Cavs’ bumpy ride ends short of NBA title

LeBron James made it clear: He wants the changes needed to compete for a title made now.

INDEPENDENCE (AP) — They lost their season opener on Halloween, and their finale in hallowed surroundings.

In between, the Cleveland Cavaliers endured contract holdouts, overcame key injuries and were transformed by an extreme roster makeover general manager Danny Ferry believed would bring LeBron James the necessary help to win it all.

However, the turbulence proved to be too much.

The Cavaliers’ bumpy ride ended short of an NBA title.

“This is not a fun day,” Ferry said Monday, less than 24 hours after the Cavaliers lost Game 7 in their quarterfinals series against Boston. “It’s a tough end to the season.”

One year after making the finals for the first time, the Cavaliers got through only one round of this postseason. They ran into the revived Celtics, who won just 24 games a season ago but acquired Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen in trades last summer and are eight victories from a 17th championship.

James, who in his fifth season as a pro won the scoring title and a second All-Star MVP, didn’t speak with reporters as the Cavaliers gathered for the final time as a team before parting ways for the summer.

While a few of his teammates assessed Cleveland’s strange season for the media, James remained on the other side of the team’s practice facility.

He made his final statement Sunday.

James scored 45 points, matching Boston’s Paul Pierce (41 points) basket-for-basket. Afterward, James, who is always politically correct when asked about issues related to Cleveland’s roster, made it clear he wants Ferry to improve the Cavaliers — now.

“I think what we have is very good, but we need to continue to get better, we know that,” James said. “If that means some personnel changes that need to happen, then so be it. The teams around us in the league are continuing to get better.”

The Cavaliers are over the salary cap, which will prohibit Ferry from being active during free agency. However, Cleveland does have nearly $30 million in expiring contracts — Wally Szczerbiak’s $13 million and Damon Jones $4.5 million among them — to dangle. The club might elect to buy out guard Eric Snow’s $7 million contract for next season.

Also, the Cavs have a first-round pick (No. 19 overall) and the two exceptions ($5.5 million midlevel and $1.8 million biannual) to improve their talent pool.

Over the next few weeks, he plans to evaluate the Cavs from top to bottom.

“We’ll do a deep dive with my staff, the coaching staff, to figure out how we can get better,” Ferry said. “That’s what this is about now at this time of year, finding ways to get better and find ways to improve your team and your roster. Those are the things we’ll start to dig into in a more objective way now that the season’s over.”

At the top of Ferry’s to-do list will be the futures of guards Delonte West and Daniel Gibson, both restricted free agents.

The club’s most reliable outside shooting threat, Gibson missed the final two games of the Boston series with a separated left shoulder. West, who came over in the 11-player swap at the trading deadline, was Cleveland’s second-best player in Game 7 against the Celtics, scoring 15 points with five assists. At times, he showed potential to be the point guard who could take some pressure off James.

“I like this team,” said Ferry. “I like the guys we have. I like the skill sets. I think we have toughness … [but] I don’t think by any means can we be satisfied with this year and how things are now.”