With Izzo maybe circling the bait, and a theory that LeBron is interested in a three-year deal with the Cavs, we choose to be optimistic.
Like everyone else in Cleveland, we wonder what LeBron James will do when his contract is up this summer. Will he stay home, or follow the bright lights to Broadway? Until he decides to talk, we have to rely on hunches, instincts and educated guesswork. We'll report our findings, more or less daily, using the LeBron-O-Meter.
If Tom Izzo is really entertaining offers from Dan Gilbert, that's probably good news. As Brian Windhorst reported, the likely deal would be for five years and $30 million, or about twice what Izzo now gets each year at Michigan State.Plenty of people still believe that Izzo, whatever the offer, is unlikely to leave a situation where he has near-total control of his program for the NBA, where coaches run a distant second to star players. But in the belief that Gilbert wouldn't have opened talks with Izzo without some signal from LeBron that he'd regard it favorably, we see this as a good thing.
Peter Vecsey also claims to have a source - "an appreciably well-wired roundball entrepeneur," whatever the hell that is -- saying LeBron is leaning toward signing a three-year contract with Cleveland. If the Cavs don't win a championship in that time, the argument runs, he could leave for some other city with a clear conscience, thinking he'd given it a full decade.
Vecsey is no oracle, but we have to admit the argument makes a fair amount of sense.
So with all this in mind, we're going out on a limb and moving the 'Meter in a positive direction today.
Today's meter reading:
