn't apologize for those effusive statements. Not unlike over the summer when Williams answered trade rumors by publicly asking to stay in Cleveland, the energetic point guard said if he's perceived as being too open, it is because he can relate to Cavs fans.
"You can't control where your heart is," Williams said.
"I felt the same pain that the average fan felt. To me, to let my emotions go, my voice is going to be heard more than [the fan's] voices will. But they're voicing the same frustration. I felt the same exact way."
Antawn Jamison, one of the team's other veteran leaders, admitted he shared Williams' emotions in July.
"You had that period where you were upset and you vented," Jamison said. "It was something we weren't expecting to happen, but it did happen. I've seen a lot of things but I've never seen what took place happen."
But all that was then and this, Williams said, is now. While there was no missing the layer of melancholy that hung over the first Jamesless training camp since 2002, most players said they felt they were ready to move on.
For his part, Williams backed off the hints he dropped last week that he considered retirement over the summer. He described his outlook, which he hopes to spread to the rest of the team, with another metaphor.
"Everybody has been to high school," Williams said. "You know you're in a classroom down the hall and you have to get all the way to the other side and it looks like the hall is so long. But once you turn the corner, you can't see the hall anymore. I think today we're turning the corner and going to the next classroom."
Sticking with that premise, new coach Byron Scott hopes there's a few bullies in that new classroom. Scott's message to his team leading up to the true start of camp on Tuesday is to shake off the malaise and start to take offense about some of the things being said about the team.
"I hope they're pissed off, to be honest with you," Scott said. "I would be back in my day when I played if all the talk was about one player. To be relegated to a team [that's picked] to win 15 games -- I coached a team that won 18 games [the 2004-05 Hornets] and we didn't have near the talent that we have here now."
When all talk is done and the actual playing starts on Tuesday, the reality is the Cavs are going to be different. Regardless what was said privately or publicly over the last two months, that reality has to be accepted.
Williams admitted that with one last metaphor, a poker one.
"There's no LeBron in this building," Williams said. "Whether we believe it or not, he's not coming back. This is what we've got. This is the hand we're dealt."
| Mo Williams on the new era of the Cleveland Cavaliers |