“I think, honestly, this free-agent talk is getting old. It’s getting old and I think it’s probably the last time I answer anymore free-agent questions until the offseason.”

— LeBron James, via Ohio.com

John Hollinger writes in his latest PER Diem (Insider subscription required) that LeBron’s best bet for long term success may not be in Cleveland…or New York…or New Jersey/Brooklyn…

And it’s especially worth noting that if the Cavs are back in the 45-50 win range this season, King James might be a much more portable commodity this coming summer. If he’s looking at a Cleveland lineup with one majestically talented player and several spare parts, one would think the comparison to such arrangements in New York or New Jersey wouldn’t be dramatically different.

But those aren’t close to being the most palatable changes of uniform available. For instance, it bears mentioning that joining the Chicago squad LeBron’s team lost to Thursday night would be dramatically different. With a young star point guard, quality big men and lots of secondary help, the Bulls — who could get as much as $20 million under the cap if John Salmons opts out of his contract, conveniently opening a spot in the lineup for LeBron at the same time — would offer a more clear opportunity for long-term success.

Let me throw out an even crazier proposition — Minnesota. The Wolves will have the cap space to make a run at LeBron, depending on a few variables — or at the very least can get there fairly easily if they know there’s a chance for a player of this caliber. (Declining an option on Ryan Gomes, for instance, is done much more easily if it allows you to replace him with the best player in the league.)

Minnesota is generally thought of as one of the NBA’s least-desirable relocation options, but let’s consider it from a winning perspective. Who would you rather play with for the next five years: Al Jefferson or Anderson Varejao? Kevin Love or Ilgauskas? Ricky Rubio or Mo Williams? Jonny Flynn or West? Ramon Sessions or Daniel Gibson? Next year’s fourth pick or next year’s 24th? It’s obvious, isn’t it?

Don’t get me wrong — the T-Wolves would be a good fit for LeBron, but he’d be a pretty good fit anywhere. I just don’t see him taking his show from one cold, small-market Midwestern city to another cold, small-market Midwestern city. If he doesn’t stay in Cleveland, then there seem to be three real options:

1. Brooklyn Nets
With Devin Harris and Brook Lopez locked up for the next few years, the Nets have two All-Star caliber players already on the roster at two of the toughest positions to fill — point guard and center. Is the penetrating Harris the perfect fit alongside LeBron? Not necessarily, but if the Nets can find a sharpshooting off guard (Courtney Lee?) and face up power forward (a la Rashard Lewis), the Nets would really be in business. Plus, the move to Brooklyn would take away the stigma of playing in New Jersey.

2. Chicago Bulls
It would break the city of Cleveland’s heart if LeBron fled to the Windy City. New York or Brooklyn? Cleveland fans wouldn’t like it, but they’d understand. But if LeBron heads to Chicago, home of the team that stepped on the Cavs’ throats so many times during the Jordan era, the city might explode. From a pure basketball point of view, it’s a nice fit. They already have Derrick Rose, Luol Deng, Joakim Noah, Kirk Hinrich and maybe Tyrus Thomas. Chicago is also a threat to pry Dwyane Wade out of Miami.

3. New York Knicks
This is more about MSG and the spotlight than who the Knicks have on the roster. Playing in Mike D’Antoni’s system would be nice, and if the Knicks can unload either Eddy Curry or Jared Jeffries, they’d have enough cap space to sign another free agent to max deal. This might be a case of the Knicks having to coax Chris Bosh out of Toronto or Amare Stoudemire out of Phoenix before being able to convince LeBron to sign on the dotted line.

We’re only a couple of weeks into the season and the talk is already starting. The Cavs have plenty of time to morph into a 60-win team, but right now they don’t look it. And the longer they struggle, the louder the drum beat is going to sound.

Tim Cowlishaw, Dallas Morning News: How different are the Mavericks? We have a long time to try and figure that out, but clearly the arrival of Shawn Marion and Drew Gooden won’t answer all of Dallas’ problems right away. Mostly, the Mavs opened the season looking a lot like what we have seen around here. Dirk Nowitzki scored 34 but didn’t have one of his better shooting nights. The offensive energy came from J.J. Barea (13 points, six rebounds, four assists) as it often does. But it was clear in the Denver series last spring that the Mavericks just weren’t quite good enough at the defensive end of the floor. Since then, not much that was done here was designed to change that.

Brian Windhorst, Cleveland.com: It was quite obvious the Cavs were uncomfortable and in search mode from the top on down. Mike Brown was changing lineups and strategies on the fly, the defense was a mess for long stretches and the offense was in its old, but infamous, all-James, all-the-time mode in the final minutes. This, of course, is what the Cavs were afraid of after a somewhat ineffective preseason. While there’s plenty of time to deal with those bumps — though the Celtics will have strong bragging rights until the teams meet again on Feb. 25 — perhaps most disturbing was the effect of Shaquille O’Neal in his first real game as a Cav. He had just 10 points on 5-of-11 shooting with 10 rebounds in 29 minutes. Deeper than those vanilla numbers, however, was his inability to deliver at all in the fourth quarter. Three different times James went to him with the score tight and the game on the line and three different times he was unable to come through.

Jay Mariotti, Fanhouse: All it means it that this is a work in progress, that no magic carpet will sweep the Cavs into June and a much-desired Finals matchup with Kobe Bryant and the Lakers. The Celtics didn’t look like a team whose Big Three is a combined 100 years old. Rather, they were energized again by the dynamic point guard, Rajon Rondo, and bolstered by the offense and outside shooting of a widely despised newcomer, Rasheed Wallace. The Cavs couldn’t match up at times with Wallace, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce, and with Garnett looking sturdy and effective in his first game in seven months, the Celtics made a statement that they aren’t dead yet as a contender.

Elliott Teaford, Los Angeles Daily News: Ron Artest had 10 points, five rebounds and four assists in his Lakers debut. At game’s end, Jackson praised Artest for his standout defensive work against Al Thornton, who had eight points on 4-for-11 shooting and nine rebounds in place of injured rookie forward Blake Griffin. “He played shut-down defense very well against their scoring forward, Thornton,” Jackson said. “I thought he looked like he was in the offensive mix most of the time.”

- GQ lists the 20 Most Despicable Coaches. Wait until you see who’s #1.

- SPORTSBYBROOKS discusses why the vast majority of sports talk radio hosts are white men.

- FIVE TOOL TOOL has a great list of 10 Lame NFL Excuses.

- BALL DON’T LIE has video of Jon Stewart trying to woo LeBron to New York on an episode of “The Daily Show.”

That’s the biggest question hovering over the NBA this season, at least from a free agency standpoint. ESPN tackled this issue by surveying a group of “52 NBA noggins” to see what the general consensus is.

The good news for Cleveland fans is that 73% responded that he’s likely to stay put, in no small part to how the economy has affected the NBA salary cap. The bottom line is that, with reduced cap space, other teams are going to have a tough time signing two superstars, so they become less desirable destinations for LeBron.

New York still lurks as the biggest threat to pry LeBron away from Cleveland, and here’s why…

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Back in the good ol’ days, athletes used to speak their mind when someone put a microphone in front of them. Players would get into trouble for the things they said, so as time goes on, they’ve become more and more careful about not offending anyone. Some guys even hire publicists to teach them how to interact with the media. This has led to virtually all player/reporter interactions to be completely sanitized of any possibly controversial material.

As a former college player, I’ve been interviewed by a few reporters in my day, and watching one of the best (Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan), I learned how to sound like I was saying something when I was actually saying nothing. I did it out of pure fear — I didn’t want Bo waking up the next day to see that his small forward had said something stupid or controversial to a reporter.

While listening to LeBron’s first post-playoff interview the other day [video], it occurred to me that he was talking a lot, but wasn’t actually saying much of anything. There were a lot of platitudes — he needed to get better over the summer, that he loves playing in Cleveland, etc. — but the interview was seemingly absent of honest opinion or revelation.

So here is LeBron’s transcribed interview, along with my translation of what he really said when he wasn’t saying anything…

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Ben Wallace is considering retirement, Anderson Varejao is likely to opt out of the final year of his contract, and Zydrunas Ilgauskas will play out the final year of his.

Wallace is guaranteed the money and has every right to come back and accept the checks under terms of the deal. More likely if he couldn’t play, the Cavs would look to perhaps get insurance to cover some of the salary and look to trade him. He’d be a valuable commodity because of the expiring contract and teams looking to dump salaries covet them.

There is also a possibility that Wallace could negotiate a buyout of his deal and take a percentage of what he’s owed. But even in that case it would potentially make him a huge trade asset. A team could trade for him at the value of his contract ($14 million) and then save money by buying him out.

I’m not quite an NBA salary cap expert, but I have a pretty good understanding of the rules. Even so, I’m not sure what the financial impact would be of what Wallace is considering. Without Wallace and Varejao, but with Ilgauskas, the Cavs are on the hook for about $53 million, possibly a bit less since there are a few contracts included that aren’t 100% guaranteed. If Wallace were to come completely off the books, that would put the Cavs about $5 million under the cap, which really doesn’t help them all that much since they can already sign a player at the mid-level for about $5.8 million. Where a team really gains an advantage is when they have substantially more than the mid-level in cap space.

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This is not how it was supposed to go.

The Cavs were destined to make the Finals and face the Lakers, with LeBron turning in a fantastic Game 7 performance in front of his loyal fans at the Q to bring the city of Cleveland its first championship since 1964. With a title already under his belt, and a few more on the horizon, he would happily re-up for another four or five seasons. Or at the very worst, the Cavs would lose to the more talented Lakers, leaving fans with the feeling that “one more piece” would be all that is needed to finally bring a title to Cleveland. Under that scenario, there would be no way that LeBron could leave, right? Not when the Cavs were thisclose to a title…

Just over a year ago, I wrote that “The Cavs have failed LeBron James,” which was posted about three months before GM Danny Ferry pulled the trigger on the trade that brought Mo Williams to Cleveland. That trade, along with LeBron’s renewed focus and an improved work ethic (which was inspired by his seeing first hand how Kobe prepared during the 2008 Olympics), pushed the Cavs to a league-best 66 wins this season. Williams was named as an alternate to the All-Star Game (after grousing about not being voted in by the coaches) and all was well with the world.

The Cavs received some more good news when Kevin Garnett struggled with injuries down the stretch of the regular season and was eventually shut down for the playoffs. At the time, the Celtics were considered the Cavs’ biggest threat in the East, but KG’s injury might have allowed the Magic, one of four teams that beat the Cavs twice during the year — the Celtics, the Lakers and…um…the Wizards were the other three — to advance to the Conference Finals when they otherwise wouldn’t have survived to face the Cavs. The Magic were a very bad matchup because the Cavs simply didn’t have anyone that could cover Dwight Howard. When they didn’t double-team him, he would make a living on the post, and when they did send another guy, it would free up the Orlando sharpshooters for open jumpers.

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