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.

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Every so often we examine the results of our weekly poll. Last week, we asked the following question, and 204 readers responded. Here are the results:

(Click on the picture for a bigger version.)

I’m a little surprised that almost a quarter answered that a Cavs championship would lead to LeBron’s departure because it seems counter-intuitive. If winning is the most important thing, and he just won a title with this roster, why would he bolt?

I understand the argument that he would have just brought a title to Cleveland, so now he can leave, but this isn’t a prison sentence, is it? The idea is to win multiple championships, right? Why start over somewhere else?

If the Cavs do win the title, I can only see LeBron leaving if he, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh all agree to take a little less money to meet up in New York, and that scenario is a longshot at best.

ESPN’s Chad Ford lists nine teams that will have significant cap space next summer. [Insider subscription required.]

1. Nets ($25-$27 million)
2. Knicks ($24 million, assuming they don’t sign anyone for longer than a year)
3. Heat ($20-$22 million)
4. Timberwolves ($16-$18 million)
5. Bulls ($13-$15 million minus whatever they give Tyrus Thomas)
6. Thunder ($14-$15 million)
7. Rockets ($12-$14 million minus whatever they give to Carl Landry and Chuck Hayes)
8. Clippers ($10-$11 million)
9. Kings ($9-$10 million)

This assumes a cap of $53.6 million, which is an optimistic view. The cap could drop below $50 million.

It takes about $14 million of space to sign a max-contract player, so even under these optimistic circumstances, there really are only five teams — the Nets, Knicks, Heat, T-Wolves and Thunder — that will have that kind of space. (The Bulls are likely to keep Thomas and the Rockets are likely to retain Landry and Hayes, though they could make another move here or there to put them in position to add a superstar.)

Of these five teams, the Heat look to be in the best overall shape. Their projected payroll already includes Dwyane Wade, so they have enough to woo another superstar (LeBron, Bosh, Amare, Boozer?) to Miami. They also have a few good young players (Michael Beasley, Daequan Cook and Mario Chalmers) under contract, and the city boasts a great climate and nightlife. But the real draw is playing with Wade, who has already proven that he can win a championship if he has a little help.

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The new salary cap figure is out, and it dipped slightly from last season.

The new figures for 2009-10 just announced by the league have set the salary cap at $57.7 million per team — down $1 million from $58.7 from 2008-09 — and the luxury-tax threshold at $69.9 million.

More importantly, the league is projecting a much bigger drop (as much as $8 million) heading into the 2010 season.

The official league memorandum, obtained by ESPN.com, forecasts a dip in basketball-related income in the 2009-10 season of 2.5 percent to 5 percent, which threatens to take the 2010-11 cap down some $5 million to $8 million from last season’s $58.7 million salary cap.

A significant drop for the luxury-tax threshold is also projected going into the summer of 2010. If basketball-related income drops by 2.5 percent in 2009-10, league officials are projecting a 2010-11 salary cap of $53.6 million and a luxury-tax line of $65 million. If BRI, as it is referred to in the NBA, decreases by five percent, teams would be looking at a $50.4 million salary cap and a luxury-tax line of $61.2 million in 2010-11.

What does this mean? Well, a team like the New York Knicks, who are projected to have a payroll of about $23 million heading into 2010 would have had about $35 million to spend had the cap stayed at $58 million. That’s plenty of money to sign to superstars. If the cap drops $5-$8 million, it means that they’re projected cap space will be in the $27-$30 million range. That makes signing two “max” players quite tough.

This is probably good news for teams looking to retain their superstars, since they can go over the cap to re-sign players. If the cap does indeed drop to $50 million, it would increase the chances of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Joe Johnson staying put.

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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