Per Gather.com…

During an interview Thursday with local ESPN Houston affiliate 97.5 FM radio station, retired Houston Rockets guard Calvin Murphy claimed that according to his sources inside the NBA, the rumored affair between LeBron James’ mother Gloria and Cavaliers teammate Delonte West is ”absolutely true.”

In his interview with the hosts of “The Drive,” when asked what he thought of the rumor, Murphy was quoted as saying, “It ain’t no rumor. Unfortunately, my sources in the NBA tell me that it’s absolutely true. My sources, and they’re legit, tell me the only people that didn’t know it was happening was LeBron and me.”

Listen to the interview here.

He went on to predict that LeBron will sign with another team this summer.

The rumor goes that LeBron learned about the news before Game 4, which could explain his suspect performance in that game. Let’s not overlook the fact that Delonte West went 0-7 for three points in that same game.

I don’t know what’s going to happen this summer, but I’d bet the farm that LeBron and Delonte aren’t on the same team next season.

Photo from fOTOGLIF

ESPN’s exclusive telecast of the Eastern Conference semifinal Game 6 on May 13 averaged a 6.6 household rating and 8.93 million viewers, according to Nielsen data, the second most ever for the network with a basketball game. Celts-Cavs trailed only the 6.9 rating and 9.88 million watchers ESPN averaged with its Game 4 coverage of the 2009 Western Conference finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Denver Nuggets.

The Cleveland/Boston telecast is now ESPN’s highest-rated and most-viewed conference semifinal to date, surpassing last year’s Game 6 between the Lakers and Houston Rockets, which posted a 5.4 rating and 7.35 million viewers.

ESPN officials said the May 13 telecast is the worldwide leader’s third most-viewed program of 2010 and the fifth most-watched NBA playoff game in cable history among households and viewers.

Now that LeBron has been eliminated from the postseason, it will be interesting to see if his pending free agency overshadows what is shaping up to be a pretty competitive NBA final four.

Bill Simmons, ESPN: You cannot call what happened in the Cavs-Celtics series an upset. Boston played better in five of the six games. The C’s had four of the five best players. They were better defensively. Their best player (Rajon Rondo) played better than Cleveland’s best player (LeBron James). They had playoff-proven guys who kept coming through. They had better crowds. They showed more heart. This was not an upset … but still, it felt like one. And only because we were duped by Cleveland’s faux urgency (for most of the season, it felt genuine) and Boston’s retro-urgency (for most of the season, it was dormant). The playoffs hinge on toughness, chemistry, defense, leadership and urgency. Cleveland lost all those battles. Every one of them. … If he cares about winning titles (multiple) and reaching his full potential as a player, he has only one move: the Chicago Bulls. That’s always been the play. If you’ve been listening to my podcast or reading this column, you know that I’ve been touting this possibility since the winter, and here’s why: Deep down, I think LeBron (and, just as important, the people around him) realizes that he needs one more kick-ass player to make his life easier. That means Miami or Chicago. And really, I can’t imagine him signing with Miami because Dwyane Wade is almost too good. LeBron wants help, but he doesn’t want to be perceived as riding someone else’s coattails, either. Wade might be the best player alive for all we know — he certainly was in 2006, and he’s been banged-up and trapped on bad teams ever since. No, Chicago makes more sense. Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah proved they were warriors these past two springs. They could be LeBron’s Pippen/Grant or McHale/DJ. Easily. Rose could take the creative load off LeBron on nights when he doesn’t have it. Rose could come through a few times in the clutch. Rose could hide some of LeBron’s faults. It’s the single smartest basketball move for LeBron James.

Kelly Dwyer, Ball Don’t Lie: Whether by design or defeat or both, he’s made it possible to get out while the going is great. To hand-pick another group of sycophants to have his way and never have to answer for His Way, however misguided. The tri-state area, Miami, Chicago, who knows? He doesn’t even want to know. He just wants to get back to remembering what it’s like to be the self-proclaimed “King.” The sort of guy who has to remind you what he wants his nickname to be. Doesn’t have to answer for nine turnovers in a deciding game. Won’t have to answer for not attempting to take control of the game until the latter stages of the fourth quarter, and only in the form of a couple of desperate 3-pointers that happened to go in. Won’t have to answer for that defense, which was embarrassing. Just has to answer to the question, “Who’s the NBA’s best player?” It’s still James, you know. Just because we don’t really care for him at the present, it doesn’t take away from his greatness. We’ve all got brains big enough to handle him being the game’s best player and a crushing failure as a leader when it counted most in this series. If anything, it should add to the enmity that you’ve no doubt developed over the last week for this ghost. This person who should know better, but doesn’t want to hear it.

Israel Gutierrez, Miami Herald: If it is true that James is about winning first, as he insisted in his postgame, post-series, post-Cleveland interview Thursday, then this is an automatic. If his obvious frustration with Cavs teammates and their inability to function without him is a driving force for LeBron, then playing alongside Wade will offer him exactly what he desires. When you consider that the Heat can sell a player like Michael Beasley to a team with salary-cap space to create enough space to sign a third substantial star, possibly a big man like an Amare Stoudemire or Carlos Boozer, then it only makes Miami more intriguing because of the real possibility a true dynasty can exist. There are two arguments against Miami that tend to dominate, neither of them making much sense. The first tends to be ego. As in, James’ ego won’t let him come to Wade’s town and not be the obvious attraction. It might be Wade’s town, but in basketball terms, it’s LeBron’s world, as Kevin Garnett confirmed after Thursday’s game. It has been for a half decade, practically, and sharing space with Wade can only help his global takeover because it’ll finally offer him that championship that has escaped him. No matter where he goes, James will not play second fiddle. Besides, it’s practically necessary these days, when you think about it, to have a player of similarly superstar caliber by your side. Kobe Bryant had arguably the best post player in the league, at the time, helping him win each of his four titles, first Shaquille O’Neal and now Pau Gasol. No one does this alone.

Photo from fOTOGLIF

Heading into this year’s playoffs, the conventional wisdom was that if the Cavs won a title, or at least made it to the Finals, LeBron James would likely re-sign to continue his quest for a championship. But if the Cavs suffered another pre-Finals flame out like last year’s Eastern Conference Finals loss to the Magic, he would sign elsewhere.

Well, we all know what happened. An aging but experienced (and cohesive) Celtics team basically dismantled the Cavs in the last three games of the series. Every Celtic knew his role and team flat out executed better, both offensively and defensively.

Where does this leave LeBron? He said after the game that his team had “a plan” and was going to execute that plan. Forget the fact that a few questions before he was asked if he had a plan and answered with a resounding, “No.” Of course he has a plan. He’s being disingenuous when he says that he hasn’t thought about the different scenarios that could play out this postseason and offseason.

He’s clearly not happy with Mike Brown. And he can’t be happy with Antawn Jamison, Shaquille O’Neal or even Mo Williams, who scored well in Game 6, but was very up and down in the series. Shaq won’t be back, and Brown is probably on his way out too. He had a tough task of trying to keep team cohesion with the mid-season introduction of Jamison and the late-season loss of O’Neal. But the bottom line is that over the past two seasons he’s had more talent than his opposition and hasn’t gotten it done. If Dan Gilbert thinks that firing Brown increases the possibility that LeBron will re-up, then he’ll do it in a New York minute.

Lately, we’ve been hearing the rumors that John Calipari is at the top of LeBron’s list, which is funny because he’s a far better recruiter than he is a coach, and recruiting isn’t going to help him at the NBA level. Over the past three seasons — two at Memphis and one at Kentucky — he has taken teams with superior talent and failed to win big games. He is a silver-tongued maestro at getting great prospects to play for him, but they’re usually gone after a year or two and end their collegiate careers with a loss. What about this spells NBA championship?

Cal doesn’t even need to come to Cleveland to coach the King. There’s also the rumor that the Bulls would hire him if they thought it gave them an inside track at signing LeBron. So even before the race for LeBron begins, there may be a mad scramble to pry Calipari out of Kentucky, where he’s spent just one-plus season with a revolving door of a roster.

There’s no doubt about it — LeBron loves this attention. His ego is justifiably immense, and as Adrian Wojnarowski wrote, LeBron and his entourage are going to milk this courtship for all it’s worth. Now that the Cavs’ early exit is complete, everyone expects the King to leave town…

…and that’s the easy thing to do.

If LeBron wants to play on a bigger stage, like New York or Chicago, or even Los Angeles, this is chance to do so. Nearly everyone would understand if he bailed on the Cavs given the way that the team played against the Celtics. Sure, LeBron is partially to blame — his Game 5 performance was pathetic and his nine turnovers in Game 6 largely offset his triple-double — but no one in his camp is going to point the finger at the King. In his world, he is never to blame. He has said that he has “spoiled” us with his usually wonderful play, so when he has a bad game or two, everyone acts like the sky is falling.

But the sky is falling, at least in Cleveland. To paraphrase Bill Simmons, if LeBron bolts, basketball is dead in The Forest City. It will deal another blow to an area of the country that is still reeling from the latest recession.

Does this matter to LeBron? Does he feel responsible to the city of Cleveland? Only he knows.

But make no mistake about it — the easy thing to do is jump ship. It wouldn’t be difficult to leave the incohesive, overpaid roster behind and start anew somewhere else. To stay is to keep fighting, to finish what he started, to embrace the adversity and frustration of the last few seasons and use it as motivation to finally bring the city of Cleveland a championship.

No matter how comfortable LeBron is in northeast Ohio, sticking with the Cavs is the tough thing to do.

Photos from fOTOGLIF

Brian Windhorst, Cleveland.com: The Cavs were closer to beating the Orlando Magic last season than they were the Celtics this season. This is regression. Playing the way they did against the Bulls and the Celtics, they would not have beaten the Magic this season. Or the Lakers. Or probably the Suns. Right now the Cavs maybe, maybe are the fifth-best team in the league, and James and Shaquille O’Neal are headed for free agency. This was not the team that won 61 games, obviously. The Cavs haven’t been that team since they beat the Milwaukee Bucks and Atlanta Hawks in the first week of April to pretty much wrap up the No. 1 seed. They took the foot off the pedal after that and they never recovered. It was compounded by the fact that O’Neal didn’t return until the start of the playoffs, which had him in the starting lineup with Antawn Jamison for the first time ever and pushed a player who started 73 games in J.J. Hickson out of the rotation. Stuff like that doesn’t just happen and everything is OK, there’s damage from those types of changes. With a couple exceptions, when frankly they just got red hot shooting the ball, the Cavs were a shell of themselves in the playoffs. Some of it was rhythm. Some of it was effort, actually a lot of it was effort. Some of it was chemistry problems. Some of it was coaching. Some of it was the opponents they were playing. The Celtics were masterful. Guess what? The Magic would have been even tougher.

Terry Pluto, Cleveland Plain Dealer: Cavs owner Dan Gilbert has to be distraught by watching his team lose their last two home games by a combined 50 points to Boston. He watched his team being out-hustled, out-rebounded and out-defended by the Celtics, who averaged 100 points per game in this series. It was the Cavs who were supposed to be a physical, gritty team. It was Brown who was supposed to prepare the Cavs to win in the postseason. It was James who was supposed to finally win a championship in his seventh year in Cleveland. All of it is gone in less than a week. Brown has done an admirable job in his five seasons. But since reaching the 2007 finals, the Cavs have been eliminated in the Eastern Conference finals in 2009, and been knocked out twice by Boston in the second round (2008, 2010). Gilbert bought this team to win a title. He knows that James is The Franchise, and James has said he’ll make his decision on where to sign as a free agent this summer based on where he has the best chance to win. While not criticizing his coach, James also has not offered much public support for Brown. That could mean a coaching change with the Cavs.

Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports: Together, [LeBron's camp has] big ideas, bigger plans and the biggest agenda this sport’s ever seen. The playoffs move on without LBJ, but deep down it reassures him that the Boston Celtics and Orlando Magic will never be as big of a story as the suspense he and his hangers-on will spin together.“Me and my team, we have a game plan that we’re gong to execute,” James said. Yes, his team. That’s where James’ loyalties lie, where together they’ll chase the one title he’s forever chased: the biggest free agent of his generation. Together, they’re going to hold the NBA hostage. They’re going to flush out a thousand scenarios, manipulate front-office decisions in Cleveland, New York, Chicago and beyond. Kentucky’s John Calipari is along for the ride, working with agent Leon Rose and middleman William Wesley, and all hell promises to break out now.

Bob Raissman, New York Daily News: “It hasn’t been the media that’s built his role in the summer of 2010 to a crescendo, but James himself. He constantly manipulated it with suggestions and wink-winks to New York,” wrote Yahoo! Sports’ NBA columnist Adrian Wojnarowski. “James proclaimed July 1, 2010, as the biggest day in the history of basketball, ramping up suspense of his ultimate decision: Do I stay or do I go? What it has done is throw more palpable pressure in the air, more desperation, and it’s come back to haunt him now.” It also has raised hopes in cities such as New York and Chicago. Raised them to the point where segments of the media are fawning over James, reaching out to the King and urging him to come to the Knicks or Bulls. With James leaving his future place of employment open for speculation, assumptions have been made as if they were fact. Stuff like: Now that the Cavaliers have lost this Boston series, and therefore won’t make it to the Finals, LeBron is gone. “The danger here is one, if not more, of these cities considering itself a player in the LeBron sweepstakes are going to be terribly disappointed if he re-signs with Cleveland or moves to a market other than theirs,” said a sports marketing executive who works with NBA clubs. “What do you think the volume of LeBron James jersey sales will be in the jilted markets?” Never mind the jerseys. James’ image will take a major pounding from these jilted lovers. Bouquets will be replaced by brickbats. The possibility exists that the free agency blueprint that LeBron and his associates crafted could end up damaging the King James brand.

Sean Deveney, The Sporting News: Where to, LeBron? The drum roll to July 1 begins, and the Cavs’ stunning loss certainly shifts the thinking in terms of how James approaches free agency. The smart money is still on a return to Cleveland, his hometown team and the franchise that bent over backwards (and paid a luxury tax) to add talent. But the players around James have shown a tendency, over the last two seasons, to cave at crucial moments. It’s long been assumed that, if James were to leave Cleveland, he would be drawn to New York’s bright lights. But recently a new theory has made the rounds—a long-shot conspiracy tale with very little hard evidence to back it—that has James eyeing Chicago, possibly with Kentucky coach John Calipari in the mix. James will have some long weeks ahead before he begins making his decision, but this series did not help the case for staying in Cleveland.

Art Spander, Real Clear Sports: Avery Johnson, the coach turned announcer, is “rooting for Cleveland.” I’m rooting for a moratorium. Wishing there were not one mention of LeBron James until July. As if that’s possible. This will be the summer of our dyspepsia. We’re going to be sick of the speculation. We already are. That the Boston Celtics knocked the underachieving Cleveland Cavaliers from the NBA playoffs Thursday night became less important than the fact Mr. James will become a free agent July 1. He’ll be one for a while, as you are going to be reminded almost hourly, especially in Cleveland, New York, Miami, Newark, Chicago and Los Angeles, cities with teams believing they will be signing LeBron. A year ago the supposition dealt with Brett Favre. Finally he joined the Vikings. Now we’re saddled with LeBron, although that story might serve to push the one on Tiger Woods slightly to the side. We do overkill very well in our media, if not in our minds.


Photo from fOTOGLIF

I’ll write more about the ramifications of Game 6 (94-85) tomorrow — for a preview check out this post — but needless to say, this was a huge win for the Celtics, in more ways than one.

This wasn’t your average, everyday conference semifinal win. The Celtics’ victory in this series not only means they’ll have a chance to play the Magic for an opportunity to play in the Finals, but it may have shifted the landscape of the NBA for the next decade.

How did they win? Defense.

Cleveland shot a miserable 38% from the field and turned the ball over 22 times. LeBron posted a triple-double (27-19-10) but missed 13-of-21 shots and turned the ball over nine times, the most TOs he has had since 2008 (also against the Celtics).

Mo Williams posted 22-7-4, but missed 10 shots and turned the ball over five times. Antawn Jamison went 2-for-10 from the field and didn’t justify the Cavs’ decision to trade for him in February. Shaq looked old and slow, but managed 11-5 and five fouls. In short, the Cavs newcomers were an epic failure.

The chemistry just wasn’t there for Cleveland. Everyone seemed to be pressing and when the game was on the line, LeBron deferred and his teammates missed shots. There were times late in the fourth quarter when the Cavs were trailing by eight or nine points and LeBron was retreating to half court when the shot went up instead of getting on the offensive glass. What good does getting back on defense do you when you need to score on every single possession to have a chance at winning the game?

Who was the hero for Boston? Rajon Rondo posted 21-3-12 with five steals and was coolly effective throughout the game. Kevin Garnett (22-12) was big in the first half and in the clutch, hitting turnaround after turnaround over Jamison. (In trading for Jamison, the Cavs were so concerned about matching up with Rashard Lewis, that they overlooked KG’s length in a potential matchup in the semis.) Lastly, I have to mention Tony Allen (10 points), who played excellent defense on LeBron throughout the night. I don’t think the C’s would have won the series without him.

Boston’s win is especially impressive considering that Ray Allen and Paul Pierce combined to go 6-of-21 from the field for 21 points. The Celtics were smart in the way they attacked the Cavs offensively. Aside from a couple of possessions, they didn’t force the ball to Pierce, who has trouble scoring on LeBron. Instead, they fed the ball to Garnett on the block and utilized Rondo on basket cuts.

As I was watching Game 5 and Game 6, I really could not believe what I was seeing. There was (seemingly) so much riding on the Cavs’ playoff run that it seemed inevitable that they would at least make the Conference Finals, but this early exit throws everything up in the air.

On the “good sportsmanship” front, it appears LeBron learned his lesson. He stopped and spoke with each of the Boston players, but he really didn’t let them say anything. It was a little forced, actually. He’d pull each guy in for a hug, say something into his ear and then he was on his way. It was like he was the Godfather or something. Listen to me as I say some motivational words.


Photo from fOTOGLIF

We’ll see if he bounces back in Game 6.