Call it the LeBron James hangover.

“There was a total dependence on LeBron,” said Larry Drew, the team’s longtime lead assistant, who found himself suddenly elevated to the uncertain position of what the Cavaliers called the “acting” head coach when Lue was fired last weekend. “A total dependence,” he said, to emphasize the point.

“I am not just talking about his talent, but the whole presence,” he said. “You could sense it just when he walked into the gym. And when that is taken away, when he is gone, it is like, where do you go? The whole organization feels it, has had to deal with it, even the whole city. And that is the struggle.”

So far, the struggle is real, and it is not going well.

When James left Cleveland, for the second time, the team made the conscious decision to make a clean break from its historic superstar (without the bitter rancor that existed between ownership and James following his free-agent signing with the Miami Heat in 2010).

That massive mural of James that had stretched across the wide flank of a building near Quicken Loans arena? Gone. (A new one was put up depicting a landmark statue in the city.)