LeBron James: Bulls are better than us right now

The Cleveland Cavaliers may be the public favorite to win the 2014-15 NBA Championship, but the return of LeBron James isn't alone enough to convince, well, LeBron James, just yet.

Namely, James sees the Chicago Bulls as the Eastern Conference standard bearer right now.

"(The Bulls) are a team that's much better than us right now," James said. "Just off chemistry. They've been together for a while, we've got a long way to go."

James certainly isn't wrong, and though the Cavaliers are the bookmaker favorite to win the championship and the division, it wouldn't be all that surprising to see the Bulls finish the regular season with a higher win total. 

The Bulls won 48 games last season, largely without Derrick Rose, and have since added Pau Gasol, Nikola Mirotic, and Doug McDermott. The Cavaliers made substantial improvements, too, but the Bulls have consistency in the coach's chair and will return 73.1 percent of their minutes played from a year ago (plus the return of Rose). They're stable, and over an 82-game season that can be a big help.

James also knows that so-called super teams can take a minute to mesh, as his first season in Miami saw the Heat finish only second in the East and lose in the NBA Finals. They also started the season just 9-8, a lesson that team learned that James sees the Cavaliers eventually learning as well.

"You've got to go through something to create a bond; that means for the worse," James said. "We've got to lose ballgames that we think we should've won, we've got to get into an argument every now and then just to test each other out."

The Cavaliers have said they're treating Monday night's preseason game against the Bulls as a dress rehearsal of sorts, playing James, Kevin Love, and Kyrie Irving together for the first time. Nobody is going to get too low off of a preseason loss, if that's the outcome, but James is adamant the team will need to feel some lows before achieving highs.

"You don't define yourself during the good times, you define yourself through the bad times," James said.