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From the moment Mike Brown marches back into the Cleveland Cavaliers, ownership needs to empower him to tell everyone the truth: LeBron James is gone and he's never returning to the franchise.

No more tanking for draft picks. No more empty free-agent classes. No more false promises and mirages. No more illusions of chasing James in the summer of 2014, only to compromise themselves over and over in the conceptual pursuit of him.

The Cavaliers have a franchise player, Kyrie Irving, and here's the problem today: No one cares his thoughts on the next coach, nor how the hiring affects him. Every day Brown's ever spent on the job as Cavaliers coach, every choice and action was colored with how LeBron James would react, how he'd respond.

For the good of this franchise, Brown doesn't need to be set up again as the fall guy for James wanting to play elsewhere. Three years later, Brown returns to coach the Cavaliers and somehow they're all still trying to get LeBron James to love them.

"The way Mike had to bend for LeBron weakened him as a leader," one former Cavaliers staffer told Yahoo! Sports. "They'd be crazy to put him through that again. It's pointless."

[Related: Mike Brown gets five-year, $20 million contract to return to Cleveland]

It is a fact James' agent, Rich Paul, has eagerly created anticipation for James' possible return in 2014, but eventually his client will have to spare himself the pummeling of raising Northeast Ohio's hopes, only to dash them under closer inspection of the move.

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To trade Pat Riley and Erik Spoelstra for Cavs general manager Chris Grant and Brown is unfathomable. Riley has surrounded James with magnificent talent and a winning culture, and Spoelstra's creativity and discipline have played a significant part in his transcendent evolution.

Yes, James loves Northeast Ohio and will always keep a home there, but the idea of returning as the conquering hero is probably much more romantic than reality. Outside of Irving, there's still little infrastructure to these Cavaliers.

Privately, the Cleveland front office has pitched a fantasy of trading young players and picks to Portland for All-Star forward LaMarcus Aldridge, sources said. Only, that's never going to happen. Cleveland is far higher on its two top-five picks, Tristan Thompson and Dion Waiters, than the rest of the NBA.

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