LeBron Wants Cavs, J.R. Smith to Reach Deal Now

It only took until the close of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ first week of training camp before LeBron James stuck his neck out into the stalled J.R. Smith negotiations and publicly stumped for the holdout guard.

“I hate coming into another season — two years in a row — with one of my big guns not here,” James said, alluding to Tristan Thompson, who missed most of training camp last fall with a similar holdout situation. “So, for a leader of a team and for me personally, I just hate to deal with this s— again.

“It’s just too big of a piece to our team to have to deal with in another training camp. Like I said, hopefully things get resolved fast, because you know how big and important he is to our team.”

Source: Dave McMenamin of ESPN