SExcellent point IMO. If James wants to make the most money, no way he goes to Ohio. If James wants titles, no way he goes to Ohio. Yet ... he goes to Ohio anyway. The Leafs also have cache baby that the Cavs can only dream about.
And there's a good reason for it. It's because LeBron is a power hungry egomaniac. Dan Gilbert basically sold his soul to get LeBron back to the Cavs, and basically gave LeBron the keys to the organization. Like, look at some of the things they have done:
1. Trading for Kevin Love. It seemed like a pretty obvious common sense move, but LeBron relly was known to want to play with Love badly.
2. The Cavs wanted to hire a coach and had to choose between David Blatt and Tyronn Lue, well known as LeBron's buddy, to coach. They went with Blatt. Note that this was before LeBron came. When LeBron came, his buddy, Tyronn Lue, was soon after signed to be an assistant coach and was given the highest salary for an assistant coach in NBA history, even though he was never that highly touted around the league. Yeah, LeBron definitely had nothing to do with that...
3. Throughout the season, they play a really stagnant system that consists of basically LeBron ISO after LeBron ISO after LeBron ISO and the ball stopped at LeBron when he was up top. Under a coach like David Blatt who was well known and really well praised for his motion offense that promoted teamwork and ball movement, as well as lots of screens, player movement, and open catch and shoot opportunities. You know, something similar to what a dynasty like the Spurs or one of the best teams in history like the Warriors are running. Instead, they were running a system only to cater to LeBron's desire to pad his own stats first. Hell, in the finals, LeBron had triple double after triple double after triple double, but was woefully inefficient from the floor.
4. During last offseason, Tristan Thompson was given an absolutely absurd contract of 5 yrs and $82M after a really long standoff that even resulted in thompson missing camp due to the hold out, for a guy who can only do 2 things at all well - rebound, and defend the pick and roll. Otherwise, he is useless. Why? Tristan Thompson's agent is Rich Paul. Guess who else is also friends with and a client of his? LeBron. And as we established earlier, Gilbert has no choice, since LeBron has him by the balls and is only signing repeating one year deals, so he could always just threaten to leave after the season.
5. The Cavs, after having the 3rd/4th best record in the NBA at 30-11 and the best record in the east... inexplicably fire David Blatt, even though the Cavs overachieved after a slew of injuries in the playoffs to a finals appearance under him the previous year and as I said, had the best record in the conference this year. Not to mention that LeBron was widely known to have some friction towards Blatt. Guess who they hired as new HC? Yep, LeBron's buddy, Ty Lue, and guess what? Literally nothing has changed. The Cavs are still playing the exact same way as they did before firing Blatt. Despite the fact that Lue said they would be running at a higher pace. Oh, and guess what? Lue had the most obviously staged presser ever after his first game where he half heartedly called the big 3 out, to give off the illusion of accountability.
Besides... think about it. LeBron didn't go back to be a hometown hero. He went back so he could have control of a team and him being able to spin it PR wise into a hometown hero coming home was just a cherry on top from a PR perspective. He could never have that with Miami, Pat Riley wouldn't stand for that **** and had the clout to put LeBron in his place as the president. If Gilbert doesn't basically let LeBron run the show, he's still in Miami.
This is not the same situation as Stamkos. Stamkos would actually be coming home because he sincerely wants to come home, and not because of some screwed up, unprecedented power dynamic. And I'm a guy who has been on the avoid Stamkos train.