Blog Posts For Tag: Cavs

I like everyone else was excited by the possibility of watching the Los Angeles Lakers and the Cleveland Cavaliers play in the NBA Finals. I relished the thought of watching LeBron James and Kobe Bryant do battle, I wanted to believe that this would be the passing of the torch from one MVP to another, and I wanted to see two players who were unstoppable defile the other team at will as the competitive stakes were raised. That reality is no more, the series will remain a hypothetical one, but I have just glimpsed into the future and seen something far more interesting, the transformation of the gentle giant into the beast whose hunger will devour all in his path.

I am very excited to watch the Los Angeles Lakers and the Cleveland Cavaliers play in the NBA Finals. I want to watch Kobe and LeBron do battle. I want to see if this is the season James is able to bring home a championship to the much maligned Cleveland sports scene or if Kobe is able to prove that he could win a title in tinsel town without the Big Diesel. The only problem is that I have to wait for two months of meaningless prologue to dispense before I get to see the seven game series.

Teams like the Cleveland Cavaliers are having terrific seasons. The Boston Celtics, second in the Eastern Conference, have clinched a place in the playoffs and the Los Angeles Lakers are blowing away the competition despite the now annual Andrew Bynum late season injury. About this time fans can choose to focus on the playoffs or the lottery, and this year everyone would rather be focusing on the playoffs.

The class is just not that great this year. Only one player, Blake Griffin is considered a sure thing, and only two others are considered worth exploring. These two are Greg Monroe, a freshman power forward from Georgetown, and Rick Rubio, a young guard playing in Spain.

Holy Freakin’ Basketball Jebus!!! LeBron James went for 52 points, 11 assists, and 10 rebounds on Wednesday night in a 107-102 win for the Cleveland Cavaliers over the New York Knicks. He had the most points in a triple double since the days when men’s athletic shorts ended just below the balls and when the circus act known as the ABA merged with the NBA. He proved again that he might be the greatest single force in the league and possibly professional basketball history.

I will never be a professional basketball player. The market for six-foot white guys with a broken jump shot with absolutely no rotation on the ball, barely enough hops to touch the rim, and the lateral quickness of school bus in reverse is simply not there. It is also increasingly looking like my window to become a basketball writer for ESPN is quickly closing, thanks to my aforementioned non-existent basketball career and my complete lack of press credentials. My bitter broken dream be damned, I am still going to dole out my midseason NBA awards.

One of the running jokes in the NBA is the idea of traveling. Traveling exists in Europe, but is a rare creature here in the states. The NBA is hoping that the fans truly believe that its players are so tall, athletic, and flexible that it is possible to take a dribble from the three point line, two steps, and end up at the rim in the air.

So why has the American sports fan continued to ignore the NBA? Yes, the game looked more like close-quarters hand-to-hand guerrilla warfare in the 1990s. Only Michael Jordan could carry the league then (and he did, to six championships).