This is the first time since Miami that LeBron had a GM who actually knew how to do their job and improve his team. Thankfully the Thunder were tanking at the same time too. That didn't hurt. They did even better this offseason than I thought was possible.
I don’t think that’s a truly fair statement. I think the front office in Cleveland version 2.0 did about as they well as they could have to appease LeBron and put as good of a team around him as they did. They traded a valuable asset (#1 overall pick) to get a guy who could help them win now (Kevin Love). They made trades mid-season to get Shumpert, JR Smith & Mozgov.
They resigned Thompson & JR Smith in B2B off-season deals. I think it is safe to say they overpaid, but they also had low cap holds so there wasn’t as much wiggle room to make deals that involved them. And Thompson was probably the 2nd best player on the 1st finals team since Kyrie got hurt in Game 1 and Thompson was the only real big that could guard the rim and not get burned on Curry switches like Kevin Love.
The year they won the title they made a move to get Channing Frye to replace Varejao minutes who couldn’t play that well against the Warriors.
In LeBron’s last two years they made mid-season moves to get Kyle Korver on a 1st that never had to convey. The last year they signed Jose Calderon, Derrick Rose and Jeff Green before the Kyrie trade and then DWade after the trade.
I’m just not sure that each situation is as comparable to the other. The last two years LeBron was in Cleveland there was close to a zero percent chance they would win a championship between how good the Warriors were and Kyrie wanting out the start of the second year. LeBron gets too much criticism for NBA Finals losses (winning titles is tough; and I think people forget how almost everyone short of Russell and MJ had Finals failures), but he also has a pretty sweet narrative that when he wins its because of him (and almost all the time it should be), but he also skates a lot when the team loses that the organization does not build around him. Not trading the Boston/Brooklyn pick in 2018 was the right move because LeBron gave them no indication he would stay and I don’t think anyone on the market at the deadline would have got them past the Warriors.
I think Rob Pelinka does deserve a lot of credit and the fact that it is LA and he has LeBron he gets slighted by a lot of people for his moves. I think the Schroder trade was his best move of the off-season because he wasn’t afraid to make a move one year after signing a guy to better the team. I’m a little concerned for Harrell, especially after the Gasol signing because LeBron is at a point in his career where if a guy doesn’t fit he’s moving on from them, and I worry this was the best off-season for Harrell to make really good money.