Hello and welcome to the game theory off-season preview series where Bryce Simon and I break down every team's forthcoming summer and all of the big decisions they have to make. The next two days are your conference finalists. We're going to start with Cleveland Cavaliers, then get to the Oklahoma City Thunder tomorrow. Bryce, the Cleveland Cavaliers were swept by the New York Knicks, one of two teams

to be swept by the Knicks in these playoffs. I feel like they didn't feel all that close

to the Knicks when I watched that team. The East is only going to get better next season with

a healthy Jason Tatum, with a healthy Tyrese Halliburton returning,

probably some sort of offseason movement that will occur in order to get better players,

maybe to the Eastern Conference, right? The very least, you know, the Washington Wizards will have

Trey Young Anthony Davis and the number one overall pick it feels like. Do you think the calves are close enough to where they can feel comfortable running

this back if Dan Gilbert is just willing to pay the tax at the end of the day?

So here's what I would say.

I think somebody could try and make that argument.

And I think talent-wise, you could probably make a reasonable argument.

My counter would be, we just saw it.

And relatively healthy, Sam, like in a playoffs where we talk a lot about, okay, well, but

this team was missing that player or this team was missing that player.

We can't really do that with the Cavs.

Like even Max Struz got back for the playoffs for this team.

And as you talked about after they lost,

it just seems to be a ceiling on where you can go in the playoffs whenever James Hardin is one of these levels of players for your team, right? He's not the number one option,

number two, number three option, whatever you say.

Like, to me, Evan Mowgli is their second best player.

James Hardens is their second best offensive option or whatever.

However you want to say it, right?

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