Red Right 88

In Cleveland, hope dies last

13 Jul 2010

How will we remember the LeBron Era?

With each passing day, the anguish over LeBron James’ decision to go to Miami slowly fades away. But how will the LeBron Era be remembered by Cleveland fans? And how will it compare to other post-1964 eras of Cleveland sports?

Before LeBron, the Cavs were just … there. After firing Lenny Wilkens and prior to drafting James, the team went through a succession of boring, dull coaches – Randy Wittman and Keith Smart anyone? – and even worse players (Trajan Langdon, Ricky Davis, etc.), playing in a downtown arena they didn’t need in front of mostly family and friends.

With LeBron, the Cavs were back on the NBA map with sellouts and national TV games. The team won two division titles, made it past the first round five consecutive years, was the top seed in the East two years in a row, went to two Eastern Conference finals and one NBA final, and had the best five-year record in franchise history.

Along the way their games became events; one of the best feelings was looking at the upcoming schedule on a Sunday morning and, seeing back-to-back games on Tuesday/Wednesday and another game on Friday, knowing the week was set. Watching this team – especially the past two years – has been so much fun.

I know some will argue that the Daugherty/Price/Nance Cavs of the late-’80s/early ’90s were better, but they never accomplished what LeBron’s Cavs did, not by a long shot. No division titles, one conference final, first-round playoff losses.

Not all of that was their fault, as injuries and Michael Jordan conspired against the team. It still hurts, almost 20 years later, to think about what might have been with that team.

Probably the closest to LeBron’s Cavs were the Indians of the mid- to late-90s. They captured the town’s fancy with an excitement level and star power equal to the Cavs and had just as much on-field success. Six division titles in seven years, three American League Championship Series and two World Series appearances.

Of course, they also lost to the Florida Marlins and were the only team to lose to Atlanta in a World Series, but they still hold a spot in many fans’ hearts.

The one team that the LeBron Era may never surpass in popularity is the late-’80s Browns. With four division titles in a five-year span and three losses in the AFC Championship Game, those teams still hold a firm grasp on Cleveland fans, many of whom probably still remember the lyrics to Bernie Bernie (“Bernie, Bernie. Oh, yeah! How you can throw! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah”)

As hard as it may be for some to believe, eventually we will be able to separate LeBron’s “decision” from the seven years he was on the court for the Cavs. And we will look back and remember when the Q was rocking and, for a short time, anything seemed possible in Cleveland.

Even a championship.

Posted in Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Cavaliers, Cleveland Indians, End of an era, LeBron James | Leave a comment
12 Jul 2010

Odds & Ends

The more we think, read and talk about LeBron James’ decision to leave Cleveland for Miami, the more we wonder if we’re trying to make this into something bigger than it is.

Maybe this really is as simple as a 25-year-old basketball player wanting to play with his friends and hang out on the beach. He wouldn’t be the first to leave Cleveland in his mid-20s to take a job elsewhere, heck I did it after college. Of course, I didn’t have the option of staying here for more money.

There are two points that have come out over the past few days that shed a lot of light on his decision:

  • LeBron views Akron and Cleveland as two separate entities. W think he did enjoy playing 45 minutes north of where he grew up, but to him Akron is home; Cleveland was just where he went to work. We think he would have felt the same if the Cavs were located in Columbus, Cincinnati or Toledo; we all wanted to link Northeast Ohio into one large entity, while it’s apparent that LeBron never did.
  • LeBron is a follower; he’s never been, or wanted to be, a leader. Terry Pluto pointed out in his Sunday PD column that LeBron followed Dru Joyce III to St. V, not the other way around. Pluto reiterated that point today on Sirius’ Mad Dog Radio, pointing out that Dwyane Wade is the NBA equivalent of Joyce, he’s the leader and LeBron the follower. It appears that leading the Cavs as the main guy was just not in his nature.

For some other really good perspectives, visit Cleveland Frowns as well as the guys at Waiting For Next Year. They’ve put together some solid takes on the entire situation.

And if you’re really, really still upset, you can always buy one of these.

***

As for what’s next for the Cavs, the team has an opportunity to rebuild the team in a different way if they so choose. Rather than taking on players that they think they need short-term – i.e., Shaq, Antawn Jamison – they can go after players they want and build a team that can achieve long-term success.

Hopefully they see this as the prudent course of action. As much fun as Dan Gilbert’s letter was, the team can’t operate out of emotion; they’re not fans. And if that means they have to take a step or two back, then so be it.

The Cavs have assets with expiring contracts, draft picks and the $14.5 million trade exemption they received as part of the sign-and-trade with Miami. The important thing to remember is they don’t have to make any moves this week, or this season for that matter. They have a year to use the exception and the season doesn’t start for more than three months. There’s no need to rush.

One name tossed around has been Minnesota’s Al Jefferson, who is still recovering from a severe knee injury and is owed $42 million over the next three seasons. He’s only 25, though, which would help the team in its quest to get younger.

But remember, just because Jefferson may be the best player available, doesn’t mean he’s the best player. It may make more sense for the Cavs to acquire two $7 million players who can combine to match or exceed Jefferson’s numbers, rather than take on another team’s bad contract.

The important thing for the team to remember is they don’t have to rush into anything.

***

Finally, congratulations to Spain for capturing its first World Cup title, just as we predicted.

OK, picking Spain wasn’t exactly going out on a limb, and while we did get the opponent wrong, we were only four minutes away from getting the prediction right about La Furia Roja winning on penalty kicks.

Despite the claims of some that “no one cares” about soccer in America, TV ratings were up 41 percent in the U.S. over the 2006 World Cup.

And not only did Spain goalkeeper Iker Casillas take home the World Cup, he got the girl as well.

Well played.

Posted in Cleveland Cavaliers, Dan Gilbert, LeBron James, Spain, World Cup | Leave a comment
10 Jul 2010

Everything will be all right

Rise up this mornin’,
Smiled with the risin’ sun,
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin’ sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin’, (“This is my message to you-ou-ou:”)

Singin’: “Don’t worry ’bout a thing,
‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right.” – Bob Marley

I’m as disappointed and hurt as any Cleveland fan about LeBron James leaving for Miami. I don’t understand why these things seem to happen only in Cleveland. I just want to be a normal fan; I want to watch an important game involving a Cleveland team and not always be worrying about something horrible happening.

But I can’t, because I’m a Cleveland fan. For whatever reason, that’s the way it has always been, at least in my lifetime. When Mike Davis intercepted Brian Sipe in the end zone, I learned what it meant to be a Cleveland fan. That lesson has remained with me for 30 years. This is the path I have chosen.

Even though it can be painful and frustrating at times, luckily I can view Cleveland sports from the perspective of adulthood. I have a career, a beautiful wife and a wonderful daughter. I watch sports because I enjoy them tremendously and because I know, someday, when a Cleveland team finally brings a championship home, it will be exciting, unbelievable and something I will never forget.

And because I’m an adult, when one of our teams lose, I don’t need to stomp my feet, shake my fists or throw things like a hoople head. I know I may be down for a few hours after a loss, but the sun will come up the next day. The millionaires won’t ruin my day just because they happened to play poorly.

This doesn’t make me, or anyone, “less” of a fan, the same way that disagreeing with the President doesn’t make someone “less” of an American. There are so many real problems in this world that whether the local team wins or loses is insignificant in the grand scheme.

Being a Cleveland fan is what I am, but it’s not who I am. I have my opinions about what the GMs, coaches and players should do; but they are no more or less valid than anyone else’s. That’s the great thing about sports – there’s room for everyone and for everyone’s perspective.

If you are Dan Gilbert, Randy Lerner or Larry Dolan, then sports is a business. Same for the players. For the rest of us, it’s entertainment.

At the end of the day, win or lose, we’re all Cleveland fans and we all want the same thing – to cheer for a championship team. And that day will come.

Until then, “every little thing gonna be all right.” I promise.

Posted in Cleveland fans, Cleveland sports, disappointment, heartache, LeBron James | Leave a comment
09 Jul 2010

Picking up the pieces

It’s the day after the baggy-pants farce that was LeBron James’ televised announcement that he’s leaving Cleveland for Miami. And Cleveland fans are left once gain to pick up the pieces of our broken hearts and move on.

Reaction has been swift and predictable, starting with Cavs owner Dan Gilbert and his much publicized letter to Cavs fans.

As Cavs fans, we have to applaud Gilbert’s passion, although his message was a bit lost in a sea of all caps and the bizarre use of Comic Sans as his font of choice. But we’ll give him a pass on that because Gilbert probably lost more than anyone with James leaving. There’s no telling how much the franchise’s value – and Gilbert’s bottom line – will suffer without LBJ. Some projections put it at $200 million. So yeah, he’s upset.

So what’s next for the Cavs? The team could be as much as $9 million under the salary cap depending on how the proceed from here. That number will increase over the next two years as Anthony Parker, Jamario Moon, Delonte West, Sebastian Telfair and Antawn Jamison come off the books.

They don’t have to spend all that money right away of course, and that’s a good thing. While watching the debacle last night, one of the scariest things was the crawl across the screen listing the best remaining free agents and seeing Shaq listed as No. 2.

This is not a time for the team to react out of emotion. Remember, they only had James in the first place because they lucked out in the draft lottery. They now have the opportunity to act strategically in rebuilding this team.

This doesn’t have to happen overnight and – hopefully – it doesn’t have to involve intentionally blowing up the team in the hopes of signing the next big free agent.

It may not be pretty, it certainly will be hard, but it can be done with patience and clear thinking.

Of course, Miami is thrilled by all this. Good for them. They intentionally gutted their team, slashed payroll and made no attempt to win for the past two years in the hopes that today would come.

The only positive in this is that, despite what seemed like seven years of speculation and “guarantees,” James didn’t go to New York. And, predictably, New York thinks they have a right to feel wronged by this:

You’ll excuse us if we don’t take a moment to share in the “pain” of Knicks fans.

Finally the national media, who spent the last seven years telling us how James had to leave Cleveland, are now writing about how bad it is that he left:

Well, you get the point.

So the LeBron Era is officially over. The last seven years have been exciting and Cavs games were certainly must see, even if the team didn’t win a championship. No matter how we feel, we can’t deny that.

Cleveland fans have been through worse. We’ll get through this, eventually.

Don’t forget, Browns training camp starts in just three weeks.

Posted in Cleveland Cavaliers, Cleveland fans, Dan Gilbert, LeBron James, Miami Heat | Leave a comment
09 Jul 2010
1 Comment

It Always Ends Badly

Everything in Cleveland sports ends badly, otherwise it wouldn’t be Cleveland. – Coughlin’s Law

LeBron James took the easy way out: he’s going to Miami to play with the Heat. The LeBron Era is over. We all saw it happen live on national TV.

This time it was supposed to be different. This time the free agent wasn’t supposed to leave.

This time Brian Sipe threw the ball into Lake Erie, Ernest Byner held onto the ball, John Elway went three-and-out, Michael Jordan missed the shot, Jose Mesa got the save.

It wasn’t supposed to end this way. This time it wasn’t supposed to be about money. It wasn’t about a team unable or unwilling to pay top dollar.

You’re supposed to be rewarded for trying to build a winning franchise, for putting money, facilities and passion into a team; not for intentionally destroying your franchise for a pipe dream of signing a free agent.

This wasn’t supposed to be a press conference in a parking lot in Baltimore.

But, of course, it was. T.I.C.

So now we pick up the pieces and move on. And we will, because we’re Cleveland fans; it’s what we do. We will show the country that Cleveland sports fan can be beaten, but we can never be broken.

We’ve lived through far worse and survived. We will get through this.

And when the championship finally comes – and we have to believe it will, because without hope what are we left with – men will say, “This was their finest hour.”

Posted in Cleveland sports, despair, LeBron James
08 Jul 2010

I Still Have Hope

The influential Chinese writer Lin Yutang once said “hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.”

If there is anything we have as Cleveland fans it is hope. We have that in spades. I still have hope that LeBron James will resign with the Cavs. There’s no way he’s leaving, not this way.

Together, we can create the road. If we all still have hope.

I believe Sports Illustrated’s Ian Thomsen is right: LeBron will decide to stay home.

Don’t lose hope.

Posted in hope, LeBron James, NBA free agency | Leave a comment
07 Jul 2010
1 Comment

Bosh apparently flying South

So it turns out that Chris Bosh will, in fact, go to Miami.

If I’m the Raptors, I let him walk rather than work a sign-and-trade so I can get the Heat Pu Pu Platter in return. If Bosh doesn’t want to work with the team on a deal that would land him in Cleveland for more money, so be it; but don’t reward him for that.

If Bosh would rather play for a bad head coach, in front of a lousy fan base, on a bad team that hasn’t made it out of the first round of the playoffs three out of the last four years, for less money, then good for him.

Posted in Chris Bosh, NBA free agency
07 Jul 2010

A Light at the End of the Tunnel

The waiting is the hardest part,
Every day you see one more card,
You take it on faith, you take it to the heart,
The waiting is the hardest part – Tom Petty

The waiting for a decision by LeBron James will reportedly come to an end Thursday at 9 p.m. when he announces that he is resigning with the Cavs – I mean where he plays next season.

While no one other than LeBron knows what he will do, the speculation continues, with ESPN leading the way by saying LeBron is going to Miami. Who told them that? Well, unnamed “sources” of course.

“Sources” have also told ESPN’s Chris Broussard that Chris Bosh is heading to Miami, a day after Broussard reported that Bosh could be headed to Cleveland. I think the whole free agency season has taken not only what was left of Broussard’s credibility – remember, he said James, Bosh and Dwyane Wade met in Miami last month and that turned out to be a complete fabrication – but has also caused him to lose his sanity.

Just this morning, he said on SportsCenter that it’s probable that LeBron could sign another 3-year contract in Cleveland, but then argued that point with himself by saying the new collective bargaining agreement will mean that LeBron’s next contract will be for 5 or 6 years.

Glad he cleared that up.

It does make things simpler when you can just essentially quote yourself as a source for a story.

So what will LeBron do?

I’ve always believed he will stay in Cleveland. The reasons the national media have always presented to convince him to leave – money, a better chance to win, a bigger stage, the NBA deserves him in a bigger market, LeBron needs to play in a bigger market – have never held water. The reasons for him to stay have always trumped the reasons to leave.

I think LeBron wants to win a championship and do it as the top dog on the team. Going to another team and winning a title doesn’t appeal to him. He’s the two-time league MVP, he shouldn’t be the one going to someone else’s team. That may have been the only way Kevin Garnett could win a title, but he’s not LeBron. Think about if Kobe Bryant had left LA because he couldn’t win a title without Shaq; his legacy would certainly be different.

James also has to know that no other fan base will support him the way we do here in Cleveland. Sports are an integral part of NE Ohio and to be the local guy who ended the region’s championship drought is huge. Sure, fans of whatever team he signs with will cheer him, but it won’t ever be the same.

I don’t know if he believes this or not; I don’t have any inside “sources” although I did ask at the barbershop and the bagel store this morning and they would neither confirm nor deny these reports. But they are as valid as anything the mainstream media has put out there.

I do know that this seems to have been going on forever. The Cavs won the draft lottery on May 22, 2003, and the first story saying LeBron would leave Cleveland as a free agent appeared on May 23. Not really, but it sure feels like it.

So what will happen tomorrow night? Will LeBron come out sporting a Knicks jersey, only to peel it off to reveal a Heat jersey, Nets jersey, Bulls jersey before finally revealing his No. 6 in the familiar wine and gold?

Will he have a board like the draft lottery and reveal team logos one by one, eliminating teams until the last one?

The waiting is almost over. We’ll soon find out.

Posted in LeBron James, NBA free agency, unfounded reports, waiting | Leave a comment
07 Jul 2010

Chris Bosh to the Cavs? OK!

Chris Bosh in Cleveland? If we are to believe Chris Broussard at ESPN, the Raptors are open to a sign-and-trade with Cleveland for Bosh’s services.

If this is actually true – and ESPN’s J.A. Adande is saying right now on ESPN News that Bosh isn’t going to Cleveland because “no one (meaning the mainstream media) has been talking about Cleveland for the past year” so of course it’s not possible – it’s a good day to be a Cavs fan.

Bosh would be a solid second option to LeBron, and a front court rotation of James, Bosh, Antwan Jamison, Leon Powe and Anderson Varejao/JJ Hickson – one of them would be going to Toronto in any potential deal – would be solid. Throw in the possibility of Z coming back as a solid big man off the bench and things are definitely looking up.

The holdup is that Bosh supposedly only wants to play with LeBron in Chicago, Miami or New Jersey. But LeBron is working his magic on Bosh – a job that very well may have started during the Olympics in China – selling him on how great it would be play in an actual NBA city where the fans care about you, you get to win 60+ games a year and go deep in the playoffs on an annual basis.

There are three other major reasons Bosh should accept a move to Cleveland:

  • He will make $30 million more by agreeing to a sign-and-trade, rather than leaving Toronto as a straight free agent.
  • The endorsement possibilities of playing with LeBron are potentially huge. Bosh is an outgoing, funny guy. You don’t think LeBron could hook him up with some of his business contacts to maximize his profits? Even in “small market” Cleveland?
  • He would get to play with LeBron, the two-time MVP who has made every teammate he’s ever played with better.

And we’d get 82 games of Bosh’s girlfriend at court side.

Frankly, if Bosh doesn’t see the potential value of playing in Cleveland with LeBron, I don’t know if I really would want him here. This appears to be a perfect opportunity to not only get paid, but also go to an organization where winning is the top priority.

As Terry Pluto put it in the PD: Chris Bosh, your future is Cleveland.

You’ll love it here. I promise.

Posted in Blane Harrington, Chris Bosh, LeBron James, NBA free agency | Leave a comment
06 Jul 2010

Who Needs Two?

Terry Pluto had an interesting item in his Sunday PD column: the Browns are having trouble selling tickets:

Once upon a time, the Browns had a waiting list for season tickets. No more. … When the Browns returned in 1999, it was a civic movement to sell tickets and luxury suites to support the expansion franchise. Many of those deals were for 10 years. They have expired. In the meantime, the Browns have the NFL’s second-worst record (after Detroit) since 1999. … At their peak following the return, the Browns sold more than 61,000 season tickets. That was a few years ago. They dropped below 55,000 last year. While the Browns are confident they will sell enough tickets for every home game to avoid a TV blackout, it’s obvious they are working hard for new customers.

That’s not good, but it’s also not surprising. For much of the past decade, it seemed like all the team had to do was hang a sign that read “Game Today” outside Cleveland Browns Stadium and the game would sell out. But fans of a certain generation can easily remember a time when the only home game that sold out was the annual tilt with Pittsburgh.

Now, after a decade of despair on the field, the team is feeling the bite at the box office. Certainly, last year’s dismal effort, which included coach Eric Mangini’s inability to pick a quarterback, offensive coordinator Brian Daboll’s amateur playcalling, a 1-11 start and the most over-rated victory in franchise history, have taken its toll on the paying public. The economy and the success of the Cavs have also been a major drain on ticket-buying customers.

The off-season hiring of Mike Holmgren and Tom Heckert has helped the team regain some credibility with its fanbase, and the team is now reaching out to fans for help:

The Browns want to hear from fans about what they can do better on game days, with tickets, etc. Please, don’t write, “Win more games.” Don’t send suggestions about coaching, quarterbacks, etc. This is an attempt to connect with fans about how the Browns can improve on the business side. E-mail: suggestions@clevelandbrowns.com

It will be interesting to see what steps the team takes to improve the gameday experience. It seems likely they will follow the model of the Cavs, filling every stoppage in play with non-stop noise, which is something we’ve never understood. As a fan, you are there to see the game, that’s the most important thing. And the more successful the team plays, the less you need all the extra nonsense.

Even as the Browns continue their slow march back to respectability, they will face a problem all teams are facing: how to combat the experience of watching the game at home, which is better than it has ever been?

With the growth of large flatscreen TVs, games in HD, the NFL Sunday Ticket and NFL RedZone Channel, it’s really difficult to actually attend a game in person. At home, you don’t have to sit through endless TV timeouts, you just switch to another game. Big play? You get multiple replays. Bad weather? Not a problem. You don’t have to miss the late afternoon game while driving home. And over-priced, low-quality food and beer are not a problem at home.

Sidebar: How is it, with a growing number of microbreweries in NE Ohio and the esteemed Great Lakes Brewery right in town, the stadium concessions offer Bud, Bud Light and Coors Light? We wouldn’t drink that if we were paid.

You do lose the communal aspect and atmosphere that is an important part of many fans’ lives by watching the games at home, but if you have a big enough group over to watch the game you can replicate the experience.

It definitely makes it a tougher ticket to sell, even if you can put a winning team on the field. It’s good to know the Browns are taking the extra step to try and keep the fans engaged.

Now about that quarterback situation …

Posted in Cleveland Browns, Great Lakes Brewery, NFL, Sunday Ticket | Leave a comment

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