CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The last two players in the locker room Saturday night were LeBron James and Kyrie Irving.

The two Cavs superstars were encouraging each other to be the first to speak to reporters following Cleveland's 108-105 preseason win over Philadelphia. They each had scored 15 points in the first half of a typically dominant performance for the two of them.

Irving wound up talking to the media before James. While Irving was talking, James was picking up laundry. Seriously.

The three-time champion, four-time MVP took not just his own laundry bag to the locker room attendants, but picked up off the floor an additional five or six laundry sacks that were strewn about The Q locker room by teammates who had left.

"Hopefully I only have to say something once," James said, promising to address the laundry littering with the Cavs. "Can't leave the locker room like that."

James has always been a stickler for respecting locker room attendants, so the behavior he showed Saturday night is no surprise.

Some of the players who used to locker next to him -- Matthew Dellavedova, J.R. Smith -- aren't here. Perhaps the perpetrators were mainly the guys who will be cut in two weeks? Irving, for one, handed in his soiled garments after his media session was done.

But there is a broader point here, one that both James and Irving drove home in different ways: training camp may be going relatively smooth for the defending champs, but the Cavs are by no means a finished product.

It's as though James bending over and picking a teammate's sweaty socks off the floor was also a metaphor for the preparing the team still needs to do for the long journey ahead.

In the age of social media and instant gratification, NBA fans, players, and media can fall into the trap of wanting to fast forward. "Ugh, preseason," we say, "wake me up when the games count."

And then, almost as soon as the regular season begins, it's: "Psh, someone tap me when the playoffs start in April."

There was an air of inevitability around the Cavs all season last year that they would return to the Finals. That turned out to be the case, but James and coach Tyronn Lue often felt some players were taking too much for granted. Lue has vowed the Cavs would be more focused this season.

Barring significant injury, the Cavs are widely expected to return to the Finals for the third consecutive season.

However minor the infraction, though, we already have a case of James needing to address his teammates about behavior. It probably won't be the last time; and James will probably do something this season to warrant a scolding from Lue.

If the Golden State Warriors -- who set a new NBA record for regular-season wins with 73 last year, but couldn't hold off the Cavs after building a 3-1 lead -- taught us anything, it's that an all-out pursuit of a record during the regular season isn't worth it.

The Cavs' method of slowly building to playoff form proved right, and the Warriors have vowed to take a similar approach. But the lesson the Cavs took from last season is that they were at times too lackadaisical in their 57-win campaign, and it made for some trying moments.

This season can go smoother for the Cavs if more people -- players, fans, and, yes, the me's of the world -- pay more respect to the process.

The preseason is about to get really, really long. Tonight in Atlanta, Lue will not play his top nine players. After a few minutes of watching the Cavs "C" team take on the Hawks, who among us is not going to declare themselves ready for the preseason to end?

Well, Irving and James, for starters.

"Nah. I actually am a fan of preseason this year," said Irving, who missed the entire preseason and two months of games recovering from knee surgery last year. "Just kind of getting games off and getting as much rest I can heading into this hectic regular season. Want to be as prepared as we can be."

James added: "Still got some more work I need to do. We still got more work we need to do. We still got a big piece (Smith) missing, so we need as much time as we can get right now."