As LeBron James left the court when there were four minutes and three seconds left in the fourth quarter of Game 4 in 2017-18 NBA Finals between the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday, many saw this as the end of the KingJames Era in Cleveland. Unfortunately for the Cavs, this could be the beginning of something much worse.

Though the Cavaliers have made it into the NBA Finals for four consecutive years, their performances have kept getting worse. For the first time in his career, LeBron has played all 82 games in the regular season and ranked No.1 in playing time of both regular season and the playoffs. He is already 33 years old and has shown signs of feeling run down in multiple games.

If he has the kind of help he had in the past from teammates like Dwyane Wade or Kyrie Irving, things would look different. But he does not. Take a look at the players Cleveland has, you may even feel desperate.

Tristan Thompson could only sit on the bench during key moments for most of the game, not to mention his poor role in offense, fast slipping rebounds and less-than-OK rim protection.

As for J.R. Smith, the world is still, and probably will keep talking about his ridiculous move in the last few seconds of Game 1. He made a few three-pointers in Game 3 and Game 4 but this didn't cover how terrible he was in defense.

When George Hill joined the Cavaliers, his steadiness was valued by fans. As the Finals began, Hill has proved with his performances that he is steady in performing poorly with only 7.5 points, 2.2 rebounds and 2.2 assists.

Kevin Love contributed beautiful data in offense but every minute he was in the court, the Warriors have done a great job of making him the biggest weakness of Cleveland's defense.

On Cavs' bench, Jordan Clarkson was out of the rotation for terrible performances in offense while Rodney Hood was worried about the next contract thanks to his unstable shooting and attitude. Larry Nance Jr. is relatively reliable but is limited in talents.

What's making things worse is the Cleveland's payroll. Kevin Love and George Hill will receive over 20 million US dollars this year. The team also has to pay Tristan Thompson and J.R. Smith respectively 16.40 million and 13.67 million US dollars. Jordan Clarkson will also take nearly 12 million.

Taking the salaries of the other players into calculation, the Cavaliers will need to pay its players about 137.7 million dollars and almost 190 million if we reckon the luxury tax. This number can rank No.2 in NBA history, only next to the 193 million of the Brooklyn Nets in 2014.

Cleveland's payroll may further explode this summer. According to ESPN's calculation, if LeBron chooses to stay, the total salary of the Cavs will reach around 159 million US dollars. Moreover, the team will also need to pay super luxury tax because they have been paying luxury taxes for three years in a row. Finally Cleveland may need to prepare over 300 million dollars for a team that clearly stands no chance in the NBA Finals.

The answer is probably "no". LeBron aside, the other five over-10-million contracts will not expire until 2020. Meanwhile, considering the performances of these five players, it will be almost mission impossible to find teams willing to accept such toxic contracts through trade.

Furthermore, thanks to LeBron's super leadership in the court, the rest of the Cavaliers have lost the ability to play on their own. They were so lost and helpless every time their king went to the bench. If LeBron chooses to leave, Cleveland will be stuck with a disorderly band.

Located in Ohio State, Cleveland is the perfect example of a small market in NBA, meaning it has no attractiveness to star players on the free agent market. Such teams need shrewd management to succeed or, at least to compete with big market teams like the Los Angeles Lakers or the New York Knicks. Unfortunately the Cavaliers do not have it. The owner Dan Gilbert replaced the successful general manager David Griffin with Koby Altman who has neither experience nor connections and has made two rounds of deals that turned out to be failures.

Some may see NBA draft as the Cavs' last straw to clutch at, it does not seem solid enough. The team has insisted that this pick will not be touched during all trade negotiations in the past season. Nonetheless, it turned out to be only an eighth pick. Top talented young men like DeAndre Ayton, Luka Doncic, Jaren Jackson Jr. and Marvin Bagley III will surely be picked by other teams before Cleveland has its turn.

Chronologically, the Cavaliers are doomed when Kyrie Irving announced that he wanted to leave LeBron James in summer 2017. Irving's move has thrown the Cavs into an unfavorable situation. All teams that want Irving will not accept the monstrous overcharge because they know Cleveland will have to let him go.

In the end, the Celtics got Irving by sending Isaiah Thomas, Jae Crowder, Ante Zizic, a first-round pick for 2018 draft from the Nets and a second-round pick for 2020 from the Miami heat. The Cavaliers not only lost their second best scorer and second isolation choice for key moments, but also found that Thomas was ruined by a hip injury and Crowder had forgotten how to play without the support of the Celtics' system.

In February, GM Altman made multiple deals with four teams to send away Thomas, Crowder, Iman Shumpert, Channing Frye, Dwyane Wade and Derrick Rose in exchange for Jordan Clarkson, Larry Nance Jr., Rodney Hood and George Hill. It seemed that the team had finally received some new blood, but the truth was that Cleveland had returned to the old age of LeBron taking over everything. One of the reasons that LeBron left Cleveland in 2010 was that he grew tired of carrying the whole team on his own.

From the angle of team development, the Cavs' failure was the inevitable outcome of every team that had LeBron James as the core player.

LeBron needed space in the court so he could play more comfortably and efficiently, meaning even the big men need to become shooters, like Chris Bosh, Channing Frye and Kevin Love.

Since big men were used as shooters, the team did not have enough rim protection in defense and lacked effective ways of offense in the paint area. If the shooter cannot make the three-pointers, their offense will easily stagnate.

LeBron needed old, experienced players who were familiar with how to play with him. As a result, the team would lack athleticism and was weak in defending transition offense.

LeBron had to be the organizer so the team would need a second man in charge who could score regardless of the situation on the court like Wade and Irving. If this man is gone or not in good condition, all the pressure would be on LeBron's shoulder.

LeBron needed to be in charge of the team so that everyone else would grow used to relying on him. In the end, when games were on the line, LeBron would have to be on his own.