Cleveland Cavaliers

No longer the King’s Court

All the pieces that made Cleveland a place to fear for visiting NBA teams are gone. Forward phenom King James now holds court on the beaches of Miami, Mike Brown was fired and General Manager Danny Ferry resigned to take the VP of Basketball Operations job with his former team, the Spurs.  About the only thing that remains are a few players who must feel that their leader didn’t have faith in them.  Along with James, Zydrunas Ilgauskas joined LeBron in Miami and Shaquille O’Neal joined KG, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce in Boston.  In a trade with the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Cavs traded Delonte West and Sebastian Telfair for Ramon Sessions, Ryan Hollins and a 2013 second-round pick.

Guard Mo Williams is left to pick up the pieces with a core of good young players who look to prove to the rest of the league that reports of their demise have been greatly exaggerated.  Look for your Cavaliers to make a statement to LeBron and the rest of the league. Come on out and support your team!

Since joining the National Basketball Association before the 1971 season the Cleveland Cavaliers haven’t enjoyed a great deal of success. The team has made it to the playoffs on 13 different occasions during its 32 years of playing in the NBA but it has never had an NBA Finals berth. The team has made it to the Eastern Conference Finals twice though; the most recent trip came in 1992. The last time the team made it to the playoffs came in 1998 where the team fell to the Indiana Pacers in four games. The playoff moment that the Cavaliers are most known for isn’t for what they did, but rather what another player did to them.

In the 1989 playoffs, the Cavs met up with the Michael Jordan led Chicago Bulls in the first round. The teams had played four very close games and went back to Cleveland to play the deciding fifth game of the series. The Cavs found themselves up by one point with three seconds left on the clock. Somehow Michael Jordan shrugged off a Craig Ehlo/Larry Nance double team, caught the ball, and double pumped the ball over Ehlo as time expired in and made one of the greatest shots in NBA history.

In more recent memory the Cavaliers haven’t been much more than a doormat for the rest of the East to walk all over on their way to the playoffs. The team finished with a 17-65 record in 2002 and won the NBA Lottery. With that first pick they drafted the Ohio native savior of the franchise, and many think the savior of the entire league, LeBron James. James came straight out of high school as the most hyped player to ever come into the NBA. The weirdest part about all the hype wasn’t the countless number of commercials that were playing, the comparisons to guys like Magic, MJ and Dr. J before he ever suited up for a single game, but the fact that James actually lived up and surpassed a lot of the hype the preceded his first splash into the NBA. In the very first game he played, James scored 25 points, grabbed six rebounds, dished out nine assists and made four steals in front of a national audience. James also didn’t disappoint when he threw down two breakaway dunks and put on a show for the people watching around the country. “The James Gang” as many call the Cavs now a days finished the season with a 35-47 record, just a game away from making it into the playoffs. James is the real deal and will only get better next year when he turns 20. He’s the best player that we’ve ever seen com straight out of high school, better than Kobe was when he first got into the league, better than Kevin Garnett and better than Shawn Kemp. Look out for LeBron James to be everywhere just like the last great player to wear number 23 was back in the day.

In the off-season the Cavs messed up big time. They opted to not exercise their option for breakout power forward Carlos Boozer and made a hand shake deal that Boozer would re-sign with the team when the 15 day period was up to start signing free agents. Boozer got a six year $68 million dollar offer from the Utah Jazz that Cleveland couldn’t match and Boozer couldn’t refuse. Boozer went and signed the contract with Utah before leaving for the Olympics and left the Cavs without a power forward and with a lot less job security for GM Jim Paxon. The team did make up for it, somewhat, when they traded Kevin Ollie and Kedrick Brown to the Sixers for veteran point guard Eric Snow. Shortly after that the team traded Tony Battie and two future second round picks to the Magic for power forward Drew Gooden and center Steven Hunter. The team thereafter shortly waived Hunter to clear up some more cap space.

In the draft the Cavaliers got one of the few steals of the first round. With the 10th pick Cleveland selected small forward Luke Jackson from the University of Oregon. Jackson is a pure shooter that will take some of the perimeter pressure off of James and he will also allow James to move to shooting guard where he can be better utilized by the team.

The Cavaliers starting five looks primed to make a run at the Eastern Conference Playoffs. At point guard will be Eric Snow, at shooting guard will be LeBron James, at the small forward will be Luke Jackson, at the power forward will be Drew Gooden, and Zydrunas Ilgauskas. The team has a veteran point guard and very good role players around James that will only accentuate his talents.

Coming off the bench the Cavs look decently deep; at the guards will be Jeff McInnis and Dajuan Wagner. Backing up the bigs will be Desagana Diop and Robert Traylor. All four of these players will provide a good breather for their starters and they won’t give up too much from the starters in front of them.