ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — After another embarrassing defeat and two days before the trade deadline, LeBron James let it be known he’s not going anywhere, at least for now.
“I’m here for this season right now to try and figure out a way we can still compete,” James said after his Cleveland Cavaliers blew a 21-point lead in a 116-98 loss to the Orlando Magic. “I owe it to my teammates to finish this season out no matter how it ends up. I would never waive my no-trade clause.”
The Cavaliers fell apart in the second half and lost for the 14th time in 21 games. They have given up an average of 122.4 points in their last five losses.
“I couldn’t give up on my teammates like that. I just couldn’t do it,” James said after scoring 25 points. “We put too much into the game every single day.
“This is no time to be ashamed about our season,” he added. “We’ve got quite a few games left. If we’re still serious about the season, then we’ve got to play some good ball at some point.”
The Cavs scored 43 points in the first quarter, but then went almost 6½ minutes without scoring in the fourth.
“It’s like right now, when we hit adversity, we go our separate ways,” guard Isaiah Thomas said. “And that’s just how I feel and it looks like that as well.”
James did not have a rebound or an assist in a foul-plagued second half.
“I gave my teammates some opportunities to knock ’em down, but they just didn’t go,” James said. “You can’t get assists when they don’t go down, but that doesn’t stop me from finding my guys on the floor.
“At this point it’s not what you say, it’s what you do. We’ve got to go out and play well as a collective group, everyone hitting at the right time on all cylinders, and right now we’re not doing that.”