The Cavaliers haven't played very good basketball through the first 10 games of their 2017-18 season. Cleveland currently sits at just 4-6 on the season, and while they have notched impressive wins against a handful of playoff contenders including the Celtics, Bucks, and Wizards, they’ve also lost games to the Nets, Knicks, Pacers, and, most recently, Hawks. The team has given up more than 100 points in each of its last 8 games and doesn’t appear to be playing with the type of intensity it’ll take to get them back to the NBA Finals this season.
If we had to guess, the Cavaliers will figure out a way to turn things around sooner than later. This isn’t the first time they’ve struggled at the start of a season, and when you consider that they’re working a bunch of new guys into the mix this year, their early-season struggles shouldn’t come as a total shock.
But for the time being, LeBron James is frustrated with the way the team is playing and searching for answers as far as how to change things. And it appears as though he might be so frustrated that he’s already transforming into Subtweet LeBron and using social media to try and light a spark up under his teammates.
On Monday night, LeBron watched his former teammate Kyrie Irving go off against the Hawks, the same team that defeated Cleveland the previous night. We know LeBron was watching because he got caught "liking" a video of Irving putting in work against Atlanta on Instagram.
And apparently, Irving’s performance against the Hawks made LeBron feel some type of way. Irving put up 35 points, 3 rebounds, and 7 assists during Boston’s 110-107 win, and when the game was over, LeBron seemed to respond by putting up this cryptic Arthur meme on Instagram.
Had LeBron put this up at any other time, NBA fans may not have automatically associated it with Irving. But because he chose to put it up right after Boston beat Atlanta, NBA fans were immediately convinced that LeBron’s IG post was about Irving.
LeBron’s IG post could, of course, be about any number of things. While NBA fans obviously read into it one way and thought it was about Irving, there’s a chance it wasn’t about basketball at all. But the curious timing of the post coupled with LeBron’s penchant for putting up cryptic social media posts certainly suggests that it was meant to send a message to either Irving or LeBron’s current teammates.
Either way, it’s clear LeBron wasn’t happy about something on Monday night, and we wouldn’t be surprised if Subtweet LeBron turns into Angry LeBron during the Cavaliers’ game against the Bucks on Tuesday.
