Can even LeBron James at his best beat Golden State Warriors? -- Bill Livingston (photos)

OAKLAND, California - Golden State has the Splash Brothers, Klay Thompson and Steph Curry, who make 3-pointers from the pike, tuck, and prance and preen position, the latter pair mostly confined to Curry.

The Cleveland Cavaliers have LeBron.

Golden State has Kevin Durant, who put his thumb on the NBA scales of competitive balance and then added his middle finger as a salute, assuring last year's NBA championship and all but guaranteeing one for this season, too.

But ...

The Cavs have LeBron.

In an otherwise charming commercial about their shared love for the game that ran during All-Star weekend, Durant modestly notes that he and James "are the best two (players)."

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Durant might even be 1A, part of an entry of greatness. But he's not No. 1.

The Cavs have 1.

He's No. 23 in your program. He's LeBron.

As the late Sparky Anderson would say - unfurling double negatives the way the Warriors let fly a flurry of dead-solid perfect threes in a bug squashing of robotic, mindless Houston in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals - "There ain't never been nobody like him."

2017 all over again?

The NBA Finals this year are considered a foregone conclusion. With Kyrie Irving last season, the Cavs suffered the "gentleman's sweep," a five-game dusting, winning Game 4 at The Q when it was all over but the shouting because nobody ever came back from 0-3 in the NBA.

Moments after the clearly superior Cavs dispatched Boston in five games last season in the Eastern Conference finals, James, when asked about the Warriors, said, "It's too stressful to think about that now."

This year, the Cavs beat a probably better Boston team in seven games in the East finals after clawing past another superior team, Indiana, in seven games in the first round.

Houston in its Game 7 showed the reductio ad absurdam of the 3-point revolution. The Rockets missed TWENTY- SEVEN straight and kept on chuckin'. It's what happens when you consider a missed three better than a made two at mid-range.

The Warriors will not do this. They are not idealogues, wedded, like blind Marxists, to the inequities and deprivations of Communism as it was actually practiced.

The Warriors can punish opponents at the rim the way James does. They even take and make mid-range shots, which is heresy to the visionaries in Houston.

No love for Kevin

Also, Kevin Love, who missed Game 7 against Boston because of a concussion and has yet to cleared for Thursday's Finals opener, will be targeted by the Warriors. They will exploit his defense in a brutal trade-off for the offensive boost he provides.

By reason of the exclusion of insanity as an offense from their game plan, plus their enormous talent, the Warriors are almost a consensus choice of media members to beat the Cavs quickly.

Requiem for a heavyweight?

That is why the fourth straight Eastern Conference championship had such an elegiac feel to it. Many believe just getting this flawed, callow Cavs team to the Finals was James' greatest accomplishment.

Still, the reason they will play the games is the puncher's chance. It is the defiant glowing ember in the ashes. It asks, "What if?"

What if James, the 2018 playoff leader in minutes played, points scored, free throws attempted, assists, turnovers (oops), win share, plus/minus, value over replacement and majesty of aura (I just made the last one up) can do four more times what he has done in the Cavs' dozen wins?

The mere possibility is why fantasy leagues are booming, fantasy video games are selling, and hoop dreams never die.

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