CLEVELAND -- If a pro basketball game were ever to be fought over a billboard, the Cavaliers-Sixers matchup Thursday in Cleveland would be it.
This week, a Philadelphia-area business paid for three billboards in the Cleveland area recruiting LeBron James to the 76ers. James can be a free agent at season's end, and he has ties with Sixers rookie point guard Ben Simmons.
The Cavs, of course, would prefer their three-time champion and four-time MVP stay right where he is.
"You can say it's a distraction, it's not," James said. "It is actually very flattering that I'm sitting here at 33 and in my 15th year and teams or guys -- I don't want to say teams because that becomes tampering.