There are few who can appreciate the math of super teams as much as LeBron James, having been a factor in just about every possible permutation.
"If I become an owner," he said amid these NBA Finals between super and, still seemingly, super-er, "I'm going to try to sign everybody."
For the most part, champions create a recalibration of how to best get it done on the court, be it the Golden State Warriors' three-for-all shooting, the San Antonio Spurs' good-to-better-to-best shot sequence, or the Miami Heat's position-less lineups.
But the new paradigm transcends playing styles, gets to the core of the cap, the ability, to paraphrase a previous rendition of LeBron, or how to get not one, not two, not three ... but perhaps as many as four elite-level talents on the same team.
So as his Cleveland Cavaliers sought to hang on against the Warriors, James went through the computations. He spoke of the Heat clearing out just about all their cap space for their 2010 power play, of the Warriors using the golden ticket of Bird Rights, of his Cavaliers cobbling together enough for at least one championship.
Because those means, as much as any coaching cunning, are what the NBA has become, as teams, perhaps even the Cavaliers, now try to become Warriors.
