LeBron James in the wine and gold for 2025-26 — as beautiful as it sounds — simply isn’t realistic with the constraints of the NBA/NBPA collective bargaining agreement.

Had the Cavs made a trade prior to the start of the new league year (which began July 1) bringing their team salary down about $11 million (at the time), they would’ve had the $5.685 million taxpayer mid-level exception at their disposal. But if at any point during the current league year a team is above the second apron, they lose access to every version of the mid-level exception.

As mentioned previously, being over the first apron ($195.945 million), which is about $12 million below the second apron ($207.824 million), results in a team losing their ability to sign a waived player (waiving is what happens to someone after a buyout) whose prior salary was more than $14.104 million. The first apron also triggers the forfeiture of the bi-annual exception, as well as terminating a club’s ability to receive a player in a sign-and-trade.

If Captain LeMerica wouldn’t have opted into $52.6 million for this season, Cleveland could’ve theoretically made moves to sign him as a free agent for around $5.7 million.

But the gulf between that and 52.6 large is larger than the largest largism in largetown. That didn’t happen, largely because it wouldn’t have been prudent for him to do so — he’s already enormously charitable in his birth state without giving back nearly 47 million cheese fries to Southern California.

At this point, the most likely method by which a farewell tour happens in a Cavs uniform would be to wait for the 2026 free agency period. We’ll get straight to that now in Part 3.

—@PoisonPill4