New Delhi, June 15 -- a veteran core around Curry, Jimmy Butler, and Draymond Green, coached by Steve Kerr, with one more title still theoretically within reach. What makes the Warriors' pursuit of James genuinely strange - and genuinely revealing - is the other part of the pitch. According to reporting by Marc Stein and Jake Fischer of The Stein Line, Golden State's offer is presumed to include the possibility that James could commute between Los Angeles and the Bay Area to some unspecified degree, without uprooting his family.

Sit with that for a moment. A franchise recruiting the greatest player of his generation is building part of its case around the idea that he could, essentially, treat the job like a long-distance arrangement. An...