Who's suggesting running it back as it was currently constituted? We keep getting told there were no options; that was indeed the convention wisdom. How is it you're so absolutely certain/confident this was the case? The conventional wisdom that Mitchell would surely bolt Cleveland for NY or greener pastures, but Cleveland found a way to make it work.
I was skeptical then, and I am skeptical now. Blowing it up and tanking was the easy and safe way. It relieved the FO of the hard work of being creative while simultaneously allowing them to pose as geniuses, notwithstanding tanking is the default strategy in today's NBA and thus hardly the strategy of the truly intellectually gifted. Meanwhile, the FO continues to receive plaudits and applause for its brilliance for subjecting its fans to a protracted stretch of sucktitude with the most likely outcome being years of suffering only to wind up back where we started: a good, competitive team that provides entertaining, competitive basketball during the regular season but which inevitably falls short in the playoffs. 4,5,6, etc. years of investment in sucking for THIS return?
If this were a stock or other form of investment, who in their right mind would make it?